People often ask me why I chose the moniker of Brilliant Moron. They ask why I call myself an idiot, and why I say I'm smart. To save time, I thought I would answer it all at once. In reverse order.
Why I say I'm smart
Well, because I am. I'm well educated (2 MAs and a PhD), but I'm also very clever. Unfortunately, there isn't really a way to MEASURE intelligence outside of education, and as you all know, I think education is a bad standard. You should only get as much education as you need.
But if not education, then what? Should I say I'm good at chess? I am, but that's not intelligence. Should I say my IQ tested above 160, in the top .1%? It did, but that just tells how well I did on an IQ test. Should I say that I was in the top 10% of my class without really trying? Again, just academics.
So how do I know I'm smart? We'll get to that in a second, because it pretty directly relates to....
Why I call myself an idiot
I think too much. Like, WAY too much. Sometimes, I can't sleep, because I'm thinking too much. And not these great creative or brilliant thoughts either. Usually, I'm thinking of about 5 words in a song, over and over again. Or I'm trying to count my breaths. Or I'm imagining somewhere peaceful. Or thinking about a television show. Or about something stupid and annoying.
Most of the time, what I'm thinking about is a waste of time. A waste of effort. No good will come of it, no value added to the greater good. I won't even be pleased by the thoughts. I'll just be wondering if my insomnia is kicking in again, and if I should get up. I might think of something creative or intelligent, but that happens so rarely that it could be called a fluke.
Then there's the over thinking in my every day life. I pay way too much attention to the people around me in public. Did that guy just look at me? What are those people talking about? Why does that kid have that look on his face? I'll watch a person sit on a bench and smoke a cigarette, and I'll think up an entire life story for that person. Then I'll think about how much of a waste that was, and how similar it was to Ethan Frome, and how much I hated that book.
Maybe I'll over think what I'm wearing. Is this T-shirt too offensive? Do my socks match (like anyone ever sees them)? What have I got in my pockets? I don't even think of the important things, like whether or not my cell phone is charged. I just think about whether or not I have a receipt in my pocket that I should throw away. Or, maybe I'll wonder about that twitch in my eye. Or about the cars outside my house. Which one is my neighbor?
Sometimes, I get really stupid. I try to crack the code on license plates (there isn't one), or try to guess what someone is about to say, or what they're thinking. I'll wonder about a joke I want to make: is it funny? Will my students laugh? Are those two things connected?
Did I eat today? How much caffeine have I had? How many cigarettes (a really stupid question, since I don't smoke)? When did I last publish something on the blog?
Essentially, I think way too much about things that just don't matter. Do I spend my time reading great philosophers and memorizing their quotes in order to dissect at a later point in a gentleman's club over a snifter of brandy? Hell no. But I WILL spend my time reading and internalizing the rules to a role playing game that I'm NEVER going to play, or trying to figure out whether Homer Simpson is a Marauder, an insane person, or a figment of Marge's imagination.
And that's what it is. That's why I'm stupid. I've got this big badass brain, and instead of using it for good, I use it for pop culture. For trivia. For wastes of time.
So I'm a moron. But I'm brilliant. And that's why I call myself that.
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