Most of us would like to think we are sort of mysterious and unfathomable, not in a devious way, but rather in some darkly romantic way. "Oh, that Rick Bradford, he's a deep one, I'll tell you. He knows a lot more than he lets on." There's a Rick Bradford in every romantic novel.

Alas, most of us are not mysterious, deep, unfathomable and darkly romantic. We're creatures of habit, quite predictable, and strung out on a network of routines that could be graphically portrayed by a spider web, with the spider calling the shots.

We travel familiar paths. From our base of operations (whatever) to points A thru Z we take exactly the same route 95 percent of the time. You got carpeting? You got paths. Do you commute by car? You could drive it blindfolded, you got a path - get a detour and you panic. Two blocks to the left or right, and you begin to look at the buildings and the people standing in front of them, or leaning out the windows, and you worry that you may suddenly be the enemy, in a no-name land. Some of us might buy a loaf of bread in one store and a can of beans in another because we're shopping for the best price. But most of us do our grocery shopping in the same store, week by month by year.

At another, more subtle, level we follow paths to conclusions. We listen to people speak, observe their clothing, note the color of their skin, and we come to conclusions. We conclude that the person is, or isn't, intelligent, trustworthy, and industrious. But even more remarkably, we often come to conclusions on the basis of what we are told about someone.

I'll give you a quick, scary, example. A man with a slight British accent was hired to give a lecture to college students in three different sections of a course in Psychology at a prominent university. In Section A at 9 a.m., he was introduced as Mr. Dawkins, from London, a writer. In Section B, at 11 a.m., he was introduced as Dr. Charles Dawkins, PhD, Clinical Psychologist at Leeds University. In Section C at 1 p.m., he was introduced as the Right Honorable Lord Peter Charles Dawkins of Chichester, Director of the British Academy of Medical Research, and Directing Editor of the about to be published seminal encyclopedia on Evolutionary Psychology.

In each Section the speaker delivered precisely the same lecture, word for word. After the lecture, the students were asked to fill out a questionnaire, all the queries being geared to determine how the students rated the contents of the speech. It was one of those "on a scale of 1 to 10" things. Guess which Section gave the highest rating. Did you guess Section C? You are absolutely right.

Think about that for just a moment. The implications are that these students based their conclusion about the credibility of the speaker's speech - not so much by what he said, as by his name and his titles. Also implied is that when someone (such as our professor, in this case, or some charismatic leader in other cases) provides us with visitor's credentials, we accept them without challenge.

As professional planners we, of course, never fall into such snakepits. Being intelligent, creative, and independently minded people we see content for what it really is. But the politicians and townsfolk who surround us round about - whew! And if you believe this, I've got some waterfront property in Arizona you might like to buy.