I would encapsulate this even more simply by saying: intense people crave understanding, because they probably lacked it their whole life. Their environment always left them feeling like they were ‘too much’. No one could relate to the potency of their drive. But when intense people congregate, they finally feel  understood , like they belong

Related to this, I’ve been thinking a lot about obsession, relentlessness, and near-unachievable goals. What makes someone able to reach heights others view as impossible? What makes some better suited for pursuits involving a singular focus? 

The answer seems to be: a capacity for intensity. Intensity is a derivative of focus. The word intense

Anxiety is the enemy of empathy. Fear makes us egocentric; egocentric makes us blind. An amygdala/prefrontal-cortex two-step that narrows the search parameters of the pattern recognition system. Pretty soon, as anxiety climbs too high, we lose our ability to find one another.

I think about who I’m most drawn to, and it’s always been those that exude intensity. People with a unique ability to get  consumed  by something. Maybe that’s some flaw in my system—to be drawn to intense, obsessive people—or maybe I am predisposed to noticing outliers. Because pretty much every outlier is obsessive, whether we’d like t