EVERYTHING YOU DO IS STUPID

After having spent enough time on the internet, I’ve found that probably one of the greatest of insults one can levy upon another is the accusation that the activity one engages is in stupid.  People will use a variety of different adjectives and modifiers to convey certain degrees of stupidity and colorful language is abound, but fundamentally, it always boils down to “the thing that you do is stupid”.  And people absolutely fly off the handle once this accusation is unfolded.  All sorts of bizarre scenarios are concocted to explain why it’s necessary to engage in this activity, other activities are brought into the judgement of the audience as a necessary compassion of stupidity, the stupidity of the accuser is put into light, etc etc.  Round and round we go attempting to ensure, above all else, that we walk away KNOWING that the thing we do isn’t stupid…but why does that even matter?  Most certainly, the thing that you do is stupid.

Especially if you are this guy

I’m of course going to go nihilistic here, but let’s be honest; what thing to do ISN’T stupid?  Take the million mile view on this one; the Earth has existed for so much longer than we have, and our lifespans are so short in comparison it’s not even a blip on the radar.  The memory of us MIGHT last a few generations, and if we’re a really big deal, maybe even a few millennia, but even THAT isn’t that much.  And even if the memory of us were to last until the end of time, that’s just it; eventually time WILL end.  The imminent heat death of the universe will occur, the sun will explode, space and time will collapse in on themselves, something will be divided by zero, Cthulhu will rise, etc etc.  Absolutely nothing we do matters.  Everything we do is stupid.  Trying to justify why what you do is smart is failing to be at peace with your frail mortality and attempting to pacify your existential angst of the unknown by some sort of banal notion that “you” will live on, whether through some sort of religious afterlife or via memory.

Well that’s pretty goddamn depressing, so now what?  Here’s the thing; there is some sort of bizarre de facto accepted argument that, because a thing is stupid, it is not worth doing.  This is typically what is implied when one slings accusations of stupidity at an action; they’re actually trying to say “that activity is not worth doing [because it is stupid]” rather than just making a declarative statement of fact.  Bullcrap I say.  So many things that are worth doing are completely and utterly ridiculously stupid.

 
Although this movie should have never been made

You know what’s absolutely stupid?  Falling in love.  Think about it; you’re really going to diminish the survival odds of the species by committing yourself to one single human (or maybe a few if you’re into that I guess) by an emotional bond?  Hell no!  The smart play is to get out there, form zero emotional attachments, mate with as many people as you possibly can through cold, detached mechanical sex and sire many progeny.  And hey; when you form no emotional bonds with people, that means you won’t ever get hurt by them either.  But man, how much of actual LIFE do you miss out on when you do this really smart thing eh?  And we already established life is short and meaningless, so why not get the most feelings out of it as possible before it all goes away.

Hobbies?  How stupid.  You don’t get paid for hobbies; you PAY for hobbies.  You’re really going to go take that money that you spent time to accumulate and go spend it on hobbies?  Way to go genius; now you need to work even more!  Just imagine how much smarter you’d be if you lived a cold miserable existence devoid of any joy or recreation, where you simply worked as many hours as possible and lived as meagerly as possible with no excess.  You’d have SO much more money to spend on…well, nothing really.  Crap, sometimes even being smart is pretty damn stupid.

At least now you'll have time to lift

LIFE exists in those stupid things we do. It’s when we choose to be stupid that we get to be human and experience the full range of our incredibly complex psyche.  But didn’t I earlier say that life was meaningless and just a blip and nothing we do matters?  Yes I did; which is why you need to quit taking yourself so goddamn seriously.  Laugh at what you are and acknowledge that, yup, what you’re doing is stupid.  Lifting weights is so incredibly stupid, getting bigger and stronger is ridiculously stupid, finding other humans to compete against in contests where you’re measuring who is the biggest and the strongest is the zenith of stupidity.  Probably the only thing stupider than all of this is engaging in an argument about whose activity is the REAL stupid one.

This is why it does not offend me when I am told what I am doing is stupid.  I am constantly told by super helpful internet warriors that the form I use is stupid, my programming is stupid, my diet is stupid, etc etc.  What do I say in response?  “I am a very stupid person”.  It robs the conversation of momentum, takes power from the accuser, and honestly represents the reality of the situation.  I am at peace with the fact that I am a stupid person doing stupid things.  Who isnt’?