This post examines the line between eccentricity and insanity.
I enjoy talking to crazy people. They’re the only ones who make sense to me. People with big ideas are interesting, but people who are always talking about big ideas and never accomplishing anything are intriguing. These are the ones people give up on. These are the ones relegated to the fringe of society.
My buddy Bill is constantly talking about big projects he’s thinking about doing. I love talking with him, I love hashing through ideas and figuring out problems. It’s like a game, a hobby, a sport in which the ball is constantly in motion but never reaches a goal line. You see, Bill doesn’t actually do much of anything.
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This post explores the idea of assumptions about perception and comprehension in interpersonal communication.
What would my life be like if I really understood people I talked to? I often catch myself making assumptions about other people’s thoughts and intentions when talking with them. How could I ever possibly know such things? The answer, I know, is that I cannot. But it’s a difficult tendency to overcome.
Oddly, I don’t act this way when confronted with a person who has some obvious deficiency of perception or comprehension. Because the fact they see things differently from me is so obvious, I make an effort to understand their views. For everyone else I assume they see things the same.
Yet how often can we say our mental processes are exactly the same as another’s? I imagine what a plot of comparative abilities would look like, a scale on which each aspect of my peculiar world view were compared with those I come in contact with. I know there would be people on every side of me, both near and far.
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