Last week I was talking with a foreigner who did not know any of the languages that I know properly but could speak some english. I was trying to explain the meaning of a word, I think it was “argument” to this person. I could not do it. Apparently my vocabulary is too advanced, reading pretentious novels all the time will do that I guess. Anyway as a result I seemed like just a total moron at the time.

Even more startling was just a little while ago when I found someone standing outside my door who was quite apparently impaired. I am not an expert on some things, I think this might have just been an autistic person, or perhaps merely someone with a severe speech impediment, and not a truly mentally retarded person. But I could not tell, and I could not tell whether my fake academic words were being understood or not. Truly I could hardly understand what this person was saying anyway. This seems to be a bizarre problem I’m having in any case, I’m sure my hearing is as good as ever because I still listen to my music player on the lowest volume and can hear it just fine. In any case it was quite an adventure as I was trying to get at one thing, where the hell this person lived, and this person seemed to have no agenda whatsoever. It occurred to me afterwards that perhaps this person was not impaired at all and it was just a cover but considering the total package I doubt that. It is a little hard to explain, but it’s like the saying that “truth is stranger than fiction”. People’s imaginations are ultimately limited by their knowledge, so if you’re trying to act a certain way you can only do so to the best of your knowledge and ultimately if you’re surprised by something the act will break down. However people who are a certain way will continue to act that way whether they want to or not, even if they are surprised by something outside of their expectations. This is not something that everyone would pick up on, a lot of people who are good at deception will go a long way with it to avoid the sorts of surprises that might defeat their act, and really I can’t pretend like I’m especially good at detecting such things. But if you pay attention in a detached sort of way certain thoughts and observations will come to you, and that is something that I am good at, so sometimes I notice these things about people. Although ultimately the trick is to think about it. To really think about it. People neglect conscious thinking quite a bit, relying instead on subconscious thought to carry them along.