Stupid is as Stupid does

I never really understand what in the world that meant for the longest time until I watched Forrest Gump recently and finally gave it some thought. And after 12 years, I finally figured it out and I'd have to agree with that 100 percent.

Which brings me to the topic of stupid people. Q and I were discussing some topic the other day and he said outright,

"There are a lot of stupid people out there. You'd be surprised." Now, he's been telling me that for years, actually. He's always told me there are a lot of stupid people out there, there are even a lot of stupid doctors out there. But all this time I always had my doubts about that until I really paid close attention to my environment and how people behaved.

For example, let's take driving. There I am, driving the speed limit and cruising along getting great gas mileage. Then the guy in back of me gets so impatient that he has to change lanes, floor it to pass me, and then practically comes to a screeching halt because of the red light right in front of us. Then when the light turns green, he blasts off and goes tearing down the road until he slams on his brakes, again because of another red light. And this happens over and over with the same driver. Now, is that guy seeing a pattern there or what? What is the point of doing that other than wearing down your throttle, brakes, tires, and wasting gas, especially during these times when gas comes at a premium price? Honestly, I don't get it. It should be apparent that you won't save any time doing that. But people do it over and over and it's not just where I live, but also in Illinois, New Jersey, California, everywhere.

Here's another example: taxes. Many people who file for taxes file to get all their money up front from their employer first, and not give any to the government until taxes are due. Which usually means they end up owing the government some insane amount of money at the time their taxes are due, but because they've spent every single penny that they own, they can't pay it. There's no more money. Instead of saving or investing, they've gone out and purchased that $50,000 SUV that they just couldn't live without when they make only 30K/year, bought their flashy clothes, HDTV, and fancy cell phone. Okay, in the U.S. you need a car. Do you really need one that cost 50 grand? Do you need an HDTV? Do you need a $400 cell phone? And then the same people cry about not being able to pay taxes.

Another example is smoking. People inhale smoke, and then wonder why they're coughing up green sputum all the time, or why they get short of breath, or how they got lung cancer. I mean, just think about it. Smoke is thick, toxic, dirty air. Do you really think it was meant for man to put this in to his lungs? And how many billions of people do this? If you went out and ate someone's poop, don't you think you would get some sort of GI problem? Well, the same applies with smoking.

So Q was right. There really are tons of stupid people all over the place.

'Tis the Season...

To be panicking, frantic, pushing over old half-cripple grandma's at the store so that you can buy the last girlie doll for your niece or beat the crap out of the guy who bought the last hot video game that you wanted for your son. After watching and hearing about the tramplings and beatings on the news on Black Friday, I thought that God didn't have to bring about Armageddon or Judgement Day to mankind. Man would bring about its own Armageddon, willingly. How? Well, just think about the insanity of this whole Christmas season and these situations.

Now, I have nothing against Christmas. In fact, getting a nicely wrapped present from people is kinda cool. What it has to do with celebrating the birth of a religious icon that has affected billions of lives, I'll never know. But whatever. So we celebrate the fact that he was born every year. Peace on Earth...for 5 weeks AFTER Thanksgiving. No use in being nice to people before Thanksgiving because the Christmas "season" doesn't start until the Friday afterwards.

Now when the holiday "spirit" (or is it spirits? - vodka? rum?) is initiated, we're nicer to people on the road, we're nicer to people at work, we give people holiday bonuses at work for doing the same job they've been doing all year. And we have his insane obligation to go to the stores to buy gifts for people because it's Christmas. I'm not sure where or how or even why this idea got started. We're supposed to celebrate Christ's birth - how does that equate to buying things at the store? Well, we were all raised that way, it's been done for years and so we go about mindlessly following that same ridiculous habit without thinking about why we're doing it. And while we're doing it, we get so caught up in the whole thing that we'll drives for miles, walk for hours, shop for days and weeks until we complete our shopping list. And we'll run over anyone, including that 90 year-old granny, who gets in our way (don't be fooled - that granny is just as vicious as you are in the mall arena).

The very term "holiday spirit" sums it up. What is holiday spirit? What does it mean? Be happy and cheerful, be nice to strangers, family, and coworkers, just as long as they're not competing with you for the same item at the shopping mall and continue this for 6 weeks during the coldest time of the year, and afterwards, regress to your usual mean SOB self?

Some people who are less forunate, without a lot of money, actually break in to cars or houses to steal money or gifts so that they have money to buy presents or gifts to give their children. All in the name of...Christmas? So is that what Christmas is about? Committing a felony for material gain for yourself and/or offspring.

Christmas day comes and we spend time with family and friends and have a good meal, something that I'm all for. Some people go to church, which I think is a good idea, especially since the holiday is all about that. New Year's Day comes about 1 week later, and the holiday cheer is still going around.

But about 2 weeks after New Year's, life returns to what it's like most of the year. You go back to flipping people off on the freeway, cussing out your co-workers, fighting with your neighgbor, spitting at that homeless beggar on the street pan-handling, and kicking that dog on your way to school. It's expected, and you can get away with this because it's not the Christmas "season" anymore. There's no reason to be nice.

And we go the rest of the year, not really thinking about the birth of Christ or being nice to strangers or fellow man until the following year.

Insanity? Hippocrisy? Normal screwed-up human behaviour?

You decide. I gotta finish my Christmas shopping.