When I was young(er) I used to make sharp statements. I thought I was great and that my friends were great. Also I was deeply elitist: if you read such and such books you were great, if you listen to this and this music you were great and if you wore so and so clothes you were also great. Anything else was not going to cut it. I think I am over this by now, although sometimes I surprise myself with my harshness.
Another favourite past-time of my younger days was putting people into categories. I remember I used to say: there are two kinds of people, clever ones and stupid ones. I was actually going around saying this thing, thinking that I was so clever for saying it. I also thought I was so clever because my categorization was one of cleverness and not one of goodness, as so many other people did. Goodness, pif! Who cares about THAT?
I still think people can be clever and stupid, but I also think that this is not so crucial. It is crucial, don't get me wrong, but it is also so insufficient. When you're an academic, you are constantly surrounded with relatively clever people. If this was all that mattered, then our lives would be so easy. But they're not. I am surrounded by clever people, some of which are fine. But there are also so many that are not fine, there are so many that are tiring, self-absorbed, needy, assholes, arrogant, uniterested, insulting, strssful etc. So, I can only gather that being clever is not enough for happiness. Happiness for oneself and for the other people.
So if cleverness is not it, the question is: is there a characteristic that defines people? Is there a characteristic that fundamentally runs through the human psyche, essentilly putting people in categories?
I think not. I no longer think such distinctions are necessary, feasible or even useful. Who gives a fuck if people are either clever or stupid? Only elitist teenagers like my former self, who clearly knew fuck all about life, happiness and other exotic animals.
2 comments:
I think you make an excellent point. And you know, I'm always surprised at how this relatively clever people you speak of (ie academics) can als be so emotionally crippled, or void, or even emottionally stupid. It's quite astonishing.
People have loads of emotional issues, and I guess some never get over them, which makes it complicated. And ultimately, people's ability to solve their own problems and be their own person is what determines whether you're going to get along with the other person, not so much whether they're clever or stupid. ALthough it helps if they're clever.
When I was young I used to make sharp objects. With them, I chased others around. Fortunately stupid people are clever enough to have emotions, they are my friends now. That is how clever we are.
Post a Comment