Infinity

It always amazes me how much complexity exists at every level, on every scale, and from every vantage point. How much we know depends merely on the resolution of the camera and the angle at which we place it. Point the right equipment at an empty spot in the night sky and it reveals a multitude of galaxies, the size and complexity of each absolutely beyond our comprehension. A blank surface under a fine microscope reveals a thriving society of microbes. Poke a needle through the fabric of time, and the history of human life ceases to exist. Find the right lens and the infinite realm of intangible thoughts and feelings contained in a single person becomes as astounding to discover. And what else is out there, that our constrained, little but gigantic minds, fixed by time, position, and so many other things, are too timid to be capable of imagining?

Things I Don't Know

So begins the torturous process of research, torturous not because it's boring or lengthy but rather because I find myself smacked in the face at every turn with terminology or concepts I simply do not know. Now this in itself is not entirely frustrating just a bit depressing at times because it makes me feel, rather, KNOW that I'm under prepared for this. That I am perhaps significantly less suited to this than so many others. No, it's frustrating because of how hard it is to actually learn the things I don't know. The material is lacking, and hopefully only because I don't know how to properly look for it, but the most frustrating thing is when it appears there's a large pool of information other computer scientists learned at birth by osmosis as their squishy bodies, specially attuned to being computer scientists, sucked the knowledge straight out of the mother grub they clung to. While I, a hulking inefficient alien stumbled into this all with wide-eyed primitive fascination and everyone has secretly been laughing at me all along. When this happens it feels utterly impossible to find out anything about the process of HOW did anyone come to learn this or that, rather the terms are sprinkled around in papers as if they should be common knowledge and that definitely doesn't help me feel more suited to this either....

I initially thought maybe it'd be a good thing for me to try to document what I don't know, and write out how I did come to know it eventually. But the task seems so daunting, there's simply far more I don't know than what I know. Maybe this is the stage at which everyone decides its easier to simply pretend they knew these things all along, but if I never get around to it, let this stand as a message to my fellow primitives:

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.

Chameleon

One thing I've noticed about myself is that I'm a bit of a social chameleon. Without meaning to I immediately adopt some of the mannerisms, accent, posture and facial expressions of whoever I'm talking to. I often find myself mimicking and simply reflecting back whatever mood is being shown to me as well. The sudden change and hypocrisy that results when I need to switch conversations and speak with someone entirely different makes me cringe inside every time.

Despite my perfect English I also find myself speaking with a bit of an accent if whoever I'm speaking to has one. It is a broken thing, an amalgamation of the way I actually talk and the way whoever I'm speaking to talks and the way I'm trying to speak to counter this horrible mess. I suppose it is an evolutionary adaptation of some sort, even though I feel like kicking myself in the face whenever I notice, which is usually immediately. But it's very hard, near impossible to stop even though I'm probably trying to the whole time. Even for those without accents I find myself adopting some of the tone and style of speech that makes one person's way of talking uniquely theirs. I even adopt the way people stand, and the gestures or expressions they make regularly. These things I adopt as my own at least for the duration of time that someone is speaking to me, not purposefully but I suppose instinctively. I'd be lying if I said it doesn't usually feel ridiculous, especially if the person has some kind of expression they often make. Not because they look stupid but because I'm not them and so I most certainly do look strange.

It's not hard to imagine then why I have such a hard time sharing anything about myself or managing to pull off showing people who I am rather than who they are. It's easy to be a reflection. My surface identity is entirely malleable from person to person and situation to situation, I have no solidly constructed model of the person within myself that I so intimately and innately know. I exist abstractly, theoretically, a web of electrical impulses firing across the solid surface of my brain. I suppose that for too long I have had no real interest in constructing an accurate outward representation of myself. Even as I type this I can't help but think: Why should I care? I've always been more interested in data collection rather than transmission. And I suppose this is written also somewhere within the long lines of my DNA, and so I've been programmed to collect data fabulously. It doesn't seem too farfetched that merely reflecting a person makes it far easier for me to collect information about them in particular without clouding the data stream with pieces of myself. After all, real interactions that involve two people are more complicated.

So perhaps unquestioningly, and because it was so convenient and perfectly in line with my own interests I have been happy to run along smoothly, collecting information and transmitting very little. But I can't help but think my somewhat lonely situation is a result of functioning so "well". After all, how long can anyone really be interested with a person who appears to be just a crude approximation of everyone they meet, and especially of yourself?