I am naturally reserved and slow to join in anything requiring abandon or hinting of folly. Adding to nature, I have inherited from reading philosophy a tendency to regard society as a factory of absurd conventions. But through observing others like me, I have come to feel disdain for this disdain. In a room of people clapping and dancing to music, the person who doesn't participate, thinking it foolish, is the one who looks most foolish. Intellectual snobbery has an adolescent quality. A thirteen year old scoffs to play a childish game, because he must distinguish himself from a child, but a grown-up crawls on the floor with the children. Sometimes, being mature requires acting ridiculous.