Stupid People Give Me Drain Bamage

My best friend Denis told me that the topic of stupid people is an inexhaustible source of "inspiration" for any rant. In fact Denis (who is an excellent writer) has waxed on about the subject for a number of years. What is interesting is the evolution of his coping strategies over the years (from outrage to don't suffer fools - just make room).

This subject is interesting to me because we all are, to one degree or another, stupid. I made a particularly bone headed mistake last week that felt dumb when I did it and boy it delivered on that promise in spades. So in the after-burn of that particular flaming taco I consoled myself with the "I’ll be smarter next time" rationalization. I wonder though, are any of us actually smarter with experience or do we simply find new and innovative ways to express our "inner stupid"?

My inner stupid is a wonder to me, despite all my pretensions of some degree of rationality if it wasn't for the golden horseshoes south of the equator I would shuffled off my mortal coil years ago. So my question is smart people smarter or just luckier than the rest of us? Stupid people on the other hand are always judged through their deficiencies of "process' and often in a judgemental manner as if bad luck is somehow earned (and good luck is given?).

I recently reread "The Marching Morons” by Cyril Kornbluth (1951) for a humorous (and somewhat fascist take) on what happens when the stupid people take over the world. The story is as relevant today (perhaps more so) as it was all those years ago. Did I feel smarter for reading it? Not really but I recommend it anyway. It is interesting because it suggests that society will easily adapt to lowered expectations – whoops hasn’t that already happened?

In the end we are all as god made us, smart, and stupid, whatever – in a hundred years everyone who knows will be gone. That’s ok too, perhaps if there is a grand plan somewhere then that part insures that the terminally stupid and dangerously smart can’t really do any lasting damage to the rest of us marching morons…

"Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do"
Bertrand Russell

The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step (BTW it can end really badly)

Experience with anything is a curse and a blessing - both have the same outcome in that surprises at work, in relationships or life in general become fewer and fewer the older you get. When I was younger the uncertainty of my life scared me more than it excited me. The younger me flailed about trying to find something (anything) that worked out the way I THOUGHT it should rather than my experience (such as it was) told me it would.

Eventually I figured out what works for me and progressed through a blessed and fortunate life that has far exceeded what I thought I'd ever experience. During that journey I studied religion and philosophy formally and informally for a while and tried to assign value to those experiences through consideration of those principals that resonated with my particular sensibility. I used to consider myself an existentialist of the "nothing matters and what if it did " school of thought.

This was an easily defensible position (sort of like being an agnostic) in that the burden of proof as it was always remained on those who questioned that outlook and not on me for having it in the first place. One day I figured out that I am a coward for maintaining the self delusion that somehow I understood everything through that narrow and ultimately pointless perspective. Did I have an epiphany? some sort of religious conversion - nope sorry about that. What I did realize is that the big questions are just that, fricking big questions that no one will ever answer with any confidence. Oh and I'm fine with that.. magic remains in the world.

So now I like to stand outside my house in the country these cold nights and stare into the majesty of space and wonder why I ever worried about anything? I am free and getting free(er) every day.

"I used to think it was a terrible thing that life was so unfair. Then I thought, 'what if life were fair, and all of the terrible things that happen to us came because we really deserved them?' Now I take great comfort in the general unfairness and hostility of the universe."
J. Michael Straczynski