(This may become a semi-regular feature if all find enjoyable and I can think of more. Right, then. Here goes.)
How Studying Geology is Like Studying Abnormal Psychology
On the first day of Abnormal Psych, our professor told us that as the class progressed, we would all become convinced we had each and every psychological disorder listed. He assured us this was not the case, especially as some of those disorders were mutually exclusive. This did not prevent us from believing that we did, indeed, have every psychiatric disorder studied.
As I delve deeper into the realm of geology, I'm finding a corollary: I think every rock I encounter might be the type of rock I'm studying. Right now, very nearly everything looks like serpentine (even though it can't be, because serpentine's fairly rare).
I believe this happens for the same reason we all thought we were mad: just like every human psyche contains common traits that become a disorder when exaggerated or present in the extreme, all rocks share basic features, and what particular kind of rock they are depends on the concentration of those features. It's all down to a matter of degree. And it sometimes takes an expert to determine the difference.
Either that, or we were all freaks of psychology, and I'm a serpentine magnet.
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