Stupid is as stupid does

Although it's the only thing I have going for me that I value, intelligence is a highly over-rated, squirrelly thing. There's no useful way to quantify or compare the intelligence of two people, unless the disparity is so great that to remark on it just seems petty. Even then, who decides that one's ability to quote obscure philosophers is more valuable than another's knack for always knowing what will happen next in a convoluted narrative?

More importantly, no matter how intelligent someone is, they are still eminently and inevitably capable of doing the stupidest things imaginable, from the trivial driving-for-miles-with-the-emergency-brake-on to the much more consequential taking-a-loved-one-for-granted-long-enough-that-she-leaves. Both of these things can and will be done by people of every quintile of intelligence. The latter even moreso by the more intelligent, as they are encouraged to devalue emotion and rely on reason; he who searches endlessly for the perfect expression of love will most likely be left long before he finds it, while he who simply convinces you that he loves you and supports you won't be. Now who's more intelligent?

I've met someone who fascinates me many times in my life; I can't wait to talk to them again, or listen to them, or just experience life at the same time as them. Very few of these people have been available, attainable, or female enough that I'd have a romantic relationship with them, but I'm certainly aware that this level of interest in another person is a much more important component of love than is sexual attraction.

And yet, time and again, these people, who I had lovingly endowed with intelligence, wit, charm, and likeability, turn out to be fools just like everyone else. They all do stupid things, they all hurt others deliberately or accidentally, they're all insecure, they're all miserable at as many pursuits as they are brilliant at. This shattering discovery became less shattering each time it happened, however, as I became more aware that people, even those who care deeply for each other, and who want roughly the same thing, can annihilate the most fundamental aspects of their relationship, without even trying, even while exerting every effort not to.

Does this make these people stupid? Does it make one of them stupider than the other? Does this indicate that their relationship 'wasn't meant to be'? I think not; I think it makes them human, and I think it tells us a lot about modern life. While it was once possible to pore over a love letter until it was truly a work of art, and only then dispatch it, in a gently perfumed cloud, to its happy reception, that possibility was never truly available except to those of leisure and learning. The relentlessly increasing availability of both faster means of communication and of innumerable and more absorbing distractions rendered even that form of expression less relevant to those who had once valued it above any other.

So does someone that still takes the time to express themselves in this manner signal to the world that they are more or less intelligent than someone who does not? Did they take the time to learn to write so that their pleadings of love would set themselves apart through the ages? Did they master penmanship so that the page itself would become a work of calligraphic beauty? Did they hand-make the paper, the envelope, did they use a quill or a fountain pen, did they form the paragraphs into the shape of a heart, did they make the reader cry with recognition or delight, did they, in the short space of that letter's reading, render the reader incapable of ever wanting another? If not, should they simply not have bothered? Does it matter if they only did three of those things? If so, which three?

Who is more intelligent at this point: he who knows that more perfect missives than any he could possibly fashion have already been created, thousands of times over, and so doesn't even try, or he who doesn't care, that knows he wants to try, and so does? I suppose it depends who you ask. Am I more intelligent for having pursued this line of reasoning and learned something from it than someone who has not, or than someone who gleaned something different? Am I more intelligent than someone who gleaned something different, but didn't use the word 'glean'? Yes, probably, if you're going by standardized measures, but how about if they do it three months from now? Has the balance shifted? What if I did something really stupid since then, which I absolutely will have? Do we gain anything important from these comparisons?

No emotional or cerebral ability of anyone is ever written in stone; any such ability can be improved through practice, just like any physical strength. Any gaps in learning can be filled, any lack of tact or sensitivity can be improved, any sloppiness of expression can be tightened, any disconnect between two people can be bridged if they both want it to be. The key to any endeavor is the desire to do it. If you don't have that, then yes, you might as well give up.

Hiatus Interruptus

So you'll excuse me while I take a brief break from the breakneck pace of my blogging to remember the war dead of the Great War (or was it the War to End All Wars? The Mother of All Wars? The Quagmire?) by drinking so much that I can't stand, and eating so much that it might not be a good idea to lie down... yay, America!

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow...

It can't possibly be an accident that all efforts to organize my life contribute to my sense that life becomes increasingly pointless as it trundles on. In order to combat entropy, I do the laundry, or the dishes, or wander from top to bottom collecting massive drifts of cat hair; all of these things need to happen at roughly the same intervals, and to pretend that this is not so is merely to deny that life eventually devolves into nothing but a rote sequence of uninspiring rituals.

So what's the answer? I still enjoy some of my most rigid daily ceremonies, such as the obligatory making of the coffee; I'd like to believe it's not simply because I'd have difficulty remaining upright otherwise. Yet I resist more involved organization, like my current project of categorizing all the bills and periodicals and CDs and books and catalogs and assorted crap that enters my life, in such a manner that I can actually address some of it, instead of simply hoarding it in boxes that the cats sleep on.

Why? Obviously I'd be better off if, when trying to locate some cramped sketch for a built-in bookshelf project, I had the faintest clue where it might be. Obviously I'd be better off if, when attempting to pay the cable bill, I could find an example from this calendar year, so I could use the correct account number (as a brief aside, I believe that the advent of automatic payments is a major contributor to this problem, particularly with regards to the cable bill; it took me several months to notice that I had not paid them on time for the past several iterations, simply because they had arbitrarily changed my account number without notifying me in any way that I might register... I suspect that my current automatic payment is still using that obsolete account number, so here we go again) and thus pay it on time. Why isn't that enough for me to change my ways?

