The Overcognizance Club

SA · February 15, 2007, 11:01:41 PM

Do you "think to much"? Are you styled a braniac by your peers despite your own enthused protestations? Do people find a constant reactionary need to flee from conversations with you because you surruptitiously slip words into your sentences like eschaton, nuosphere or floccinaucinihilipification? Then you are not alone! Many men and women just like you are victims of this devillish title, a peculiar pejorative which by all rights should be a mark of merit.

It is an epidemic that has plagued humanity since... oh, I dunno... the dawn of consciousness. The preposterous, aberrant trend of the unconquerable middle-ground, and it's lunatic double-standards, by which the dull are mocked for their simplicity and the brilliant are mocked for their "arrogance" (or whatever asinine reason they manage to dredge up). It is the mentality by which one condemns the spectrum beyond one's own meagre wave, in justification of their own (misattributed) intellectual mediocrity.

You needn't consider yourself a genius, or even particularly smart to be in the Overcognizance Club; it is a label that has been thrust upon you by others. In fact, if you've been called undercognizant, you can apply as well; they mock you to the same end. But no matter what, you aren't here because of your own opinion of yourself. We didn't make this club, "they" did.

So do you belong in the Overcognizance club? Do you need to slow down and think like a "normal person"? Is your vocabulary's average phoneme-count excessive by a half-dozen or more? Do you read Dresdencodak?!?

Then come on in.

Word of warning: this is not about laughing at the normies. There is no cosmic mandate which defines the merits of a given intellect, so if you deride those who are "less intelligent" (nebulous though the distinction is) even if you praise higher intellects than yourself (cthulhu fhtagn), you don't get to be in the club; you're guilty of the same crime!

Fnord.

Túrin · February 16, 2007, 05:31:04 AM

My credentials (in random order):

Studying Econometrics and Philosophy in college.

All my friends scoffed at me when I said (in jest) after scoring 10 out of 10 in a Logic course: "Does that mean everything I say is logical?"

Voting for a political party that asks people to vote for them if they agree with their reasoning, instead of adapting their reasoning to people to make them vote for them (unfortunately, this distinguishes me from many people).

I'm clearly a thinker, rather than a doer or a feeler. I've been accused of trying to rationalise everything (as in: even where that's no longer reasonable).

So, can I join?

Túrin

Captain Obvious · February 16, 2007, 02:12:52 PM

I always over think everything, frequently to the point of innaction through mental paraqlysis. (working hard to fix this)

Can't concentrate on anything unless i am multi-tasking, or at least have low-key distractions around. (this seems backwards, but to work i have to have music playing, msn running, be preiodically checking websites)

Have so many ideas for random settings, characters, comics, stories, plays, whatever else running through my head, that i need to try and put them down in some semi-permanent just ot make room to think about anything else.

Epic Meepo · February 16, 2007, 03:59:14 PM

Quote from: http://www.gop.com/Institute of Conformity[/url] are currently conducting clinical trials of Denyitol, a treatment that has the potential to one day eliminate intellectualism. If you think you suffer from intellectualism and would like to help find a cure, please contact our local representatives to find out more about ways you can support our efforts.

SDragon · February 16, 2007, 04:56:27 PM

Quote from: Epic Meepo
Quote from: http://www.gop.com/Institute of Conformity[/url] are currently conducting clinical trials of Denyitol, a treatment that has the potential to one day eliminate intellectualism. If you think you suffer from intellectualism and would like to help find a cure, please contact our local representatives to find out more about ways you can support our efforts.

BRILLIANT!

DeeL · February 17, 2007, 02:49:57 PM

Quote from: Epic MeepoFortunately, we at the Institute of Conformity are currently conducting clinical trials of Denyitol, a treatment that has the potential to one day eliminate intellectualism. If you think you suffer from intellectualism and would like to help find a cure, please contact our local representatives to find out more about ways you can support our efforts.

Sadly, my having a congenitally weak connection between the social complexus of my brain and the pleasure center, as well as being raised by an english teacher in a Methodist religious environment exposed me to an overdose of Damitol, which has permanently truncated my ability to care all that much about conforming, or indeed about the things about which conformists care.

I do enjoy the companionship of people who care about the same things I do, but my friends understand that if the activity du jour involves something I don't enjoy, I won't be going with them. Those who do not understand this are not my friends.

That's right, folks. I'm a loner. One of the last truly demonized minorities in the politically correct plenum. I've been called crazy, antisocial, weird. I hasten to add that I took no offence; unlike the joiners of the world, I can't make myself feel bad about what other people think of me, but I have learned to attend nevertheless. As with any persecuted minority, a negative judgement can become a destructive action without much difficulty.

Part of the problem is that most people don't know what a longer is. There are a lot of misconceptions about loners, and longers themselves are rarely motivated to rebut them.

Loners are not shy. I am a performer and bickerer; my qualifications in not being shy are clear.

Loners are not lacking in social skills. I may very well be lacking in social skills, but that is not the point.

Loners are rarely losers, misfits and outcasts. By definition, losers, misfits and outcasts are JOINERS; they just aren't very good at it.

Loners are also rarely perverts, deviants and criminals. Perverts, deviants and criminals are often losers, misfits and outcasts who have gone to the next level. Sometimes they are blatant attention-seekers - true loners aren't wired that way. And sometimes perverts, deviants and criminals adopt pseudoloner behaviors, because it's hard to have a casual dinner party when your hobby includes thrusting stakes through human torsos.

Loners are not gloomy, morbid and prone to depression. Joiners are gloomy, morbid and prone to depression when they are alone because they are, duh, lonely. Also, being in enforced company irritates loners, which reinforces this particular misimpression.

Finally - and this one is so subtle that I believed it myself for many years - loners are not proud. I have on occasion been accused of thinking myself too good for other people, and I hung my head because I knew there was truth to the accusation. It wasn't the people per se, it was the character of their conversation that I found [Dexter, of Dexter's Lab]SOOO STEWPID!!![/Dexter]

'Hi! How are you?', 'I'm fine, how are you?','I'm fine.' Hours would seem to pass like that, with little more information being exchanged. I just didn't get it. And so I withdrew, repelled by what I perceived to be appallingly vapid company.

But of course, now I understand. People who speak on such a level are not exchanging health status reports; they are stroking each others social complexi, bonding in the mutual glow of a pleasure that I feel in only a faint and abbreviated form. The information being exchanged is not trivial, for the true message is this: "YES MY BROTHER, I AM OF YOUR FLOCK! WHERE ONE FLIES WE SHALL ALL FLY, AND IF YOU SHOULD FALL MY BROTHER I SHALL LIFT YOU UP!"

And so I have developed a reputation as an intellectual, for in the absence of social connections my mind has still required stimulation. So I have turned to books, reading omnivorously and occasionally, in my own way, writing. The internet is a godsend to people like me; textual interactions, without the constant distraction of dealing with kinesthic, facial expression, vocal inflection and other such social data, liberates me to consider the ideas I see in a more complete if abstract form.

Ladies and gentlemen, this has been a private peek into the guts of DeeL, no cover, no minimum.

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News:

The Overcognizance Club

SA

Túrin

Captain Obvious

Epic Meepo

SDragon

DeeL