the transitive property
finding common ground in uncommon places
I recently played the new Spiderman game on a friend’s PS5 and was amazed by the game’s mechanics and visuals. Suffering from a chronic nostalgia of New York City and an occasional nostalgia of my video game days, I thoroughly enjoyed the few minutes I spent flying through midtown and fighting “bad guys” by Times Square. Anya, however, was quite amused by how quickly I knew what buttons to push and how to maneuver Spiderman through the city, shooting webs to buildings and doing flips in mid-air. We’ve been together for 3ish years, so the only other games she’s seen me play were Rocket League and FIFA. Nonetheless, she was amused. I took a moment to appreciate her amusement. Rather than toot my own horn and take pride in my video game skills, I had a deeper appreciation for the little things that compounded in order for me to enjoy that moment.
I promise you that I will lose every Smash Bros match and lose interest in most story-based games because of my lack of skill but, thanks to my ability to smash buttons and disobey screen-time-rules as a kid, I can have a bit of fun playing the new Spiderman game as an adult. I also have years of hand-eye coordination to thank, along with the Shrek videogame I begrudgingly played on my Gamecube since I wasn’t allowed to buy any games above the “Teen” rating.
It’s amusing to note how little bits of my upbringing, mixed with my personality and interests can produce interesting and fun moments. Similar to what’s stored in my Human Hard Drive, there’s a lot to my being. I’m a multifaceted person and to be honest, we all are. We are complex beings with complex souls - we’re full of talents and interests and quirks. I find it so fascinating when you can connect your quirks with someone else or happen upon a unique interest that you share with someone random. It reminds me of the transitive property from Geometry class in 8th grade. It's like a chain reaction of connections where a single shared passion or a common nugget of knowledge becomes the bridge to understanding someone else's world. And even if the purpose isn’t to build that bridge, these multiple facets open the possibility for new conversations, unexpected trains of thoughts, or even friendships and collaborations. It's this beautiful domino effect where one small commonality leads to another, creating a unique bond that goes beyond surface-level interactions.
A prime example: I recall a certain instance where my friend Anthony found himself in Germany on a cold, gray and rainy evening. I say “found himself” to sound novel but he was there on a very planned trip and happened to have a free evening to himself. He decided to pop into a random pub for a beer or two and found himself at the bar with two older and very German gentlemen - the kind that definitely wouldn’t bat an eye for a foreigner. He ordered a beer and then was quickly glued to the pub’s tv screens to watch the local football match. Did Anthony know many of the players, wear the team’s colors or understand a word that the commentators were saying? Not at all. But by the end of the match, he had made friends with the two gentlemen solely because of the love they shared for football (aka soccer, you American fools). But this whole interaction and connection would never have happened unless Anthony leaned into his love for football and played it daily as a kid. He could have been a baseball fan or a bowling enthusiast but no - he loves football and so do those 2 German dudes. It’s that transitive property that acted as a catalyst for their connection in an otherwise dry and unasuming moment.
“The most interesting people are multifaceted.” - Someone (probably)
Humans often find themselves forming quick judgments mere seconds after meeting someone, and these initial assessments tend to be surprisingly accurate. Malcolm Gladwell refers to this phenomenon as "thin-slicing" in his 2005 book Blink. Even if not the first impression we assume from someone, we make informed binary decisions in our head when someone says something that we align with. If you’re a Drake fan (ew) and someone mentions they had Passionfruit stuck in their head all day, you might be more enticed to pay attention to anything else they had to say. While “thin-slicing” allows us to make quick assessments, the transitive property works as a multiplier in our understanding of others. A small piece of information, like a shared interest or a common passion, acts as a transitive link, enabling us to move beyond surface-level judgments.
“Rish, what’s your point… Isn’t this obvious?” - Silly readers, like you (probably)
Yeah, it is obvious. I think it’s so obvious that we don’t prioritize our multifacetedness enough. Being a multifaceted person goes out the window when you meet someone new and all you can talk about for the first 7 minutes is shitty weather and tough traffic! We have so much more to offer as complex humans and yet we resort to boring and tedious small talk. We might not be aware of how a certain interest or passion might manifest itself in conversation/situation 5 years from now. I just know how good it feels to apply that transitive property in unlikely scenarios and build connections that are deep and fulfilling. This is also probably why I place so much emphasis in cultivating a well-rounded personality and lean into the jack-of-all-trades persona within my career as well. As much as we all want to be unique and one-of-a-kind, there are others out there who share the same interests, passions and quirks… and I’m not sure about you but I’d love to talk to them.
I find a bit of comfort (and maybe some fear) in knowing that there is someone out there who can go toe-to-toe with me on a specific part of my identity. This person might be a 41-year-old single father living in Japan, working as a paramedic and battling an alcohol addiction, but maybe we both find joy in wearing a thick pair of headphones and listening to ASMR haircuts to ease tensions and reduce our anxieties.
quote unquote
just a few more words to think about
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” - Marthe Troly-Curtin
“Generalists… juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.” - David Epstein
“It was an initiation into the love of learning, of learning how to learn, that was revealed to me […] as a matter of interdisciplinary cognition - that is, learning to know something by its relation to something else.” - Leonard Bernstein
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manuer, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.” - Robert A. Heinlein
I’m sure you didn’t expect an email from Loaf of Thought on this random Wednesday in the middle of January. I’m still tinkering with the format for these and it might change over the course of the year but in brevity, I intend on sharing a single “slice” of thought in addition to the “loaf” you receive at the start of each month. Let me know what you think!
Slices and loaves, love it.
I also had the Shrek gamecube game--what a classic.