“curiouser and curiouser” cried Alice…..

Do you categorize people? I do. Oh there are many ways to pigeonhole the persons you meet from taste in music, art, food, drinks, activities, books, the list is huge. But I find myself focusing on just a few major (to me) differences in the persons I meet and those differences “make all the difference”…….. 

What people talk about is important to me. I tend to divide people into two groups when listening to them speak. 

They are either materialist talkers or idea talkers. 

The material oriented will go on and on about their latest acquisition, describing same in great detail, be it a pair of shoes (find an excuse to disappear if you are trapped by one of these persons), a new car, a large screen television (the larger the screen, the more they will obsess over it), or even “this year’s spring fashion color”!

Unfortunately, most people fall into this category. 

Then there is that much smaller group of persons who talk about “ideas”. While discussions with these persons can be of many, many new and different ideas, they are interesting and draw one in, to fascinate, to create questions that need to be – no, MUST be answered, no matter the time, research, or energy expended in grappling with the details. And while these conversations (and sometimes lovely outright arguments) can cause confusion, sleepless nights and even new directions, they are the ones that make differences in our lives-that make us grow into more complicated beings, that send us down new and different paths of discovery. 

As Robert Frost wrote, “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

These idea people are not just intelligent. There are many people capable of understanding the complex who simply do not apply their ability for abstract thought and find it easier to mix in with that first group of concrete thinkers. But idea people sometimes also have great curiosity – a need to know, to figure it all out. It is that curiosity, that need to know, that makes them so attractive, so interesting. Further, these are the same people who will take their ideas with them, actually applying them, sometimes exhausting themselves, while making for a much more interesting world. These persons think beyond the abstract. They inspire. 

The lesson? At the next cocktail (or some such) party you “must” attend, look for the person who either appears completely indifferent to the environment, or the one fiercely arguing a point, and join in THEIR conversation. 

And if no such person exists, check the wine for a good one and get totally zonked.