Am I a magician?

Sometimes I think I can predict and influence human behavior.

SUICIDE EYES. I shook hands with a new consultant (forget his name) 10 years ago. Small talk. Talk about his education and work experiences. Talk about his new job. I wished him luck. A few minutes later his manager  H asked me, "What do you think of our new consultant?" Me: '"Do you really want to know?" H: "Ofcourse." Me: "I think he will be allright as consultant but he want make it very long because he is planning to commit suicide". H: "You are kidding, aren't you?" Me: "I don't know. It's just what my feeling/ intuition told me when I looked in his eyes". Silence for one week. Telephone rings. H on the phone. H: "You never guess what happened?" Me: "I have no idea. Tell me!" H: "Our new consultant committed suicide just as you told." Me: "O my God. I'm so sorry. I feel so guilty now. May be if I talked to him may be I could have saved him." If's all those if's.

DRUGS. My best friend U has a brother G. G took over the mushroom business of his father. The mushroom business is a bad investment last 15 years in the Netherlands. Why? Competion from Poland, where the price per working hour is much cheeper. (Mushroom business is an workman-intensive-business.) The father of U and G died. Years go by. One day my wife N tells me: "G is getting a divorce". Me: "Why?" N: "His wife did fall in love with another man and she went away with him." Me - split second later: "Well, everybody has the right to fuck up his/her life but the result will be that G is going into the drugsbusiness." Six months go by. Telephone rings. My mother-in-law: "Did you already hear the news?" N: "I don't know. What news?" Mother-in-law: "G has been arrested this morning for drugsbusiness." N: "Jean already predicted it 6 months ago." How did I know? Answer: I can rationalize it: G is selfish; G wanted to take revenge towards his wife; G allways spends more money than he can afford; bad friends; and a lot more. But that's rationalisation. My feeling/ intuition told me, out of the blue and in a split second: "Drugs, he no longer has a woman who can stop him!"

Am I a magician? I don't think so. I like to observe people. I like to predict their behavior. I like to solve human puzzles. When I'm honest: most of the time my predictions are wrong. Most of the time most people are unpredicatable for me. I just can't tell what they are going to do and explain why they did what they did. Always a lot of guesses but almost no answers. To be more honest: sometimes I can't even predict my own behavior or acting.

How about you: can you explain and predict your own acting?