people

I recently discovered a very interesting singer (Basia Bulat - she is great!), and made a cd for my mom.  My mom liked the songs a lot, but said that she would like to know what she looks like.  And so I got to thinking that you can only make a judgement on a person after you know so much about them.  Think about someone like Bill Gates, maybe you know of his life, history - I don't.  I've heard the name hundreds of times, and heard that he is the richest person in the world, but there is absolutely nothing I can say beyond that.  Now think about meeting someone, maybe for a short while, and then finding out that he is the richest person in the world.  Then the fact really changes your perception, even though it is the same fact.  Even when you know a lot of facts about a person, there is a block that doesn't let you understand them at all.

Now think about high school, when the whole world seemed to fall into groups.  There were the ones that were really good, and the ones that were bad but still excelled academically, and the really bad-ass ones; maybe your school had a different hierarchy, but it's the same idea.  Once you get to college you start realizing that there are probably no two people in the world that can be categorized into any category like that.  And then you think back to high school, and start distinguishing one bad-ass from another, and you think - wow, they were so different, and bad-ass in completely different ways.

And when it comes to this formalized business world, you have to deal with people based on just facts.  But it is so hard, sometimes so unwilling, it just doesn't work.  Even in formal circumstances you try to know the person, try to get past that block of facts, and only then does the relationship produce something fruitful and successful...