What Makes Someone Extraordinary

Two men meet. The one is older–not old, but older–and has gravity and authority. The other is younger, though not quite young. They are not meeting in the setting of the older man’s authority. It is one of those things where people are thrown together and sometimes ask deeper questions of each other than they normally would. Perhaps they both ended up in the same park for lunch, or are traveling on the same train.

Something has been niggling the older man about the younger man. In an attempt to get at it, the older one says, “do you think that you are extraordinary?”

“Yes,” the younger one says, without hesitation.

“What about you is extraordinary?” says the older one. His tone is puzzled, skeptical, and slightly aggressive.

The young man discards several flippant replies. None of them are funny enough. Instead he decides to give the real answer.

“It’s on the inside,” the younger man says. “I have these feelings, almost vibrations. They are so vivid. I should say sensations, because they are tied into the deep structure of reality somehow. No one else seems to really know or understand what I mean, and anyhow I can’t put it into words to explain it.”

The older man is thinking.

“Maybe,” says the younger man thoughtfully, “maybe everyone is like that, and the extraordinary ones are the ones who can put it into words, or action.”