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Wish I Were Stupid
Written by Sean on Tuesday, September 30, 2008
I am a reasonably intelligent man, even if I do say so myself. I can’t help thinking that things might be easier if I were stupid. And so, sometimes, I wish I were stupid.
At the risk of appearing to be bragging or arrogant (and this is not the goal), I have been deemed intelligent enough to be accepted in MENSA. Whoop de doo! I’m not a member, but according to their way of measuring intelligence, I qualify. That means I rank in the top 2% of intelligent people. More whoop de doo!!! So what?
What good is it to be intelligent? Is it helping with BIID in any way? Nope. Yeah, ok, I can read an academic paper and understand it. I can analyse that paper and comment on it. I can make a solid and logical argument in favour of surgery as a treatment option for BIID. But logic does not seem to play a role in this argument with the medical community. We cannot sway by logic something that they feel in their innermost: the medical community believes in an inherent "bad" with impairments and disabilities. No logical argument, however well constructed, can sway that.
Sometimes it seems that a lot of the suffering I experience derives from the thoughts running amuck in that "intelligent brain".
Perhaps, if I were stupid, I would not have the ability to imagine a better life, and would, as a result, be happy. Idiot, but happy. That might not be such a bad fate, really, would it?
As the famous saying states: "I’d rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy". But… Drowning one’s thoughts and feeling in booze doesn’t really help. It temporarily anesthetise the despair and the pain. A lobotomy is more permanent. As another saying, no less famous, states: "No brain, no pain"…
So, which will it be?
Unfortunately, it’ll be continuing as I’ve been going, because, well, my grey matter appears to be well functioning.
Tags: BIID, Happy, Idiot, Inteligent, MENSA, Stupid
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9 Comments
2 On 30 September, 2008, Sean said:
Hmm, very “zen” attitude Jen. Have you found Samsara then? :)
4 On 2 October, 2008, Sean said:
Jen, you know better, you twit… :D
Yes, sometimes I wish I were stupid.. excused from all responsibility, advocates fighting for me, able to sleep at night.
It is more than obvious that the BIID folks that contribute and comment here are of um, lets say ‘higher cranial voltage’ than others.
Perhaps that is partially what triggers a bias from those to whom we turn for help. Are we deemed too rational, too sane, or perhaps smart enought to realize that what we want is so irrational in the eyes of others that we should have sense enought to realize how wrong we are?
Well… If you’re stupid, it would be assumed that one hasn’t thought out their decision properly… So which is preferable? They both seem to have the same end result…
7 On 5 October, 2008, Sean said:
It doesn’t matter whether one has considered their decision properly or not, or even appears to have done so. The end result is, no doctor, no surgeon is helping us achieving what we need through surgical/medical means. And there’s no other known way at the moment. So, inteligent or stupid, I’m still SOL…
I think I know what you mean. I think you’re talking about how it would be nice to be able to simply say to yourself “I want to be like this, so I am,” and not worry about philosophical implications or what anybody (besides a friend) thinks. Those worries are, I think, often the worst parts of our situation.
“The most helpful thing a person can learn is how little he or she knows”
The medical community does not comprehend that quote. That’s why we can’t get any help.
I never date nurses; medical people are always gonna think they’re smarter than you.
9 On 10 October, 2008, Claire said:
it would be nice to be able to simply say to yourself “I want to be like this, so I am,” and not worry about philosophical implications or what anybody (besides a friend) thinks. Those worries are, I think, often the worst parts of our situation.
Amen to that.
And yet worrying about some of these issues is what keeps us from being the kind of pretender that does harm to the disabled community.
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1 On 30 September, 2008, Jen said:
In Jackson Browne’s song, The Pretender, he sings, “I want to be a happy idiot.”
And if you ever read The Great Gatsby, you know that Daisy Buchanan’s great wish for her infant daughter is that she is beautiful and stupid.
That’s borne of sorrow and bitterness. Better to be the one who laughs because it’s all ridiculous and none of it matters, anyway.