circular reasoning and idiots

An idiot is an idiot, OK. BUT, suppose the idiot knows he (or she) is an idiot: wouldn't that make him or her less of an idiot?

Now, we are surrounded by people with whom we have not much, nothing, or less than we'd like, in common, and we call them idiots. There are therefore intelligent idiots, and each one of us is someone else's idiot. In his or her turn.
(Is the point to skip your turn? or at least to skip it when there are loads of people around... you can be an imbecile all you want in the privacy of your own car or boudoir, for those who have one...BTW, in French, it is, word for word, a "pouting room": you can do anything you want there, that is the point: be unhappy, complain, kick things, and rant, and then come back out, and be gracious, as usual, right!)

And the situation can also be summarized thus, as my father used to put it: "An idiot is an idiot, it's fun to watch, and who cares? BUT there are the intelligent imbeciles, those are the ones you need to keep an eye out for."

You can see how murky the situation is becoming. Yet, we also know that there are bona fide unintelligent people who can't put two and two together and can't make it beyond 3.96 at best (not to mention the megalomaniacs, or just maniacs, who, with two and two, make it all the way to... 6, for example...
and... by the way, those are the guys people usually vote for before they cry about them...)

Maybe we need to accept that things are always relative and that, just like everyone is supposed to have his or her 15 seconds or 15 minutes of glory, we also have our spot for stupidity awaiting us. Add Murphy's law and the odds for glory are about the same as for winning the lottery, while the odds for stupidity (may it be only 15 minutes total! or.. 15-second increments?) must be similar to the ones for losing the $ 2 you used to buy a lottery ticket.

The world is indeed comprehensible, then: it is the same rule that governs idiocy as governs winning the lottery, and Murphy's reponsible. Hey, who's the idiot who disagrees with me?

Now, as there seem to be more and more idiots, I am afraid they bleed on all of us, myself included. The world is getting worse, less comprehensible, more absurd, maybe even dumber, and yet again dumberer. It's getting to the point where I don't dare look at myself in the mirror any more, just in case I'd look stupid (and then.. would I look just normally stupid or .... REALLY stupid? Yet, if I am aware of looking stupid, am I not already more intelligent?)

Next time, we'll talk about women. Because when my wife calls me... let's say: "an imbecile." I know in fact she means she truly loves me and she's just disappointed I did not use all of my brain cells. And anyway, I know I am right. I might just be deluded is all...

oil in the global village?

The modern world is amazing. Look at this: a couple of days ago, the barrel of crude oil trades at just over $ 100 for the first time (but not the last), and overnight I discover that all my local gas stations have had to adjust their prices (higher, of course. How did you know??) So, I guess while I sleep, people are working all night to bring me this brand new, more expensive gasoline from the Middle East, Venezuela, or Amsterdam (main oil trading center, if you need to know) right here less than a mile from my own home. Isn't the global village really shrinking?

But, United we stand, and it is good to know that the oil companies (and my local dealers) suffer with me, and you, and the next person... in a true democracy where all are equal (but.. some more than others, as Orwell posited)
Hey, the joke is now: another day, another dime (forgot about inflation, didn't you? no more of grandpa's "another day, another dollar"), and another dime it goes, up, overnight. You'd think that maybe they plan ahead and order two, three weeks, months, ahead of time, would it be just while they process the already purchased gas through the whole distribution system. But now, I know, it is an overnight system.

60 years to make a man

Andre Malraux, the famed French writer, adventurer, politician, minister of culture, and art critic, once wrote: "It takes sixty years to make a man" (from La Condition humaine/Man's fate). I laughed it off when I first read that at age... 14?... or so.
At 20, I knew that indeed, by then,I knew it all, and Malraux' words were old geezer's radotage (blabbering).
At 30 years of age, that time, yeap, that was for sure, job, marriage, kids behind me or just around the corner, no doubt, I knew life.
At 40, with a few punches all over (thanks, Life!), that had to be it, then?
Well, at 50, I know better.... and I wait, somewhat fearfully... Buying sympathy cards in bulk for the dead's spouses, families, and friends, for the injured, the sick, the accident victims, the friends of those who get murdered on US campuses or in wars, the drunk kids in car accidents, the victims of the serial and mass murderers who end up clipping your world as they kill anyone who passes by, etc..

And so I await with stoicism and philosophie as I sense that Malraux was right... and that in fact, with the advance of medicine, progress, etc.. his 60 might be my 70 or 75 and by then, you .... start burying your own friends??

Anyway, got it, Ann-Dray, I suspect it does indeed take 60 years to make a man (he meant "human being", ladies, don't start the gender issue, now is not the time..)

He knew a few thigns, that old dude....