I’m afraid of stupid people. To me, they are unpredictable. I don’t understand their logic and what they think about.
I grew up in a society of extremely stupid people (a Russian speaking part of the planet, either a country occupied by Russia or Russia itself). They are dangerous indeed.
You think that this is a bad neighbourhood?
But it’s only recently that I realised that most of the people I ever interacted with are not smart, if not stupid. For reasons being not just their origins, but rather their age.
They could be smart — even outstandingly smart — by the means of so-called IQ. Which usually means relation of age to this quantifier. E.g. if at 20, my intellect level is closer to a typical 30 years old (in my area? Or how would this be measured, huh?), I’m granted a whopping 150 IQ. Which is like a 150% thing.
But apart from this intelligence measurement thing being absurd endeavour on its own, what are these numbers, really?
Let’s imagine a typical human collects a thousand of virtual points through a year of their life.
However, I don’t believe this. Even if this numbers thing would be true, it would rather grow exponentially. Sometimes very differently, for someone the speed would increase, as they would understand the world better and better, having more dots to connect. I believe I’m on this side of a spectrum, I’m continuing to be surprised by my understanding of how the world actually operates. While for others this number may decrease. They may stop being surprised, as (they think) they understood everything in this life, and so that’s nothing to learn, I guess. But still, let’s pretend this number thing is a real thing and this thousand a year thing is somewhat middle ground for most people.
So …
Well, again. I believe the number is not static, and is very dynamic. But I guess it should grow for everyone general population, regardless of any other factors. As a proof of that, older people are generally wiser than the young ones.
And so, I realised that most of my — still a relatively young man — experience of interaction with different people, it’s affected by stupid people. Since most of those people are simply young. And so most of my childhood traumas, for example, are just a reaction to some stupid people actions.
The first thing that visits my head this time at night (it’s almost 4 am) is this Zootopia example of Greyjoy the fox, who apologised to Judy Hops in the end of the story for being a young insecure (and hence aggressive) fox. To me, that’s a pretty much great metaphor for this.
I’m angry at some maybe most people from my early years for their actions or inactions. But that anger is just mostly pointless. None of them are alive today. I mean, I did not do anything to them. They are just different, those who are alive, they are different people, they changed. I believe that even the most stupid of them, they are smarter than the ones that I knew back then. Their 30 years old selves are no longer accessible to our timeline.
There are some vivid memories that I have, about some moments, and I want to spill ‘you are a fucking idiot!’ Followed by ‘because of this and this’ to some people. So they would understand. But the thing is, most of them might simply never even remember the fact of this being happening! Not to say to reevaluate something by this much later point in life.
There’s no point in even talking to these people.
Once, I had a difficult (for me) conversation with a girl that I liked. She liked me back a lot, and it was obvious for everyone (maybe even me, during some brief moments of conscious thinking) but I did not attempt my chances on her, mostly because I had tremendous issues with self-esteem. Yet, when I talked to her over time, she wasn’t aware of some moments that clearly demonstrated her interest! It wasn’t some if form of pretending, the girl simply didn’t remember the very fact of something.
I know, because of two things. First, that’s not one girl. It wasn’t a single event of my life, there are were girls I did like a lot, and all most of them I failed to communicate this thing properly.
You see, I hate flowers …
well, as a cultural phenomenon, not as a living thing. I love plants, as a living thing, and maybe that makes me hate these dying flowers in a vase.
Yeah, I mean, as if flowers could actually communicate something.
And second, I’ve been working on this for so many years, trying to fight these wrong beliefs I formed during all these years of interactions with stupidos.
The thing is, probably that’s true for many people. You interacted with some class mates in your elementary school. Even if all of them were outstandingly smart — which would never be true, of course — even then, they are much less smart than their today’s versions. You don’t interact with those people, don’t you? But you interacted with them back then! And maybe you even liked them, and had them as friends.