Ask A Genius 1065: Delusions can be relative, and not
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/08/05
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What’s the fringiest thought you have ever had? Like the idea of being you. Everyone has a crazy thought at some point or another for a reasonable period. You thought there was a plausibility to something that, in hindsight, is not insane but not necessarily grounded in anything.
Rick Rosner: Nothing comes to mind as some deluded belief I held for a significant amount of time about the world itself. The most deluded thing I did was return to high school the last time. Thinking that if I were confined to high school, I’d be forced to do physics because I’d be stuck in these little high school desk-chair combinations for many hours a day, which would compel me to do more productive work in physics. I needed to return to school and become a grad student in physics and have my ideas critiqued and worked on by people who were also highly trained in physics. I never did that. I did ridiculous shit.
So, I didn’t have deluded beliefs about the world. I had deluded beliefs about how to accomplish things in the world. Those delusions have also helped because I stumbled into TV writing. The people seemed fun to be around, and without much of a realization that this was a world people worked hard to get into, I didn’t take it seriously, at least at first. Later on, I got good jobs due to hard work, some skill, and good fortune. I worked hard, but I could have worked better.
To some extent, no. By the time I got to the talk show, I was trying hard, but I also engaged in counterproductive behaviour, like not letting myself go home until I turned in 10 pages. Often these pages were full of crap and annoying to the people who had to look at them. So, that was letting OCD run wild. But at the same time, I was trying to do my best. There you go.
Rick Rosner, American Comedy Writer, www.rickrosner.org
Scott Douglas Jacobsen, Independent Journalist, www.in-sightpublishing.com
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