hummingwolf (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hummingwolf) wrote2003-03-13 10:06 am
hummingwolf) wrote2003-03-13 10:06 am
Entry tags:
Note to the world in general.
I am not a mind-reader. I do not know what you are thinking if you won't tell me. On those occasions when it seems that I do know what's going through your brain, chances are that's because I've been paying attention. I do that sometimes.
Because I am not a mind-reader, I often ask questions. I do this, not in some indirect attempt to accuse you of something, but in a direct attempt to learn answers.
Whatever it is that enables most social interactions in our culture to flow smoothly as if everyone were thinking the same thing, I do not have it. I do not share your assumptions. I share few of your pop-cultural referents. Quote from C.S. Lewis or an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I will understand you; quote from the latest hit movie and I will probably figure that what you just said came from your own fevered brain (and I will act accordingly).
Again, I am not a mind-reader. Not knowing what else to do, I tend to take people at their word unless they have shown that their word cannot be trusted. If you say something under the assumption that I will know you don't really mean it because everybody knows it's just the polite thing to say, please do not become angry when I act as if you meant it anyway. I am not trying to be difficult, honest! I'm just not a mind-reader. And I rather get the impression that the beings around me aren't mind-readers either, else they would know this stuff already.
Because I am not a mind-reader, I often ask questions. I do this, not in some indirect attempt to accuse you of something, but in a direct attempt to learn answers.
Whatever it is that enables most social interactions in our culture to flow smoothly as if everyone were thinking the same thing, I do not have it. I do not share your assumptions. I share few of your pop-cultural referents. Quote from C.S. Lewis or an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I will understand you; quote from the latest hit movie and I will probably figure that what you just said came from your own fevered brain (and I will act accordingly).
Again, I am not a mind-reader. Not knowing what else to do, I tend to take people at their word unless they have shown that their word cannot be trusted. If you say something under the assumption that I will know you don't really mean it because everybody knows it's just the polite thing to say, please do not become angry when I act as if you meant it anyway. I am not trying to be difficult, honest! I'm just not a mind-reader. And I rather get the impression that the beings around me aren't mind-readers either, else they would know this stuff already.
Re: Mind reader
Also, I will not be bending spoons. I may be speculating on how a mind-reader would deal with brain prosthetics, however.
Check, I will be honest and forthright with CB.
Much appreciated.
Check, I will not subject her to pop culture trivia every five minutes.
Well, that's not an issue so much as people expecting me to know that they're quoting a movie I never heard of. Plus I think the pop-cultural stuff seeps into the brains of people who immerse themselves in it, forming a sort of conversational substrate that makes the flow of interactions so much easier. Since I am not so immersed in the pop culture, I don't share the assumptions and am thus less good at figuring out why the folks around me talk and act the way they do.
Re: Mind reader
On another note, I like it when UN rambles.
Re: Mind reader
Smart women are even better.
Un
Ramblin Man