People who will just never get what you're talking about. Never.

In My Humble Opinion
1

I had a roommate in college who was a bit of a dumb jock. Nice guy, very earnest, and a diligent student. He attacked each one of his writing assignments like it was a scavenger hunt, taking in every scrap of information he could on the topic and writing at length about what he had found, such that his instructor had to ask him to dial it down a notch. But as far as I knew there wasn’t a bit of synthesis of ideas: it was all, “this is what you want? OK, I found it in this book, here it is.”

Anyway, that’s not a slur against him or anything, it’s just the way he was. But I mention it because in one of our frequent conversations, where I was agonizing over some existential issue or other, I remarked that one of my other friends had said my problem was simply that I “think too much.” He gave me the blankest look I’ve ever received and asked, “How is it possible to think too much?!” I opened my mouth to try to explain and then thought: nah. He won’t ever get it.

2

Well how do you think too much?

3

This is probably not what you are talking about, but I’m going to tell it anyhow. I had a friend who never got the fractions to decimal places thing. She was a smart woman. One day I actually sat at her kitchen table with measuring cups(she was a great cook, btw), and showed her that 1/4th of a cup of water was 25% of a cup. I demonstrated with 1/2, 3/4 and a whole cup.

She really didn’t get it. When I tried to demonstrate with thirds, she got so frustrated that she took the measuring cups away and tossed the water in the sink.

She wasn’t resistant, she wasn’t one of those women who say “maths is hard” and expects everyone to understand, she wanted to learn but she just didn’t get it.

It was very odd.

4

I’m also reminded of folks I’ve encountered who scoff at the idea of reading the same book twice. And who think stuff like History of Middle Earth is the most ridiculous thing they’d ever heard: “A book about how some guy wrote a book? Like duh, ‘I made it up! – The End!’”

5

I’d love a sitcom with the Philosophers of Ancient Greece debating like that.

6

I run into this frequently. People that function several congnitive levels below what I’ve come to expect of “normal” (though my definition of “normal” is significantly above average, so I shouldn’t even call it that). Literal thinkers, intellectually incurious people who show slavering deference to authority figures (which could be celebrities, politicians, military leaders, or religious leaders, depending on the person), and universally conservative. It’s not a slam on their politics, more of a correlation I have observed. I know conservatives who don’t fit this mold, but everyone I know who fits this mold is conservative.

I can’t even say I hate people like this. They are just average and I accept that. But we have absolutely nothing to say to each other. Just thinking and operating on completely different levels.

7

Everyone in my condo association: Five years into this experiment and not one of the pairs of 20 other owners has ever understood that rules are nothing more than suggestions when there is no enforcement policy, fines, penalties or consequences. I’ve got years and years of debates about rules and rules committees and back and forth over this rule and why people do this, and then more rules to stop this or start that… then more arguments to make more rules to control this, or stop that… and then more rules and more committees to redo the rules, re-issue the rules, post the rules, make people acknowledge the rules.

None of them can comprehend that rules need to have enforcement, with penalties, etc… SOMETHING… ANYTHING. Nope… when rules don’t work… make more rules!

UGH.

.

8

I don’t think you can think too much. That’s a poor way of phrasing it. You probably meant you tend to overthink things, which is different than “thinking too much”. It means looking for overly convoluted solutions to problems before considering simpler alternatives. Unless that’s not what you meant, in which case please explain how you think too much. Because surely if there’s anyone who could “get it”, it’s the people around here.

9

I started a tread about this a few months ago. I think that my OP fits nicely here:

10

Yeah, filling your head with so much stuff that there’s no room left for poor Occam.

11

The friend being quoted could also mean that Koxinga looks for too many ways that things can go wrong, trying to come up with every contingency before committing to any plan. Or that he (she?) spends too much time planning and re-planning instead of doing. (Always saddling up by never riding.)

But I’d guess by the ‘existential issue’ that **Koxinga **thinks about things that the friend wouldn’t bother thinking about and wouldn’t consider to be important or even a valid issue. As in, the friend wouldn’t bother thinking about it so nobody should, and anyone who does is thinking too much.

As an example, we all take mental shortcuts. Some people don’t realize when they’re doing it. If they encounter someone who is exploring their own mental shortcuts to ensure that they’re reliable in a particular instance, that person would seem to be thinking completely off the map.

Another example (or is it just a metaphor for the same thing) would be that people who see things in black and white are puzzled by people who see and discuss the shades of grey in a situation. Those people are thinking too much.

