Sometimes I feel extremely stupid. Sometimes I am extremely stupid.
It’s always been exciting to meet my intellectual superiors, people who stimulate my intelligence, imagination, and creativity, helping it rise, becoming something more than it was.
At other times people simply try to make me feel like they’re my intellectual superiors, but there’s no stimulation. They simply know things I don’t. Or think they know things they don’t, yet put on a righteous show of being superior. These come off as comic or obnoxious. Often both.
I used to see a naive charm in certain flavors of stupidity. Such as the stupidity of being loyal to someone many people think you shouldn’t be. This can be very sweet or very dangerous. Or both.
More and more I’m seeing just how dangerous stupidity can be. Most bullies are stupid. Some of the meanest and most powerful bullies I’ve been unfortunate enough to share a timeline with have been appallingly stupid. They make my jaw drop. Literally.
They think I’m in awe of them. In a way I am. I marvel at their folly. Comedians don’t even have to work to make them funny. Documentaries become comedies and vice versa.
I’m starting to be seriously scared of stupidity yet it remains a well of eternal comedy. Even when it scares us.
Especially when it scares us.
Sometimes I’m too scared to write, but how can I waste what’s offered in the well? Maybe there’s even an opportunity to learn to be smarter, writing about stupidity.
How about you, dear reader? Ever use folly or fear of folly in your writing?