Interviewing Myself
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About this ebook
Since I have lived my entire adult life asking people questions, in 2013, I did a 360-degree turnabout and decided to ask myself questions. Readers interested in knowing what makes my mind tic should compare their answers with mine. The experience could be a revelation.
When I came home from school as a teenager, my father would say, Did you ask a good question today? He convinced me that a good question outweighs most answers. Good questions invigorate lazy minds and pique the imagination.
Unlike the traditional novel, this book requires little patience, accommodates a short attention span, and challenges the readers open-mindedness. Its brevity also makes it less intimidating.
My hope is that readers will discover some of their hidden attitudes, values, and beliefs. Sharing them with others will make the experience doubly enjoyable.
Abné M. Eisenberg
A Marine Corps veteran of WWII, author of seventeen books on various aspects of interpersonal communication, and a retired professor of communication at leading universities for the past sixty years.
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Interviewing Myself - Abné M. Eisenberg
INTERVIEWING
40231.pngMYSELF
ABNÉ M. EISENBERG, PH.D.
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© Copyright 2014 Abné M. Eisenberg, Ph.D.
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Abné M. Eisenberg, Ph.D.
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ISBN: 978-1-4907-2570-3 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4907-2573-4 (e)
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CONTENTS
OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
WELCOME
FAREWELL
OTHER BOOKS BY AUTHOR
Nonverbal Communication (Bobbs-Merrill, 1971)
Argument: An Alternative to Violence (Prentice-Hall, 1972)
Living Communication (prentice-Hall, 1975)
Understanding Communication in Business and the Professions (Macmillan, 1978)
Job-Talk (Macmillan, 1970)
Argument: A Guide to Formal and Informal Debate (1980)
Painless Public Speaking (Macmillan, 1983)
Questions That Challenge the Curious Mind (Astik, 1994)
Call of the Restless Mind (Astik, 1997)
Speechmaking: An Ancient Art in a Modern World (Astik, 2000)
Anatomy of Communication (AuthorHouse, 2004)
Command the Argument (Trafford, 2005)
Correlative Rhetoric (Trafford/Astik, 2009
Mind-Walk (Astik, 2009)
Prescriptive Communication for the Healthcare Provider (Trafford, 2012)
Creative Rationalization (Trafford, 2012)
Welcome to my Mind (Trafford, 2013)
My Marianna (Trafford, 2013)
DEDICATION
To my transcendentally beautiful and talented wife, Marianna, who has blessed my life with infinite joy and connubial bliss that began forty-five years ago with a celestial kiss.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
My profound gratitude goes to Sherry Feldman, my devoutly loyal former student. Her astute copyediting of the manuscript contributed greatly to its readability.
In memoriam, I am additionally grateful to my dear friend, Victor Smigel, who cleverly parried my questions on a regular basis. I miss him.
WELCOME
For my entire adult life, I have been asking people questions. Rarely am I obliged to answer my own questions. To remedy this imbalance, I decided to write this book before the final curtain comes down.
Readers will find a lifetime collection of my questions on a wide variety of typical and atypical subjects. Hopefully, they will see fit to ask friends, relatives, and loved ones these questions and compare their responses with mine.
By openly disclosing my attitudes, values, and beliefs, I have gained a telling portrait of my inner self. My existential philosophy regards perspective
as the sine qua non of intellectual inquiry. I have spiritually embraced René Descartes’ credo, I think, therefore I am.
As such, it has been a revelation.
I have discovered that all sentient individuals have an innate desire to share their thoughts and feelings with those whom they trust. While a certain level of intellectual and emotional maturity has the capacity to discourage a willingness to share, that latent motivating impulse is inherently present.
The joy and emotional exhilaration I derive from asking people my questions is a very gratifying experience. It all began in 1994 when I published, Questions that Challenge the Curious Mind.
It consisted of 79 questions. After each one, I briefly described how various people answered the question. Since then, I routinely ask everyone I meet a question. If they are responsive, I ask additional questions.
AME
QUESTION 1: Will there ever be a Jewish President of the United States?
ANSWER: Yes. There was once a time when a Catholic president was inconceivable. Then, J. F. Kennedy came became president. Now we have a black president, Barak Obama. I believe that a Jewish president is currently hiding in the wings; even a homosexual one.
QUESTION 2: What makes a perfect marriage?
ANSWER: When both members fulfill each other’s needs. It is less important that they fulfill the needs expressed or unexpressed by other family members.
QUESTION 3: Will there come a time when the government takes over all of its citizen’s needs?
ANSWER: A qualified, yes. At this time (2012), that is almost the case. We are on the verge of government completely dictating the nature of our healthcare system and what an individual wants or needs will be legally irrelevant. While such a take-over will encounter strong resistance by a large part of the general population, the government will prevail. What I find most reprehensible is that it will grant illegal aliens almost as much rights as legal ones and that is very, very, frightening.
The initial rights granted by our Constitution are slowly being eroded and the president given more power than it was ordained to have by our founding Fathers. I think that our Democratic system is on a collision course and its citizens in harms way. Basically, I am having a great deal of trouble becoming optimistic.
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
Carl Sagan
QUESTION 4: Are Caucasians in America becoming a minority?
ANSWER: YES. From my personal observation, and not based upon any official census statistics, I am seeing more and more Asians and Blacks in government, education, and healthcare. If this continues at its present rate, Caucasians will, in the not too distant future, become a minority.
QUESTION 5: How reliable is the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) at regulating the drugs? it is obligated to oversee for safety?
ANSWER: Not very good. For a variety of reasons, certain foods and drugs are legalized that possess harmful ingredients. I think that its method of approving or disapproving a substance is very suspicious. My understanding is that field-testing involves sending out a drug to certain physicians, have them test the drug on their patients, and send the results back to the FDA. I checked into this methodology and find it extremely spurious and filled with pockets of undercover irregularities. The media is frequently recalling drugs that produce serious side-effects that include heart attacks, stroke, and even death.
Part of the problem is that, along with the IRS, the FDA has not been scrupulously investigated for its lack of transparency. Everyone seems reluctant to challenge these governmental agencies, especially the IRS for fear of repercussions or reprisals.
QUESTION 6 : Is thinking now an endangered species?
ANSWER: Yes. People are being conditioned to have their lives controlled by an automatic pilot
—government. They seem more willing to submit to the axiom, That’s just the way things are.
A