The Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla

Stupidity is often defined in different and inconsistent ways, but it is important to have a basis for stupidity. Stupidity seems ubiquitous but is a subject that is seldom discussed seriously, but needs to be. Mess things up for everyone else without a benefit for themselves. Stupid people are consistently stupid which makes them problematic in many ways. Cipolla presented five rules of stupidity to give us a base line to deal with stupid people.

First, we all underestimate the number of stupid people in the world.

Secondly, it is important to remember that stupidity is independent of all other characteristics that the stupid person might have. This sometimes makes stupidity difficult to recognize.

Third, the issue with stupidity and stupid people is that they cause losses to others with no benefits to themselves According to Cipolla, a person who causes losses to others with a benefit to themselves is a bandit, a criminal.

Fourth, non-stupid people underestimate the danger of stupid people. Nowadays, this particular point is unfortunately becoming more and more obvious. It is becoming more and more necessary for non-stupid people to act against stupidity.

Fifth, stupid people are the most dangerous people on the planet. This is perhaps not so obvious as to why, but the reason is that stupid people have no beneficial place in a civil society. The cause havoc, create losses and add no benefit.

This is a short synopsis, but on a subject that truly needs study.

James Joyce writes, “When the soul of a man is born, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight.  You talk to me of nationality, language, religion.  I shall try to fly by those nets.”  Those nets hold us back, but sadly often we freely entangle ourselves in their snare.  As the writer and traveler Ken Ilgunas reminds us, “We need so little to be happy.  Happiness does not come from things.  Happiness comes from a full and exciting life.”  We have the freedom to do just that; if we would only do something about it.

Perhaps instead of chasing the next thing we could chase our next idea, our next experience? Imagine if you can a world full of curious people exploring and knowing as they do that what they see is truly divine in that irreligious way. Instead of accepting what our society tells us we ought to do, we build a society that we actually want.

We can be happy and it does not “come from things”, or ideologies, or nations, or others. We have it in us. But first we must free ourselves from those nets that so many throw at us. Don’t get fooled by their silver linings. They are cages in the end. Do not accept a cage in any form that you might find it. As you fly by those casting their nets smile and know that although they scream at you that you are lost and that they will save you that it is they that are standing, shackled.

Start with a question and see where it leads you.

The drive to be best is…well, very American. And this drive is often the engine carries us through those hard times that we all will experience. The persistence, the ability to push through pain in circumstances that call for such measures, is that independence and aptitude that so many refer to when waning poetically about how people “used to be”.

But this drive is also that thing pushes people to be overly competitive, rude, selfish and arrogant. The need to better than everyone is oddly enough the same thing as the need to do one’s very best. They are the same, but one overtaken by ego while the other is the result of personal ideals. The need to beat is not the same as the need to do better.

Ah, and only if we could learn this early on. It would save most of us from much brow-beating and self flagellation. When we are young we are often not capable of differentiating the need to beat from the need to do better. We will learn, but it sometimes takes a lifetime.

So, do not lose the need to be better, but remember that thought. It does not mean the need to be better than someone else. It can just mean the need to be better. Virtue is the shining difference. There is no virtue in honor or pride. There is only virtue in knowing that you have done the very best that you could.

Remember this the next time you look back on your life and pull the birch out. Put the switch down. It’s time to remember that we are all only human.

When the arrogance of humanity becomes too much.

For those who have thought about sharing their homes there is only one answer: do it. Whether it is fostering an animal in need or inviting a stranger in for coffee, home is among other things a place to share.

A comfortable place to put your stuff, yes. An abode to put your feet up and relax, it should be. Home ought be a place of comfort and security, of contentment, of letting your guard down, and letting your muscles go from taught to teetering.

Be faithful to your home, and make it your own. Home is a place to be happy. Home is our own, and if we have one we should consider ourselves lucky.

There was a time when naivete was the norm, and home was taken for granted. But those days are over and no longer hidden in the fog of innocence.

Kindness does not have to last for months or days, but simply for hours. Home, however, ought to last for a lifetime.

Days

The days went by, leaves in the wind; just passing and falling to the earth.

Yes, we watch them; not all of them, one or two perhaps, and then we were bored.

The days offered nothing anymore; we looked for new ways, new entertainment but could find none.

we were left alone with our days.

They came to us like clockwork until, in the end, we were sick of days and felt as a goose must feel,

locked in a box and propped with corn.

We bloated ourselves on our days and we the last one finally did come, we begged pitifully for more.

A Christmas wish. So simple. To you, and to me.

All the light flickers in the night and into our eyes. A smile on our lips, a glimmer of happy thoughts.

Words, from thoughts unspoken, unselfish, our intentions are clear, always there.

Give so much, ask for so little. We can be Christmas all year round.

The flickering lights from the night never leaves.

Down to the tree, so beautiful and innocent in the window. So proud and smiling, shared.

If I had one wish to take, I’d wish happiness, never-ending love, sunshine and days.

Days filled with joy, and flickering lights in our eyes.

A Christmas wish. So simple. So wonderful.

Merry Christmas!

While not a comfortable feeling, the feeling of being humbled is healthy. It reminds us that we are human, that we are limited, and that we can learn if we give ourselves a chance. It doesn’t matter what it is that we are humbled by as long as it is truthful, worthwhile, perhaps virtuous.

Do not being fooled by false humbleness or being tricked by things not worthy of being humbled. Be humbled when it is warranted. You will know this. It grows through passion, an honest desire to do better and to realize when there are those that are capable. Don’t have idles.

There is no easy way to be humbled other than putting yourself in difficult situations, making yourself vulnerable and accepting that your best is maybe not good enough. These things are reminders that we are living and that we have a lot to learn if we choose to listen, to try. To put down our facades and face the truth that we might not be able, that we might not understand.

To learn is uncomfortable. To live is difficult. To admit is embarrassing. Do these things and watch how far you can go.

#3

Coming back from NYC-it’s a place that once was beautiful and now walks in its filth and yet, calls itself beautiful.

It’s a place that has all and yet gives away nothing free.

It is a place that has a welcome mat in its doorway and a gun in its kitchen.

It is a place where people have proven that money is god and god is money.

It is a place of fear, gossip, destitution, fortune and meaningless black anger.

It is a place of lonely crowds, crowded madmen, mad crowds and lonely madmen.

New York is a place that knows nothing and is all knowing; is nothing and thinks that it is everything.

New York is a caricature of humankind, a farce, a joke, a good fuck on a rainy day, a pimp-bitch.

It is a place of joy and dreams and dreams of joy; past, futures and future pasts, genius and chimps, want-to-be’s and stupid attitudes.

It is a place of lost religions: dumb doilies, saints, elephants, swords and pillars, bellowing ministers.

New York is the place of ending and human sacrifice; no-goods and “why me”, suits, ties and Halloween.

It is the place of no reason and shallow culture; those underlings of ignorance and high aspirations.

New York is the achievement of whores for those who do not want to know anything; the house that is filthy and proud; the worthless shit of forgotten sewage.

New York is humanity, cluttered in its quick and hidden remorse; sheltered by its looming doom and peaceful with its ghosts.

It is the place where gods and thieves dine together at the table of many on the bodies of the few, not knowing that death lays in the plate.

New York is what New York was destined to be, never was, always will be, has been, not for long, forever.