Am I as Stupid as You think I am?

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Ah, the cosmic irony of it! There is nothing in life which I love more than cosmic irony (and for the sake of brevity, at least my version of such a concept – if I ever say “let me be brief” run for your life because it’s going to be a long journey into the dark night – I won’t debate my own statement).

The universe loves to play pranks, have a laugh at the expense of humans… or is it for the benefit of humans if only we could get the joke. Then instead of feeling that life is laughing at us we could laugh with it, at ourselves, and enjoy living this thing called life a bit more… perhaps. But no one likes having a prank played on them. Playing a prank on someone else is hilarious, to the prank player and those who are not the butt of the joke, but the butt, even if they are a prankster themselves, does not see the humour in such a scenario. When we are made to feel the fool… it makes us feel the sort of emotions which make us extremely and intensely uncomfortable.

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“People do not mind being wicked; but they object to being made ridiculous.” – Moliere

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Mere seconds after I came up with the title for this post…

While I was cogitating what on earth I was going to say next…

While also trying to figure out whether I was foolish enough to link this post to the Weekly Writing Challenge: Oh, The Irony, and reveal that I really am not sure what irony is – I once thought I knew but then Alanis Morissette happened and after that I avoided irony, the mention of it, using the word, with a phobic zeal. Sometimes I slip up and refer to something as ironic, then I cringe and hear the tick tock of time counting down to my use of the word blowing up, leaving me with wrongness of wrong egg splatter on my face.

I don’t mind being wrong, I perversely quite enjoy the consequences of it especially when it proves to be just what I needed, particularly when it is funny and I get to laugh at my own stupidity for thinking that I was smart…but that doesn’t mean the pill is easy to swallow.

Ah, those pills… so many to swallow… to get stuck in the throat on their way down… even if they went down quite easily, their ghosts still stay stuck in the throat.

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“One ought to examine himself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.” – Molière

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… the power went. Poof and I was back in the dark ages.

At first I didn’t notice. The house was already dark. The skies outside were a dramatic shade of grey, tears streaming from the billions of eyes which make up clouds.

I move through the dark as though it is light, and often hide from the light as though it was dark. Something which those who know me find to be a pain in their shins and stubbed toes. How can you see where you are going and what you are doing, they often exclaim just before they try to fix what is wrong with me and leave me with something which I then need to unfix. If I wanted the light on in the room, then it would be on… it is not off because it never occurred to me to turn it on. I may not know how to do many daily practical things, but turning a light switch on is something I do know how to do. So if the light is off… it’s off for a reason.

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“Of all follies there is none greater than wanting to make the world a better place.”  – Molière

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However on this darkened day, I did want the light on, and thought I’d turned it on just before I left the room – which seems a silly thing to do, but I was planning on returning immediately after the break from being in that room.

On returning to the room… the light was off. Didn’t I just turn it on? Maybe I only thought about doing it, and thought about it to the extent that I considered it done as if by magic, a twitch of the nose. Thought turning into act or thought thinking it had acted upon itself.

I turned it on again, but nothing happened. I removed the bulb (yes, it only takes one of me to do such a thing, no need to call for back-up or the electrician), shook it (that’s the professional way of assessing the status of a bulb – and ideas, and sussing out what is in a wrapped gift even if the very act breaks what was once in one piece until… you know), heard no tinkling of broken bulbness, yet decided to get a fresh one anyway (maybe my hearing was defecting, the rain was very loud).

To find a fresh bulb, a light was needed for spare bulbs are kept in dark places – and that’s when the bulb in my head sparked, a new idea dawned, and I was no longer in the dark about darkness.

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“The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit.” – Moliere

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We get power cuts here all the time, however they are fleeting things which only mess with your mind – Did the lights just go off!?! But they’re on so maybe the power cut only happened in my mind. A momentary internal blackout. Something must power the human system, and it too may experience fluctuations and short circuits.

I checked the fuse box (not so stupid now, am I), my fingers running along the switches to detect a down when it should be up, a looseness in something which should be hard and fixed. I could have done this with a torch, but when darkness descends I feel my way through it relying on other senses available. I didn’t really need those other senses to inform me that the power cut went far beyond my reach, my eyes could tell me that for the lights counting my usage of borrowed energy, tallying the cost of my existence and all that entails, were off. No longer counting. This darkness was not costing me a thing, and yet I couldn’t accept such freedom.

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“A learned fool is more foolish than an ignorant one.” – Moliere

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I went to the home phone (landline), but not to phone home. It was beeping, informing me that it was of no use for it relies on electricity to function. How could I call the electric company… …when my phone needed electricity to make calls. I could not recall where the old phone which did not rely on something I no longer had was hidden – stored away just in case, but where was the just in case place located. My memory offered me a different kind of darkness and lack of power in reply to my searches through its hallways.

I can use my mobile… uh, oh. If there is one thing which can make me feel the force of my own stupidity, it is this small contraption. A small thing which has the power to work when there is no power, and to make me feel as small as a mote on a mote… which is only a pleasant feeling when the sun is shining as its rays makes motes visible.
As I trudged through the labyrinth of using my mobile, I made it through (albeit shouting loudly for help in doing so as the electric company’s communication gateway required pressing numbers and I couldn’t find the numbers to press) to a person… an actual person on the other end of the line. Usually a relief after running the gauntlet of recorded voices, but this time there was barely a gauntlet to run and I wasn’t prepared to talk to a living breathing being as I had only just geared myself up (and learned how to press endless numbers) to get me through…

I was silent for what seemed like an age. I knew that I was supposed to talk or the person might hang up… and then I’d have to start all over again and feel foolish for doing so (this this was being charged by the minute and minutes are seconds when charges apply).

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“Nearly all men die of their remedies, and not of their illnesses.” – Moliere

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I managed to get a shot of alternative power to my vocal chords. It seems my internal system has a back-up generator (you learn something new every day, about yourself, others, and life). The conversation went well. The person was lovely… how lovely to find a lovely person! I know they exist but sometimes I wonder if I’m being delusional, and this is not knowing but naivety. They seemed to care… how could this be!?! I’m just a fragment in a giant fractal of people… yet I seemed to matter, to have matter to my form. All went well, they talked me through the process (of communicating with an actual person and how it is done) until the person asked me for numbers, my house number, my phone number… none of which I could recall. Oh why can I never recall what I need to know when I need to know it, I know I know it, I just can’t know it when it is necessary to know such things… which is a kin to knowing nothing… ask me much later when this knowledge is no longer relevant and I will be a too late savant every time!

Shortly after this interaction, the power returned and the dark ages were a thing of the past again.

However…

The question – Am I as stupid as you think I am – continued to haunt me, as it had haunted me throughout the debacle, with cosmic irony (cosmic irony is apparently a sub-genre of irony, one created to accommodate the misuse of the original meaning of irony – whatever that is – which has become so virulently rampant that a thing, such as irony, has been forced to change its meaning to suit a new meaning of it – or at least that’s what I got from what I read about it which… means nothing).

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“I prefer an accommodating vice
To an obstinate virtue.” – Moliere

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Dear Universe, is it too late to specify that the question about my stupidity was rhetorical (if I have that concept correct, which I probably don’t) and really did not need an answer… although it was a most amusing prank of an answer to a question I wasn’t really asking and to which I didn’t need an answer.

And while I’m writing little missives to the void, which may be dark or may be light or… I don’t know…

Dear Ben, this – I look forward to reading your posts. I mean it! – vraiment! “Le Seigneur Jupiter sait dorer la pilule.” – Moliere. Your words make me feel that I was not as stupid as I later came to conclude that I was for asking such a question (which may or may not be rhetorical).

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