Those damned peculiar smart people

[dacoatne]

In an attempt to avoid splashing the Internet with the grimy details of this author’s life while attempting to, at the same time, offer an introduction to you fellow elite humans, I have struck a compromise and will sum up my thinking about the oddball class we are participants in, in the hopes that a summary like this will introduce me. Incidentally, my musings about the oddball class we are part of so deeply constitute the essence of myself that I’ll probably end up failing in my original endeavor by splashing the Internet with the grimy details of my life. But hell, like they say, if you’re going to go down, better to do it in the company of your own. Hello, my own.

I have spent a large majority of my young adult life feeling (and acting) a bit odd: going ahead and joining my friends for a beer at the local bar or to watch the football game, while afterwards sneaking home to sit by the fire with a good book while listening to Chopin’s Sonata Pour Piano et Cello.

Who does that?

Mainly, it has seemed to me, people who are members of a sometimes lonely rank—not part of the rank and file, people who after all find something lacking in hip-hop, people in whom it turns out there embers a passion for reading good books, people who can see something a little less meaningful in spending time watching the tube versus the same time enduring—heaven forbid—some personal reflection, and, so it has seemed to me, rather recently after reading much of this forum, people who come and contribute to this forum.

Hello you damned peculiar friends of mine.

My name is Dereck, and I am a continuing student of Philosophy, continuing (or attempting rather to begin to continue) after I started a family with my lovely wife. I’ve spent years looking for some cluster of smart people in the world and found none until I found you. It would seem that looking for a “cluster” was my mistake. I’m quite glad that the Internet has enabled us to come together. You, oddballs, peculiar types, and siblings of a sort. Men and women not willing to let those passions within us all which drive us continually to “something easier” but instead feed a different fire that propels us to something always more challenging. Or, more simply put, those who skip the game and grab a book.

Nice to meet you all.

[Angela]

It's mutual, I'm sure.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by Dereck

Nice to meet you all.

Nice to meet you too, Dereck; welcome to the community.

Additionally, I would like to commend you for your exemplary introductory post. I can certainly appreciate your articulate writing, coherent grammar, effective spacing, subtle, yet fitting formatting, and the fact that you made the effort to write your post in a word processor (I assume Microsoft Word was your weapon of choice).

I commend you, sir!

On another note, a thought just occurred to me: Does being able to recognise what I mentioned above, along with the fact that I am, in effect, currently a moderator of system the “oddballs” use to converse with each other, make me a bigger oddball?

[songwriter]

In another life I want to be just the average person.

[tc33]

Originally Posted by songwriter

In another life I want to be just the average person.

You too? Ah, the life: beer, tv sports, mortgage, wife, 2.3 children, late-model domestic car in the driveway, numbingly repetitive job, more tv and beer...*sigh*

WHAT KIND OF MONSTER HAVE I BECOME??? DAMN YOU STEVE PAVLINA!!!

[Akashic_Librarian]

Normality sucks people. embrace the strange and live it to the full.


NORMALITY IS FOR LOSERS AND WIMPS!

[TechnoGuyRob]

In the words of Seneca the Younger: "Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." Of course, while Seneca intended this in the colloquial sense of "religion," perhaps it is as well applicable to the "religion" of the mind. That is, rather than engage in blind "faith" through means such as adopting society's frivolous, and arguably arbitrary, idealogy, why not conspire to a much grander existence? An existence promulgated by reason, a willingness to explore, create, update, and ultimately further this fickle but oh-so-believable reality! Participate in a process! Do not accept the illusion of final result.

In other words, hi!

[Gamediva2112]

Originally Posted by dacoatne

Hello you damned peculiar friends of mine.

Hola!

I googled this forum this evening and am really enjoying myself. I was despaired by a rather dim witted boss today (as I frequently am) and was lonely for some intelligent banter. My home life is very stimulating as we have nary a dimwit among us, but work...oy vey. I don't know how much longer I can take it.

I am shopping around for more fulfilling employment. Unfortunately most of what interests me is stuff I have no background in at all! LOL Isn't that usually the way of it? I am tempted to "fake it until I make it". You know, take a job I know nothing about and then try to master the learning curve in a week. Ever do one of those numbers? =D I mean, there is the possibility that no one else will apply and they will HAVE to take me, right?

Some enchanted evening...... I could be a lounge singer.

GD

[Sam988]

dacoatne, great introduction post. Very pleasant to read it.

And yeah, we have no fault for being different