Jackie Danicki

I spent some long overdue time with Adriana today, during which I was trying to put into words the sort of people whose company I crave. Adriana captured it so well, I have to repeat it here:

I thrive on the company of people who can move from specifics to concepts and play with them in an interesting way. Such people challenge me and make me think hard about my beliefs, test them and reject or affirm them as appropriate.

Adriana nailed this so well that I wrote it down, and presented it to Antoine over dinner. He agreed that she had defined intellectual capabilities very well, and then expressed sadness over the failure of so many modern intellectuals to hold up their end of the bargain when it comes to the in an interesting way bit. I don’t care about those people as long as I can be surrounded by the sort who get it right and who challenge me. Just like I don’t care about the blogs (or books) whose content might bore me - they are irrelevant to me, which needn’t stop them from being relevant to someone else, but also means that I have no reason to waste time wishing them away.

I just want to suck up the ideas and knowledge of people who know more than I do about various things, discarding and taking to heart as I go. I had no idea this was so important to my happiness in life until I stopped having such experiences. I have taken it totally for granted during my time in London. When I get back to Cincinnati, one of my first orders of business is to find out where the intellectuals are hiding. I hope I can persuade some to come to the Cincinnati Salon, but I suspect their hives are located around the universities, which I have not yet explored.

Oh, and I just realized: I do get this, to some degree, from people in AA. Their experience and knowledge might seem to be very niche, but it’s really a lot more widely applicable than I had predicted. Taking it in is a thoroughly enjoyable and fortifying exercise.

Filed under: Life