The Fredösphere

Readers are to be warned that today's post is odd and probably not to many people's taste.  I should say, unusually so even by Fredösphere standards.  Odd, and deeply self-absorbed.  You have been warned.

My vacation has delayed me, but now I gladly respond to this post on quirks by Don of Mixolydian Mode.  I'm not going to list five different ones, instead, I'd like to spend a minute describing one.

I love to flick things across my finger.  I started as a preschooler, when I found the corner of my favorite blanket was just the right combination of sharp and flexible.  I would hold the corner between my thumb and index finger and flick my middle (or sometimes my ring) finger back and forth across the point of the corner.  (To be clear, we are talking about a quilted blanket, with the corner consisting of two pieces of cloth with a seam folded within and with very thin material inside to stiffen it.)  Later, I moved to other objects; I found paper to be only occasionally satisfying.  Later, after puberty, I discovered individual hairs on my head that were coarser than the rest (I have very fine hair) which worked well.  In fact, I hair is excellent because, as a hair is flicked, the end becomes curled, providing a more complex and satisfying flick.  The most perfect medium I've found is heavy nylon thread, and at least once in my life I have bought a spool of the stuff just for flicking, to relieve my shoulder which had grown tired of holding my hand up to the top of my head, where a particularly coarse hair was growing.

At this point, let me freely stipulate that this is a seriously weird behavior.

Is this just another nervous habit?  I'm not sure.  I suspect it is unlike chewing nails.  I suppose I need to hear from a nail chewer:  how much satisfaction comes from the chewing itself, as opposed to the result, which is that one's nails are shortened?  My flicking has no end other than itself:  I derive exquisite pleasure from the feeling of the flick.  I have another habit which consists of picking at the hairs of my beard (when I am shaving or clipping it very short), but that I consider a conventional nervous habit:  if I find a hair that sticks out, I can pluck it and be done with it.

Hey, I already admitted this was weird.

Flicking is a deeply self-indulgent activity, and I try to avoid doing it in front of other people.  It is usually accompanied by a state of daydreaming, although sometimes it can accompany analytical thinking.  The wifeösphere finds it annoying, as you might imagine.

I really don't understand it's "role" in anything, and I assume it is just one of those weird, freaky byproducts that any system is prone to exhibit when it gets as complex as the human brain.  I also suspect it relates somehow to the way my mind works, which can switch easily from left to right brain activities, or because I am what the Myers-Briggs people call intuitive, or Keirsey called a Martian.  (Specifically, I am an iNTj drifting over into an iNTp -- both of which have an Objectivist connection, which is pretty darned hilarious.)

I'd love to hear from others whose nervous habits can shed light on mine.  That's especially true if you've got the flicks -- but I suspect there ain't many flickers out there.