Pop Up Problems

The other day I clicked on a link to an article, and as I scanned it quickly from start to finish to decide whether it was worth reading it properly, the whole page was frozen by a pop up problem which required that I either agree or disagree with it to unfreeze the page and get on with what I was doing.

Here’s a screen shot of that moment:

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If you look at the conclusion of the greyed out article behind the pop up problem you will notice that it says – “However difficult your daily struggles may seem, you don’t need to let them immobilize you…” – which struck me as funny because I was immobilised until I agreed or disagreed with the pop up.

Someone pointed out to me (later on when I told them about the incident, sharing a funny… a funny they totally missed because they were showing off their knowledge of how to fix the problem… which by that time wasn’t a problem anymore more it was just a funny and stupid anecdote soon to be forgotten) that somewhere on the page there should have been an option to bypass the pop up without needing to agree or disagree…

there probably was but I didn’t notice it at the time as all I saw was this problem (which is how problems work) blocking me from reading the article…

an article which, tbh, I’d decided wasn’t worth reading properly as it was just regurgitating stuff I’d read before elsewhere and was basically an ego stroking list of ordinary human things which you could use to prove you were highly intelligent to yourself, and perhaps to others if you shared it… so they could also use it to prove how highly intelligent they were… and so on… but what’s the point of doing that anyway?

What’s the point of being ‘highly’ intelligent… isn’t it enough to be relatively intelligent…

and isn’t intelligence responsible for an awful lot of problems which we humans create for ourselves and for others – including this weird competition where we compete to be the one with the highest IQ… what’s the prize for winning something like that?

Going by other articles and quotes from those who have been deemed truly ‘highly intelligent’… that sort of status is a curse rather than a blessing.

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I’m thankful that I’m not highly intelligent…

I used to want to be that way, it seemed like such a prized goal (to those around me… and thus it became mine too), but I could never quite get there, the rungs on that ladder kept moving, becoming more complex as I climbed, and kept breaking…

one minute something was intelligent and the next minute that very same thing was stupid…

I couldn’t keep up with the changing parameters and at some point I began to wonder if trying to keep up with such an unstable entity was something I should really be spending lifetime points doing…

As I get older and in some ways dumber… I’m happier… it’s hard to quantify something as abstract as happiness, yet humans keep trying to do it (often to bottle it so as to sell it to others).

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These days with so many people competing in the intelligence olympics…

I’m hiding out in the stupid corner, proudly wearing a dunce hat I made for myself as I got stuck and immobilised contemplating a pop up problem which everyone else knew how to deal with one way or another…

I will never either agree or disagree with with it…

Sometimes it is too late to start over. Sometimes it is not. If it is then you should probably admit it and deal with it. If it’s not maybe you should investigate why you ended up where you are before trying to get a different result.

If you weren’t happy with yesterday, try something different today… but what if doing the same thing today that you did yesterday makes today a happy day, the reason it didn’t make yesterday a happy day was because… yesterday was a Monday?

Don’t stay stuck – what if staying stuck is exactly where you need to be and if you wait it out… but you didn’t because some pop up problem commanded you not to do it…

Do better… what if there’s no such thing as better and that is just a notion we’re being sold to make us never satisfied with who we are, where we are, what we have… and those selling this notion don’t know that they’re perpetuating something they were sold… then again what if there is a better?

but what if better isn’t what we think it is…

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It may seem as though I disagree with this pop up problem more than I agree with it, but I don’t. I agree with it too…

however it depends on the moment, on the context, the scenario…and details which real life has that pop up problems like this one don’t and can’t include.

It’s all rather too vague because it’s about nothing and everything and that’s always going to be vague…

which means agreeing or disagreeing is also going to be vague.

What about you – agree, disagree or prefer to abstain?