“Anything I Don’t Understand is Nonsense”

Anything I don't understand is nonsense.

It seems to be a widespread credo, and while it's always been popular, I believe it's been getting worse as we complete our unwitting transformation into silly, foppish, entitled, bizarrely overconfident aristocrats.

Also: I'm noticing better.

It took me a very long time to even begin to recognize that this credo exists, because it's so opposite to the way I think. For me, anything I don't understand is magic. Some magic I feel sharply compelled to acquire for myself, while most of it I just peer at with admiration, saluting the magicians. But ‘nonsense’?? Jesus, certainly not! Regardless of the source, anything surprising — anything I haven't heard before — makes my antennae eagerly perk up. Like I've been waiting for it.

Here's how people get stuck in this mindset: there's a conviction that anything that escapes me reflects on me. It lessens me. So any potentially humiliating evidence of my incompleteness and imperfection must be preemptively dismissed. I confidently arrange my desk only with familiar, mastered items from my owned realm. My ruler, my pencil, my pencil sharpener....

I went another way. Time and again, I've stumbled into discovering that self-lessening induces awe. One must feel small to be impressed by...anything. (This explains the omnipresent boredom.) I'm one of the few modern Americans capable of awe, which means I don't need to pop antidepressants or guzzle wine or fuck comely strangers or draw a promotion, a raise, or acclaim to muster appreciation for being alive.

Opting out of awe, we ferociously repel any self-lessening like a grizzly protecting her cubs. And, ultimately, it's profoundly exhausting to keep batting away indicators of deficiency. The main cause of major depression is the bitter collapse of one's heroic self-image in the face of unremitting contrary evidence. 

What sort of loser is eager to feel lessened? Isn't that going the wrong way?

We engrain cognitive judo as a countermeasure. The thinking is subtle, so pay close attention:

"I'm not stupid, you're stupid!"

That's how we develop and stoke the tectonic conviction that "Anything I don't understand is nonsense” (AIDUiN)

The great thing about this conviction is that it precludes self-awareness. Jealousy is far less effective. Jealous people know they're jealous, and this plagues their effort to mentally diminish That Lucky Asshole. Jealousy requires an intrinsic, galling acknowledgment of that other person's superior position. It's horribly dissatisfying.

But AIDUiN is seamless. No self-awareness, no lingering doubt. It feels like deep intuition: “I don't understand what this guy is talking about, but it sure sounds like nonsense to me, and I trust my gut.”

The jealous would love to trust their gut and mentally frame That Lucky Asshole to a position of delicious inferiority and crisply move on, but, at some level, they know the truth. Whereas not knowing is the very point of AIDUiN. “Anything I don't understand is nonsense.” So crisp!

You might argue that "I don't understand" — a tacit admission of shortcoming — is half the statement. But that portion is an incoherent mumble, while "nonsense" is a scalding howl heard throughout the multiverse.

This all explains why we're drowning in certainty and starved for magic.


For much of my life, I've been widely regarded as nonsensical, even by people who otherwise admire my intelligence and clarity. I might have expected the benefit of the doubt amid their non-comprehension, but AIDUiN is not a conscious credo applied with thoughtful reason. It's purely visceral, like a hockey goalie's puck vigilance.

My problem was that I'd spent my early years among willfully ignorant people who felt brazenly smart (they were ahead of their time; we've now reached a golden age for this mindset). And I try to avoid other people's mistakes. So when people deemed me nonsensical, I refused to sneer defiantly. I accepted and shared their assessment. Deep down, I knew I was right...while fully accepting my apparent wrongness. This psychic split seemed wiser than indulging my genetic propensity for haughty idiocy.

My decision to launch this Slog helped me out of the bind. Reading the backlog, it all seems pretty sensible. Sane, even! The gaslighting finally lost all effectiveness when someone queried an online forum for advice on launching an online community covering a narrow topic and attracting an especially expert and passionate user base. I was one of the best possible authorities to answer this, and while I (anonymously) offered a clear, easily digestible reply, it was — you won't be surprised to hear — counterintuitive. Failing to flatter expectations, it left readers just slightly baffled, and they projected their bafflement back onto me. My response was, they informed me, sheer nonsense, and it was downvoted into oblivion.

Would it have been better if I'd been a stuck-up prick all this time, sneeringly defiant of worldly feedback? It's a popular stance, but do I specially deserve it? Ick! The notion beckons me to follow in the mucky footsteps of fools. Forget it.

Moving forward, I'm pretty sure the cocky train has passed me by. I'll never grow overconfident. I continue to clock my failures, mistakes, and general confusion with great enthusiasm. It balances my confidence and helps me maintain my psychic split with poise — I'm a guy who's both deeply right and palpably wrong. Only a psychopath can deftly reject consensus over time.

I continue to seek the sweet spot: confident in my rightness yet hyperaware of my gaping limitations and comical missteps. When a good result pops out, I levelly recognize its quality but chalk it up as a lucky break — an errant jewel plucked from the muck. Which does, actually, feel right.