Returning home from Pembroke the other day, I recalled how my cousin Billy from Val-d’Or did such a stupid thing when we were teenagers — I still shudder at the thought. Walking down a side street in Pembroke, he said, “Watch me jump over those parking meters.” He made the first two handily by clamping his hands on the top of the meters and hoisting himself up. On the third attempt, he miscued and ‘you know what’ made contact with the top of the meter. Now that was stupid! It was more than half an hour before he was able to struggle back to the car.
We all do things we know we shouldn’t. Eat a big bag of candy when we’re stressed, have just one more drink, or sleep with our ex (that’s a no-no). It’s a kind of pleasure of ‘wanting’ something exciting or feeling powerful, then becomes the thrill of the chase and the tingling of desire.
The new bridge in Westmeath has spoiled the quintessence of the former bridge that held captive memories of real life-experiences. Leaning over it, one could imagine the one-time rush of turbulent water thundering underneath rather than the dismal stream it is now. Then one of the guys walked one end of the top rail to the other end without falling into a death-trap. He was brave — stupid I think.
Personally, I think that one can either feel stupid or be stupid. For example, catching a crowded bus one morning on my way to work and having to stand, a very attractive woman unexpectedly said, “Hi Bob”. I didn’t recognise her and hesitated a few seconds before querying, “How do you know my name? ……. “It’s on your lunch bag!”
The dumbest thing I ever did happened when Sheila and I took a shopping trip to Watertown back in 2012. The first stop was at the Ogdensburg customs border station, where I was interrogated so rudely by a custom’s official. She repeatedly asked questions about finances and pardons that I didn’t have answers for. We both were severely agitated. I finally was allowed to proceed but being so frustrated
I drove right past the booth where I was to pay the toll, directly into the crossing gate – that abruptly sprung up, smashing into my windshield, snowballing my already state of confusion. I heard loud bellowing, looked in the rear-view mirror and saw a border officer beckoning me to return. Stopping, I drove back in reverse, which is not my forte, all the while imagining going to jail. Then my foot accidentally hit the gas pedal. The official had to leap aside for his safety. When he finally had me corralled, be shelled me with swear-words like paralyzing fire-bombs. Finally, he was out of breath but managed to say, “Go over to that building and pay, then get out of my sight.” I did but entered into the office of the toll station instead of going to the toll booth. Another rude official ordered me out of there and back to the booth. As I left US customs behind in the distance, the relief I felt was like putting back a couple of stiff Caesars!
Think about when you try to suppress a craving, it only gets stronger. Suppression is like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. Not only are your thoughts right below the surface, but once the effort wears you down, they surge back up with a vengeance, which leads to doing the exact thing you were trying not to do. And then, once we slip, it leads to the ‘what the hell effect’, like we scream something outrageous, neglect an important appointment or just cut off everything for a while.
Stupidity is hard to define and poorly understood. Even intelligent people have a reputation for making dumb mistakes, especially in situations that require common sense. People of all levels of intelligence succumb to what’s called the ‘bias blind spot’, which means they are great at spotting other people’s mistakes and terrible at recognizing their own. The sillier the mistake, the harder it is for an intelligent person to accept that they’ve made it. Einstein was heard to say, “The difference between stupidity and genius is that the genius knows its limits.”
I wonder how I, and all the people I know, end up in so many jams that could have been avoided. Maybe one day, geneticists will discover a ‘stupidity’ gene.
