Man, I wish I’d had the appreciation for geometry in 10th grade that I have today. I said appreciation, not understanding. I still don’t get geometry but I do appreciate it as a means to understanding the world in which I live.

Nearly 50 years ago, sitting in Mrs. Sheffield’s sixth period class, I spent all my time staring out the window. The only excitement I found in geometry class was when, just outside the classroom windows, the buses would start to line up about 15 minutes before the final bell of the day. Otherwise, I sat through that class without knowing enough about geometry to even ask a question. I certainly found no excitement in going over a bunch of axioms set forth thousands of years ago by a mathematician named Euclid.

Then, decades later, I came to understand that the reason Mrs. Sheffield couldn’t get through to me was because I have a non-Euclidian mind! Allow me to explain.

Geometry is about flat spaces. Euclid set forth axioms and theorems based on flat spaces. One said the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Another said the sum of the angles in any triangle equals 180 degrees. These are the inviolable “rules” of geometry we learned in 10th grade that applied in every instance. Only, at some point certain geometricians came along and pointed out other “things.” For example, we don’t live on a flat surface; we live on a sphere. Planet Earth is round. That being so, there are no straight lines on a sphere. Likewise, on a sphere the sum of the angles of any triangle is now greater than 180 degrees in one non-Euclidian geometry and lesser in another.

So a “Euclidian”-minded person believes in rules and norms that apply to the accepted notions that pertain to flat spaces. A “non-Euclidian”-minded person tends to think rules don’t apply or are made to be broken. I wasn’t that great in science either, so don’t put too much stock in the following. It isn’t subject to scientific proof; it’s just a way of looking at the world. I’d say, generally speaking, your Euclidian-mind types would be CPAs, CEOs, government workers, law enforcement, teachers, bankers, lawyers, clergy and cooks who use a recipe book. Your non-Euclidians would be musicians, writers, artists, rodeo clowns, psychics and palm readers, and cooks who use a pinch of this and a pinch of that.

Euclidians are most likely to be thought of as “solid citizens” and “salt of the earth” types. Euclidians are “centrists.” Non-Euclidians are “free-thinkers,” “loose cannons” and “way-out.”

A Euclidian-minded woman marries a non-Euclidian-minded man. She wants the grass cut; he figures it’ll just grow back. They’ll end up going to a Euclidian marriage counselor or a non-Euclidian holistic healer.

One part of Congress is Euclidian. The other part is non-Euclidian. A holistic healer isn’t going to solve the problem. It’s a geometric mess when the world is round for some and flat for others. In that situation no lines intersect and, hey, I can live with it, man.

Bob Morgan is a retired, award-winning journalist and an author.