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I enjoy being able to talk seriously every once in a while about stuff like the nature of consciousness, whether honesty and accuracy are the same thing, and other, ultimately pointless topics. I'm grateful that there are other people that I can talk about this stuff with and that they discuss it seriously...at least some of the time.
Part of the problem with such ruminations is that they tend to make me feel isolated. A lot of times other people are simply not interested in talking about such things at that instant, or maybe their attention is focused on other questions. The net effect on me, however, is that I feel very much alone.
When I can speak to someone about my ramblings, I do enjoy striving to communicate my point of view (i.e., that I'm right goddamn it!), but something else about discussion surprised me recently.
I was trying to explain something and got the "blank stare." In another situation I might have just written it off as the person not being interested in the topic, but, because it was such a serious topic, I realized that the problem was that my wonderful explanation wasn't.
The surprising thing was that the process of trying explain it better, and the experience of seeing the other person strive to get it made me feel less isolated, whereas I would have thought it would make me feel more isolated. Watching another strive for understanding made the whole "aha" moment for them much more satisfying than just pummeling another person's argument.
It also helped that they had brownies where we talked. Not that I ate one. Instead I had 3.
