New Link Euphoria

I just added a link to the website of Paul Graham, a computer engineer and artist who runs a high-profile venture capitalism outfit and writes essays on a host interesting subjects. He writes very conversationally, and this simplistic approach provides an appropriate format for the insightful observations that he supplies. For instance, I completely identify with statements like this:

“A friend who moved to Silicon Valley in the late 90s said the worst thing about living there was the low quality of the eavesdropping. At the time I thought she was being deliberately eccentric. Sure, it can be interesting to eavesdrop on people, but is good quality eavesdropping so important that it would affect where you chose to live? Now I understand what she meant. The conversations you overhear tell you what sort of people you’re among.”

That from an essay about (of all things) how the city you live in affects your personality.

When I am killing time in public without my iPod, you’d better believe I’m eavesdropping on your conversation. You can tell, because the second I hear something out of context that sounds inane, you might see me crack a slight smirk out of the corner of your eye. If it’s particularly embarrassing, I might even give a muffled laugh so that you stop to consider what just came out of your mouth. It’s not self-serving condescention. I’m actually trying to  motivate myself to do what I can to avoid making similarly dumb statements (i.e. read), and (hopefully) convincing the conversationalists to examine what they spend their time talking about (and so where their priorities lie) – or at least the context in which they are talking about it (with “audibly, on public transit” probably being less prudent than alternatives).

One specific example in my past sticks out for me. During my final semester of college, mired in a major I cared nothing about, I had made the decision to skip a class based on the weather (something that was unfortunately quite common for me at the time). I was on a bus on the way back to my apartment, and I happened to catch a brief exchange between two sorority girls sitting in front of me. Now, I can’t remember exactly what they were discussing, but whatever it was, it forced me into a deep introspection, to the point that I was considering the very value of how I was spending my life. All of this happened in between bus stops. Without even thinking, I was off the bus at the next stop and heading purposefully toward my next class. That qualifies, as Bill Maher said recently, as “powerful stupid.”

Additionally, that got me to thinking about what eavesdropping in Colorado Springs does for me. Allow me to throw together an approximate list of the most overheard topics of conversation in this town:

1) God

2) How to make God interesting to pseudo-hipster teenagers,

and 3) Wedding plans.

These are not exactly the kinds of things that motivate someone beyond the “I-read-the-newspaper-which-means-I’m-doing-pretty-well” level. I assume moving up to Denver and being around young entrepreneurs will raise it a notch or two.