False Vividity—Judging by Appearances
I thought that I was pretty level-headed, but clearly it doesn’t always apply. Last night I was at my regular Krav Maga training, and was really irritated by a guy there. Certain things stuck in my craw and influenced my opinion of him from the moment I laid eyes on him.
He was wearing a muscle shirt—not very typical in our sessions. Worse, it featured the muscles from brussels, Jean-Claude Van Damme, and was worn with other trendy bits of sport apparel. In all, the picture of someone who cares more about how he looks doing something than how well he does it.
During the class, someone’s phone kept ringing, which wasn’t too bad. It was the X Files theme, so that was quite amusing. At one point someone rang him several times in a row, retrying whenever the answer phone cut in. ‘Van-Damme’ cursed and went over to rummage in his bag. (Strike Two!)
A few moments later, his phone goes again (and again, and again). Only worse. He hadn’t turned it off, only put it on ‘silent‘. Except that it wasn’t silent, it was on vibrating alert, which is pretty noisy in a quiet place.
So the phone kept ‘ringing’ in its now-even-more-annoying way for most of the class.
(Three strikes for Mr. Bloody-X-Files-Van-Damme, who is clearly the sort of person who wouldn’t switch off his phone in a movie or theatre either)
Afterwards, the instructor said to me, “I didn’t think that he’d be back again; just a one-class-wonder.” So I had seen him before, maybe even sparred with him then. But I hadn’t noticed the person; this week I focussed on the clothes and on his inability to switch off his phone.
How Fascinating
Vivid things throw off perception.
It’s one of Charlie Munger’s key causes of human misjudgment.
I got irritated by the in-your-face things and labelled this poor guy. My judgement of his personality may well turn out to be right, but it certainly wasn’t a balanced judgement. It didn’t take into account the known facts, choosing to overweight the vividity and underweight the good stuff. I’d sparred with him that night and it wasn’t the overly-aggressive fashion-conscious numbskull affair that his attire suggested to me.
None of that mattered. He’d been there before. He’ll be there again. And it’s fine. More than fine, because he trains well, with a good balance that allowed us both to attack and defend properly. I don’t know whether I’d like him as a friend, but he’s a great member of the class.