Thursday, February 26, 2009

Bored in a Meeting? Tell Your Most Scandalous Story!


Late night over drinks, "What's your most scandalous story," is one of my favorite questions to ask and my favorite questions to answer. It cuts to the chase, it assumes friends have more dirt than they wear on their sleeves. In a culture where everyone's trying to cover their secrets up, it makes people just uncomfortable enough to make things interesting.

Whether it's Truth or Dare or Cliff or any other game that makes people reveal something new about themselves and how they relate to the world, it works to get everybody eager and excited.

This is what social movements need to do more of. We need to know more dirt on each other. How often do we sit in a never ending meeting, yacking about social movements, and unwilling to reveal the slightest details about ourselves, our addictions, our desires, our flaws.

People aren't interesting in their heroism, perfection, and smooth social graces. We're interesting in how we smell, where we break-down, and in the depths of our disabilities, perversions, and social failures.

Perhaps this is why folks love tragedy so much--they love to watch a hero fall.

So the next time a meeting is dragging on at your office, I suggest you play a coffee drinking game of I Never.

I never had sex with a co-worker on the conference room table.

Ok, guilty...You know who you are...Drink up.

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