Brain in Gear?
Ignorance Can Be Fixed, Stupidity Can’t
It could be either one, whether you squander your limited funds or refuse to wear a mask due to rigidity
My boss made a mistake and said, “I am so stupid!” I replied, “No, merely ignorant and that can be fixed.” Everybody laughed.
That concept applies even more during the COVID crisis, in every area of society and life. Now is not the time to become entrenched in archaic ideas and mindless actions that endanger you, your family, and random acquaintances.
If you are driven by the wrong ideas, people may die. The key question is
How do you know what is “Wrong”
Mask incident at Panera Bread
I contend that it is stupid to risk your life for something trivial, like running into rush-hour traffic to pick up a dollar bill. In that case, you risk others, too, who might swerve into oncoming traffic.
Refusing to wear a mask is worse than that, since it can create a cascading chain reaction that could go on for weeks.
The Gillian Sisley story, Anti-Masker Refuses to Wear Mask Because ‘Pants Don’t Block Fart Smells’ describes a woman who threw a tantrum in Panera, even when they supplied a mask for her to wear. Someone recorded the incident and it went viral. Don’t know if she was embarrassed with the publicity or is prideful.
To make matters worse, besides just screaming at people, she started blowing into their faces. She’s lucky someone didn’t hit her in self-defense. She could have been charged with assault.
The logic doesn’t even pan out. The smell won’t kill anybody, but the virus can.
If she continues the same way, I would put her into the Stupid category — unable to learn from the results of her actions.
Getting advice on which medicine to take from a politician ……. is like having ……. The local auto mechanic defend you at a murder trial
Seems stupid to me.
Poor priorities
I remember the TV ad where the young guy could only buy $1 of gas because he spent $10 on a foot-shaped gas pedal. The same type of thing has happened during this crisis.
Many people have no jobs, limited or no savings, and may not know where the next meal is coming from. Then there are a few who still have a good income, but don’t have any real-world sense.
The Nicholas Landers story, The New Poor: 8 Signs You Are Broke & Rich, describes how to share internet apps, complete with ID’s and passwords, among other things. That’s very risky, identity theft for one thing, plus it may be illegal.
He starts by describing how he was so broke when he spent only $82 at Whole Foods for 6 items that completed just one meal. Today, I spent about the same for 24 meals, without being particularly careful. Mine included fresh shrimp and fish for 4 dinners. I could have easily bought 36 meals or more on the same funds.
We are living in the real world, with a real crisis, not Fantasyland. If you are on a limited income, you don’t need a $60 bottle of wine for dinner or organic, non-GMO, free-range, grass-fed, all-natural ingredients with pink Himalayan salt. Store-brand salt will work just as well.
If someone is broke and rich, as described here, they are probably stupid, too. If they can take the advice from the 86 reader responses to his article and learn to manage on such a paltry income, without becoming poor, they will have proved me wrong. They were merely ignorant.
So, what is the difference?
We’ve all heard about The Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
The internet is teeming with opinions and an occasional fact. A few opinions are based on rigorous analysis of underlying facts, but most stem from feelings, prejudicial parental childhood teachings, propaganda, or some other nebulous source.
Here is my modified information version: God, grant me the ability to recognize information based on reality, see that most information is based on the quicksand of opinions, and the wisdom to know the difference.
In my opinion, real intelligence is being able to recognize valid information that moves something’s status from one position to another. Your failure to know the difference at first could be due to ignorance. Refusing to look at new information or being stubborn out of pride, or some other unrelated reason, is stupid.
That goes for everything in life!
Where do you stand? Are you ignorant or stupid?
Was Smith stupid or ignorant? Last night, he attacked a Lyft driver, while the car was in motion and a 7-year-old was getting out of the car, and then he lied to police about what happened. The whole incident was recorded on video.
One of my Facebook friends posted a method to do your own research on about any piece of information. https://www.facebook.com/kellylynn85/posts/10163926835770072