INTENTIONAL STUPIDITY

I’m more than certain I’ve written about this already, but that tends to happen when you write once a week for nearly 12 years on the very limited subject of physical transformation.  BUT, the fact I’m wanting to still write about it means it definitely has some staying power.  In fact, I just remembered the post, titled “Dare to Be Stupid”, taken from the Weird Al song of the same name, but allow me to once again sing the praises of stupidity, so long as the stupidity we engage in is INTENTIONAL stupidity.  Yes, stupidity can be a downfall when it happens to us accidentally, but when we CHOOSE stupidity, when we use our powerful monkey brains to analyze a situation, come up with a solution, determine that this solution is incredibly stupid and then WILLINGLY choose to still pursue this path?  THAT, dear reader, is empowerment.  We are no longer a victim of our own stupidity but, instead, a PATRON of it.  We are blessed with the gift of this stupidity. We humans have been granted the capability to determine good and bad decisions AND the free will to intentionally pick the stupid choice among the two.  …so why would we?

If only it was this easy

Allow me to let George Carlin shed some light on the subject of stupidity.  He gifted us many amazing quotes, and it is this one in particular that I find relevant to this discussion.  “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”  George definitely had a talent in illuminating us to new ways to view the world, and as a misanthrope I could not help but cherish this quote.  But aside from the sheer comedic genius of it, let’s consider what this really means to us: “common sense” is of little worth to this seeking UNCOMMON outcomes.  The party-line, the agreed upon consensus, the status quo, the established norms, etc etc: all of these things are irrelevant if one is seeking to be DIFFERENT from average.  And someone seeking a goal of physical transformation absolutely seeks to be different from average.  Ideally, that difference is BETTER than average, putting one at the top of that bell curve of humanity, but if nothing else one is still seeking a break from the norms.  And much like George Carlin talked about regarding stupidity, extend it further: think about how physically unimpressive the average person is, and realize half of them are less impressive than that!”

Which is WHY it should be of no concern to us if we are considered stupid for the actions we take.  So many live in fear of the judgement of others, but are we really to be so concerned of the thoughts and opinions of these average people?  Or of the half of them that are LESS than the already unimpressive average?  Are we to lend any degree of weight to their opinions of us and what we do?  Nietzsche has expressed the idea that, in order for us to be offended or insulted, we must first consider the offender to be our equal, and, in turn, we empower those who insult us.  So, already, we have established the protection from judgement for acting on our stupidity: there is no need to be concerned with the opinions of those that would consider us stupid.  If we abide by what the average person considers to be well thought out and intelligent action, we doom ourselves to their fate.

This is why Skynet kills us

But going beyond that, why would we do something that WE consider stupid?  Because being smart is how we got to where we are…and now we seek to be somewhere else!  I’m willing to entertain the notion that there ARE good ideas out there, that there ARE intelligent individuals out there in the sphere of physical transformation, that there IS an established road and path to success…but we must ALSO appreciate the reality that, often times, we get stuck.  Things work until they don’t.  “Everything works…for 6 weeks”, per Dan John.  When we’ve exhausted our intelligent approaches, what avenue remains?  Stupidity!  Because the smart path has STOPPED working, so now comes time to do something stupid.

And again, the empowerment is in the CHOICE to be stupid.  We are engaging in this stupidity willingly, because we are wanting to explore uncharted avenues that MAY prove to be illuminating because they’ve been hidden under the cloak of stupidity.  We previously wrote off these ideas, saying “I’m not going to do that: that’s stupid”…and now we find ourselves starving, opened up the pantry, and all that remains is stupid.  All of my great breakthroughs have been going off the reservation to do stupid things: drinking a gallon of milk a day while following Super Squats, my initial foray into Deep Water, my first exposure to Pavel in “Beyond Bodybuilding” and abbreviated training with Stuart McRobert, all the stupid things from Westside Barbell, my current indulgence in DoggCrapp training, my attempts at being an athlete on low carb and carnivore eating contrasted with my Dave Tate inspired “Body by Fast Food” living: all of these things were SO stupid compared to the conventional norms and approaches out there, and ALL of them were game changers.  And, of course, in all instances, I initially thought they were stupid ideas…and, in turn, they took hold in my brain.

Once he's in your head, there's no getting him out

We have to understand and appreciate our biases whenever we observe new information.  We always view them through a lens that’s been clouded by our previous experiences and “knowledge” accumulated over time.  In turn, we can become our own echo chamber: we can just keep consuming the things we find agreeable and discarding the things we find disagreeable.  This is fantastic for preventing cognitive dissonance, but it is VERY poor approach for creating the kind of growth that will make us different from average.  Instead, we must employ our cognitive powers to be able to recognize and deduce that something is “stupid” by our own criteria AND be willing to CHOOSE stupidity in the instance where intellect has failed us.  When we hear some influencer out there spout an idea that runs completely counter to everything else we’ve ever experienced, we should absolutely consider it stupid AND absolutely consider it as well.  It should be stored away for the day when being smart is no longer working out for us.  As my Grandfather used to say: “If you’re so dang smart, how come you’re not rich?”  If being smart has only gotten us THIS far, it may be time to employ some intentional stupidity.