It’s hard to live in a world where most of the people are stupid.
It’s also hard to be aware of how stupid I can be. Might be.
How can we know if we’re The Smart One(TSO) and everybody else is The Dumb One(TDO)?
Whether to be or not to be a TDO or TSO should be a constant conversation between whatever you call your IV (Inner Voice) and your OV (Outer Voice).* If you think you are TSO, who tells you that? Is it a self-assessment or the result of careful polling?
And if you don’t know your if are TDO, same thing.
I’ve spent this week avoiding people. You guys are so irritating, thoughtless, insensitive, and ignorant. All of you. At the car repair place the mechanic who had recently fixed my license plate light by just taping it back on, said this when it fell off and I showed it to him: “You can go the dollar store and buy heavier duty tape.” Or the Customer Service Rep who told me how important it was for her to listen while she talked over me for 15 minutes. Or the car dealership who swindled me out of $1,300 dollars and decided it was best to just ignore me. Or the…
What’s the use. There is so much happening in life does an old man simply have more time to notice TDOs or are there more TDOs, now? It’s reasonable to note as the general population increases so do the “subsets” of the population. Meaning: more TDOs and more TSOs?
Wait a minute. How many stupid things does a person have to do to earn TDO status?
Likewise, for TSO award. If you use a turn signal 99 percent of the time, for example, are you TDO or TSO? And if I am following you during that neglectful TDO 1 percent, is my judgment fair? And can you hear it?
A recent “Time Study” report hinted time goes faster when we’re busy because our heart beats faster and tells the brain everything is moving faster and the brain applies that judgement to time. Imagine studying The Watched Pot Never Boils theory. Stupid me, isn’t time a constant no matter what our heart and brain think or do? Who is TSO and Who is TDO?
Another report on women “quietly quitting” relationships praises the woman for taking action and not letting her life slip away. Aren’t there two people in a relationship and isn’t the whole point to make it work “in sickness and in health”? If one “quietly quits” a relationship is he a TDO or TSO? This is NOT about relationships where one or the other is abusive, dismissive, or inhuman. Relationships are hard work for both the heart and the mind.
Can a person be a TDO in the beginning of a relationship and turn into TSO? Or vice versa? Can one member change the other from TSO to TDO? Or vice versa?**
Sadly, and very often, I rue the words thought of and often uttered when dealing with TDO. After the damage is done, I contemplate what might have caused TSO to do something stupid the one time they were dealing with me. It makes me wonder how often people in my vicinity considered me TDO.
It’s a personal preference to consider myself TSO no matter what anyone—or everyone–else thinks, especially in my rare, once-in-a-million-years moment of TDO behavior.
How about you?
*We all have at least one of each. Multiple Personalities may have more.
**You know what vice versa means, but ever wonder where it came from? It’s Latin, meaning “with the order changed, or relationships reversed, or the other way around.” Per Ai. Or is it Si, now?
