Did everyone see how intense Bernie was at the debate last night? In terms of intensity, that’s how I am all day long.
As my bestest friend ever observed, intensity is my central quality. Ask me if I prefer orange or grapefruit juice, and I will respond with a passion of a tsunami.
I’m thinking it’s a Jewish thing.
I am thinking it is a middle man minority thing in the US not just Jewish.
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What’s “a middle man minority thing”?
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Intensity in the US. I have seen it a lot among Chinese Americans, Armenian Americans, Greek Americans, and Arab Americans as well as Jewish Americans.
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I’ve been this way since childhood, though.
Of course, it’s true that immigrants are much more driven and energetic, that’s undeniable.
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Middleman minority is a minority group that specializes in occupations somewhere between producers and consumers. Jews often carve out a niche there in different places (though lots of non-Jewish groups do as well). I think the idea is that intensity is a by product of nervousness (you have to watch out on both sides of the supply chain).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleman_minority
I will say that in Europe merchants in the Southeast (Bulgarians, Greeks and Turks basically in ascending order) are lot more intense and edgy and aggressive than anywhere else on the continent. Bulgarians are slightly tamed now by smartphones where they used to almost try to drag you into their stores now they sit and stare at their phones. Turks and Greeks meanwhile remain as edgy and intense as ever.
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I think I’m being completely misunderstood here. The loud bustle of Mediterranean cultures has nothing whatsoever to do with me. I’m talking about the intensity of experiencing the world that can happen in complete silence and with no gesticulation or movement whatsoever.
It has nothing to do with supply chains because this is a personal characteristic that either manifests in infancy or doesn’t.
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“The loud bustle of Mediterranean cultures”
Technically Eastern Mediterranean I’ve never noticed especially intense merchants in Spain or Portugal except for Indian immigrants.
But I know what you mean. I’m kind of the opposite. For me perception doesn’t require so much … intensity as it receptiveness which requires calm (when I try to be intense it just backfires horribly and I have to relax and be calm to experience things).
My ability to deflect calls for judgement with considered discussion (or noncomittal understatement) has driven more than a few people I know more than a little crazy.
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Yes, I pass judgment and make decisions extremely fast. People don’t like that either. There’s just no pleasing them. 🙂
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I am very intense too, and as you note, people usually don’t like it. Living in the Midwest among all the ultrapolite and reserved protestants makes me feel very self-conscious. I think many of my colleagues think I am nuts. But I totally get what you are saying — I decide on things fast, and I cannot stand slow speakers or worse, people who take forever to get to their obvious-from-miles away point…
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“I decide on things fast, and I cannot stand slow speakers or worse, people who take forever to get to their obvious-from-miles away point…”
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Bernie is a master kvetcher and I love him for it.
I also love the word ‘kvetch’. One of those words whose meaning you can guess just from the way the word sounds.
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And such a basically decent fellow. There was nobody this decent on the Republican stage, not even remotely.
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I think your body language betrays you when say things you don’t believe in. The reason why his intensity resonates with others is precisely because of that. His body is ‘aligned’ with his mind, giving him that laser focus. You get what I’m saying?
Clinton talking about fat cats on wall street on the other hand…
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Grapefruit juice!!! And not from a ruby red variety but from a yellow one. And you?
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Grapefruit juice!!! And not from a ruby red variety but from a yellow one. And you?
Absolutely the best, although why juice it? Eat the whole thing! Pink or red grapefruit is just a bad idea.
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A conservative literary critic and college professor
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