Re: Jumping in

craig king (ck31@ukc.ac.uk)
Fri, 29 Oct 1999 17:13:26 +0100 

----- Original Message -----
From: jason varsoke <jjv@caesun.msd.ray.com>
To: <bananafish@lists.nyu.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 29, 1999 4:16 PM
Subject: Re: Jumping in


> Rev Bob's response reminds me of a perinial argument I had with an old
> friend.  Because we were young and not so jaded we'd ask each other what
> we'd wish for.  Mine was always to be unquestionably brilliant.  She
> always argued that you could reach an intelligence level that would make
> you so smart that other people would become intollerable.  You'd have a
> hard time communicating with them, and so on.  Maybe she's right.
I've always thought that her projection was based on people who learned
> social disfuction, or had intelligence but no insight.  You see, in my
> projection, the smarter you become, the more you'll pursue wisdom.  In
> that pursuit is the understanding of human suffering -- the human
> condition.  I think that being ultra-smart would allow you to anticipate
> people's actions (as they more often than not, follow patterns of
> response) but with that anticipation, you'd also understand how they got
> to that end.
>    For example, I've been studying people a long time.  I've noticed lots
> of trends and may people are simple and predictable.  But I find that i
> can hardly get upset with someone who constantly fails me, or stabs me in
> the back because 1) I should have seen it comming, or 2) I can see why
> they would do it (usually fear).
>    Therefore, my point is, that if you excel in intelligence you should
> apply it to studying your fellow humans.  See what makes them tick.
> Figure out what they want to talk about, what they want to hear.  I
> started out with janitors.  I've always had an uncanny affinity for
> janitors.  These salt of the earth people are often simple and wonderful,
> sad and tranquil.
>    The point is to listen.  You can function in any group of people if you
> really possess the intellectual capacity to figure out any problem.
> People are just another problem, with lots of variables.  They are one of
> the hardest things to figure out.

i'm always a bit unsettled when i hear the word 'they' and the word 'them'
written or spoken about human beings as a totality as if the writer is
removed from those words. doesn't the idea of study imply a false distance?
well, there are thousands of people whose professions it is to study people
but the distance itself tends to show in the confused quality of their work,
you know that frown that may appear on your face even though a lot of it is
true? as if it's good but not quite right? that little something missing? i
think that's the big problem with detachment. i don't mean detachment in the
spiritual sense, because there's always a conceived higher reality to
connect with in that, yearning for attainment, something transcendent, to
give that detachment a dignity which it might lack when applied to people?
even if you don't agree with their methods, the intended goal of these
spritual projects does seem to imply certain neccessities, which they live
out. but living? considered as a project in itself instead of composed of a
multitude of projects? (or maybe its the ultimate project!)

studying people, for me, can only ever be something temporary, a passing
method before the ideas are absorbed. i might be reading it all wrong,
jason, but don't your words imply an ongoing, relentless distance, a schism?
isn't that depressing? maybe you'll get wisdom from the janitors but isn't
there something else? participation? immersion? absorption?

last bit: do you really want to 'function' in a group of people? i did that
for a while and it caused me nothing but grief. it was only when i gave up
functioning and started living (experiencing, revelling, embracing) that i
became not just happy but and i didn't lose my ability to think, it just
suffused it with a sense of involvement.

and god bless that involvement.

and aren't question marks wonderful. in fact . . .

                  ???????????? ----> i offer you no parantheses, just a long
and puzzled line of these curving customers.


>    One of the most brillant men of our century is Richard Feinman.  He was
> once at a meeting of the minds, discussing something extremely complex,
> possibly the Atombomb.  At the break the secretary came up to him and
> said, "You aren't a physicist, are you."  Curious, he asked why she
> thought that and she responded, "Well, when all these PhD's speak I can't
> understand a word they are saying, I can't follow them at all.  I just
> record what they're saying.  But when you say something, it's very easy to
> understand.  I know exactly what you're talking about.  You must not have
> a PhD."  The point is that Feinman was so brilliant (oh, and he was) he
> not only could understand Theoretical Physics, but convey them to the
> masses in a way they could understand.  He didn't hide behind the
> intellectual barricade.  He wrote _QED_ (on my 20/20 list) which is about
> Quantium Electro Dynamics.   It was on the NYTimes best seller list for
> over six months.  He brings everything down from the white tower, and
> pulls the old man's beard.  He calls Vector Addition "Adding Arrows"
> because that's exactly what it is.
>    If you have a problem relating to your peers then you should examine
> your expectations.  Are you expecting them to value Sartre over the Spice
> Girls?  Do you dispise them for their pedestrian nature?  Half the people
> in the world are of below average intelligence.  You need to deal with
> them.
>    And remember, just because you're brilliant, doesn't mean you have to
> show it off all the time.
>
> -j
>

feynman? hear hear!

if anyone's interested in more of the 'adding arrows' genius, there's a
great biography of him by james gleick. or gleik. and it's called 'genius'.
rather marvellously.

very last bit: f&z had such a huge effect on me that i can never lose the
idea of zooey's 'treasure'. franny and her spiritual treasure or my silly
aunt with her porcelain pigs. showing off seems to be that, revelling in
your own intelligence, that rosy internal glow we've all felt at being
particularly, even magnificently (!) brilliant at some point. collecting our
own private gallery of moments to be replayed in the head? superiority is
arbitrary in its reasoning. intellectual snobbery on a day to day level has
no more justification than any. so i agree with you here jason but maybe
from a different perspective.

an old man in a pub told me i look just like his son who died thirty years
ago. how lovely of him.

ta ta all,

craig