who are you?! in an aim converation (is there any other kind?), i was asked: how often do you really try to understand who a person is instead of just trying to know them enough to predict their actions? e-mails with different folks this week have also revolved around this topic. the understanding, knowledge, closeness between friends topic. i will today, for my fourth grade speech, be addressing, "how to understand people."



i think the key to understanding people is to get at their insecurities. once you figure those out, you will have a logical fool-proof guide to their individual madness. we are all creatures of reaction. how much we react and how well we respond to insecurities shape who we are today. i have put this theory to the test and it has, for the most part, produced stunning results. it's almost astonishing how easy it is to trace a present action to an active insecurity. heck, it's simple to trace most actions to any past or present insecurity. this theory does have the flaw of assuming that everything that happens is caused by an insecurity, but since we are weak willed, pre-destined children of god, i see this as a minor flaw and easily dismissed. my critics might argue but my critics are for the most part feeble minded and surely destined to rest for eternity in limbo.



on the flip side, sometimes people feel like they understand you because they can predict every action. that's not understanding, that's just knowing. like you know what they are like in any given situation, but you don't necessarily know why they do what to they do. and neither do you understand. despite whatever your own way of doing things, some people just can't understand what makes others tick. i take some measure of pride in thinking that i am tolerant of anybody's ticking, even if it's totally different than mine. so that leads me to the, possibly false, belief that i understand people. but as we all know, nodding your head and smiling is not the same as fully understanding. you can seem understanding or actually be understanding. differences abound. don't you love it when things get all semantical? do you like? like like? love? in love? in love with? like like like? shut up already. for reals.



but no. semantics is my nation, where i reside. each word must be carefully placed in order to get the correct meaning across. if i did not believe this then why would i bother? ironically i'm terrible at conveying exactly what i'm trying to get across without using word diagrams and long roundabout explanations. pleonasm i believe it's called. that was the word of the day for me a few days back. i've used it successfully in a sentence, so now i own it like i own sub five footers on the basketball court. which would be very very occassionally. elementary school kids got game man, they got game.



a popular parlour question is to ask "how well do you know me?" the best way to respond i feel, is in percentages. the safe response is to say, "i know you about sixty five percent." this indicates that you know them better than the average but there's still a whole area of mystery. someone you really understand you might jack up to eighty percent. and that might be cause for celebration. but i think most people know their friends in the low seventies percentile. so is that enough to understand your friends? are they even related? knowing a percentage of somebody and understanding them? i can know somebody really freakin well but understand nothing. so from now on i will answer with two percentages when asked this "how well do you know me" question. the number preceding the slash will be how much i know you. the number after the slash will be how well i understand you. so for example. 25 / 60. meaning i understand 60% of the 25% i know you. man, math and friendships are so complicated.