I can make, and have made, some attempts to mix it up: to vary the existing rituals, to introduce new ones, to streamline the old ones, but all of these subterfuges are transparent to the part of my brain that wants to just lie back and let life wash over me... if I decide to wash the dishes immediately after I eat, I will enjoy the benefit of never having to worry about a giant teetering pile of soiled breakables in the sink, but at the cost of what meager satisfaction I get from attempting to eat in a civilized manner, with some allowance for post-prandial digestion.

If I decide that I'm a slovenly bag of goo (which is, in fact, the case), and resolve to re-institute the most pathetic daily exercise regimen known to mankind, I will inevitably decide that the illusion of health created by such an effort is not valid LONG before any results are in evidence (another brief aside; for those of you that are familiar with some of more venerable self-serving rationalizations, I have officially almost changed my mind on this one; while I still think that it is superior to be in trim because you're a lumberjack, let's face it, I'm a desk jockey, and the sort of home improvement I need to do is not the sort of regular heavy lifting that would avail me of a manly physique... to that end, I might actually be able to continue exercising for two whole weeks before losing interest this time).

If I decide once again that what's really keeping me from organizing my finances is that I don't have ENOUGH multi-colored pendant folders, I'll be proven decidedly incorrect once again after spending another $20 at Staples, and there will still be piles of unsorted financial papers and scraps of paper with unidentifiable drawings littered about.

And yet, and yet... there has to be a reason to do all this. There has to be some reason not to succumb to the quotidian, and just go live in a park somewhere. It can't simply be that this is all there is; there must be some reward for resisting disorder, something inherently noble about keeping your head above the gathering swells...

What's really remarkable, though, is that the longest post I've made to date is but an elaborate attempt to delay the aforementioned pendant folder project... my brain is trying to kill me.

Is it sad to celebrate by yourself?

I mean, sure, I have many profligate social outings planned for the next few days before cold hard reality settles itself back in, and I have to start slouching my way towards gainful employment once more, but I'm having some trouble deciding whether it's respectable to celebrate a new job by quietly savoring a glass of pointlessly expensive French hooch* that no one else is likely willing to share with me, or just pathetic and creepy...

I mean, on the one hand, it's raining a lot, and the other people that would humor me in such a pursuit either were not contacted or were, and were otherwise occupied, and, I mean, I AM wearing pants, which must count for something... on the other hand, it's still drinking alone, in the dark. Well, mostly.

To rephrase: does sitting in the dark, alone, watching a black and white Japanese movie about slaughtering your way to the top, only to then be yourself slaughtered, while drinking a preposterous beverage, make one sophisticated and ironic, or merely as pretentious as life is pointless?

Unfortunately, I suspect I already know the answer...

* Green Chartreuse, V.E.P.

It's the little things...

...like parlaying a particularly black stretch of weeks (hereafter known as Worst May Ever) into a new job with a sizable raise and most likely a bona fide office instead of the usual crappy cube. Not enough to remove the taint of WME, but enough to keep me from sticking my head in the oven. For now, anyway. It'd be pointless, I suppose, in any event; stupid electronic ignition...

Now, the only nagging question, which room to fill with money, for the rolling around in?

Wait: there was something else, what was it, what was it, it seemed important at the time...? Oh, right. That. Fuck.

Cicadazzzzz...

Oh my dear sweet Jesus shedding his crunchy brown skin on a tree, am I fucking over all the cicada coverage... they're BUGS, dammit! STUPID ones, that do nothing but rattle their stupid wings and fly into stuff and mate and dig holes and lay eggs and die, and WHO CARES?

That said, I just got back from my parents' house in Ellicott City, and MAN are there a lot of cicadas out there... one can't even hear oneself talk out-of-doors... somehow, and you're all (ie: David, possibly Crash) breathing a big sigh of relief, I survived.

Chickens, Pre-Hatching, even...

So it sounds like, despite the thrill of my own success ringing in my ears as I prepare to file for my first unemployment check, I may not get to file another one, because I am just TOO DAMNED ATTRACTIVE a jobseeker... that's right, any day now I will be able to stop this hellish life of sitting in the cool quiet basement putzing around on the computer until I take a nap and drink some beer watching TV, and I will instead be able to proudly join the swollen ranks of zombified commuters on their way to DC to work in dull cubicles for 8.5 hours a day, for the rest of my life...

Unless, of course, I get uppity again.

Job hunting, hi ho, hi ho, etc...

So while I must confess to a mild enjoyment of my end of the recruiter/candidate courtship rituals, especially now that the market is experiencing its anemic resurgence, I'd really like to just have a damn job, and the rooms filled with money appurtenant* thereto... apparently I will be getting a job as a stereotypical crusty miser. How nice for me.

Also, I'm pretty sure they use the same lines on all their marks; while I'd like to think that at least some of them are breathing a sigh of relief that they have a candidate who can interview well, or at least adequately, they all resemble nothing so much as telemarketers reading from a prepared script...

Tune in next week as I whine about my new job, and how I should've done something with my de facto vacation besides sit in the basement waiting for one of these Stepford Husbands to contact me...

* edited because David made me do it.

Real life may suck, but there's always this blog...

Hey, if anyone wants to:

a) pay me lots of money for virtually no work
b) buy a house in an advanced state of decrepitude (that would be "Maryland")
c) give me a really swank car fo' free

...you just feel free, OK?

Wow... Preakness...

I don't actually know how to cope with these conflicted feelings: simultaneously so very happy not to be so very very many people, and dejected that I can't even have a really good time while surrounded by a few hundred thousand people having the times of their young lives... at any rate, I am going to have a BITCH of a hangover, um, right now. Ouch.

Yay, I have a blog.

I may not have much, but I have a blog, boy howdy.