Some people snap to a judgement on any topic and stay there, while other people like to look at things from every angle and maybe not come to a conclusion for years or ever. The Judgers think that the Lookers think too much. Or that they’re too weak to take a stand. Lookers, on the other hand, think that Judgers are just wrong.

There are probably more ways that one person can decide that another person thinks too much. Heck, I’ve had people complain about people doing crossword puzzles.

12

I had a roommate who in all seriousness asked me why Americans speak English instead of “American”. I responded with a question: “Who did we fight the Revolutionary War with?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?!?”

He also said that my fiance and I “watched more channels above 22 than anybody I know.” (channel 22 was HBO, beyond that were non-entertainment channels like Discovery, TLC, etc).

13

From Bull Durham:

14

I run into people who do literally think others think too much. As in quantity. Here is an example: a guy at work, known to be a curious sort, likes to share what he’s found out. Not long ago he was reading about chocolate and found out that “white chocolate” contains cocoa butter but no cocoa solids. (Previously, he thought it was some other kind of candy entirely and was called “white” chocolate because it was similar in consistency.)

He told me this, which I found interesting. Later I was in the break room with him and he mentioned his finding in passing to another coworker. She rolled her eyes and said loudly, in mock surprise and hilarity, “Oh there he goes again! He’s looked something up! He’s got a new fact! Har! Har! Har!” As though acquiring new knowledge was something to be mocked.

Now chocolate is no great philosophical idea, but people such as this just don’t think very deeply — about anything. Their concerns are with getting from Point A to Point B and appearing above reproach in the process. Their curiously goes no deeper than the latest gossip or the plot of a vapid television show. These people aren’t stupid, either — the woman above has a college degree and has worked as a professional for more than 20 years. She in particular I think is probably baffled by life in general. She seems to have very little idea of how the world works. She is universally thought of as kind and sweet, but I can barely stand to be around her. It’s like sinking in quicksand.

15

Or, what Tripolar said. :slight_smile:

16

My wife. She is a college-educated, intelligent woman, and an exceptionally talented artist.

But anything that requires a moment’s mental exercise and she just defers to me.

For example: our DVR (leased from the cable company) is a piece of shit. I know this. The cable company knows this. But my wife insists on believing that whenever it’s acting up (for example, a few seconds’ lag time between pressing buttons and getting the appropriate reaction), it’s all because I’m not in the room doing it for her. And by God, when she’s watching a show and it won’t fast-forward through the commercials quickly enough, I need to drop everything and “fix” the DVR RIGHT FUCKING NOW or there’s going to be hell to pay.

:rolleyes:

17

You have me curious to read your thread, tdn. Could you please post the link?

18

In my first year of law school there was this one student who would raise his hand on almost every question, even though he did not know most of the answers.

In one of our classes the professor stopped calling on him, but he still kept his hand raised. Throughout the whole class he would keep his hand up while the professor ignored him and called on other people.

We were talking one day, and he brought up the topic by bragging about how good his class participation was because he would always answer questions. I took this opportunity to inform him that professors want to give everyone a chance to speak, so they aren’t going to call on one person all the time. He figured out what I was referring to, but replied that he was going to keep his hand up so that the professor will know he wants to participate.

At that point I decided to give up.

19

It doesn’t even have to be someone who’s dumb - it’s just that sometimes two people happen to be very firmly on the two sides of one of those Universal Divides (like drafters vs non-, pet-lovers vs non-, visual vs verbal…) and at most they can agree that “ok, this is something in which we don’t even disagree, we think in different frequencies”.

My cousin wasn’t particularly dumb, but he died without comprehending how can anybody want to have a 9-to-5 job. He knew he didn’t comprehend it. But to him, the idea that someone might want to have the kind of job whose mere thought made him want to run away, through the walls if need be, was just incomprehensible.

We explained that some people aren’t satisfied with such jobs or can withstand such jobs, some people actually enjoy making sure that the monthly balance is perfectly balanced and get enormously excited when they discover a new kind of financial product. Actually, my youngest brother (this cousin’s godson), who happens to be one of these people, was the one who explained it. Our cousin said something along the lines of “I believe you, I just don’t understand how can it be!”

If you ask me, a world where everybody wanted to spend the whole day climbing mountains would be as dull as one where we all wanted to spend it calculating compound interests, but hey - he just did not get it.

20

Sure.