#23: Under what conditions do you show your natural exuberance?
First and foremost, when I am with people, or just one person, with whom I can be myself. (Thanks Captain Obvious.)
What does it mean to be yourself? How am I not myself?
I get most excited in conversation. There are other things of course — sex and chess come to mind — but a deep, interesting conversation is often what gets me going the most, so to speak. However, I have a wildly impatient attention span and my mind is always racing.
I have tried to explain this phenomenon of my mind — my thoughts, my stream of consciousness — moving at light speed to some people, but I don’t think I’ve ever been able to get the point across. Most people have active minds and they think about many things simultaneously, so when I say this to them, the response is typically something like everyone’s mind is very active, Shayan; you’re not special.
Maybe I’m not.
But then when I shut off in a conversation (which happens all the time in group settings) or appear not to be interested in a story someone is recounting, it’s not my intention to be rude. Most of the time, I got to the end of the story before the person telling it was finished. I can just fill in all the gaps. I get bored with details that aren’t going to add anything of value.
This happened all the time with a friend of mine in Toronto. He would go on long, sprawling explanations and I would have gotten to the logical end of his point instantly, but have to wait around for minutes until he gets there. That’s very annoying. It’s annoying for the person telling the story because it appears I am not interested. And it’s annoying for me because it’s true that I’m not interested. We’ve gotten off track with this response.
My natural exuberance comes in a conversation that is interesting to me. Typically, that means something theoretical. I like thought experiments, hypotheticals, what-would-you-do-if type questions. I like thinking about that which I do not (and often can not) know, and stretch myself mentally to get there. I’m far more interested in what people don’t know than what they know. If the tone and topic of the conversation is there, then my natural exuberance will definitely come out.
A couple of beers also helps.
