Sunday 7 July 2002

Pic of the day: It's camouflage picture time again! This time it's the summer camouflage gear that is tested. You know, some dumb animals think that if they hide their head, they can't be seen. And you know what? For dumb animals, it often works. Of course, when it doesn't work, it's really dumb...
(As usual pictures of me are copyrighted. You are not supposed to use them for evil, sinful purposes. Crazy is OK, though.)

Smart but dumb

My pocket PC woke me up at a quarter past six in the morning. I got up, put on my green jogging suit, drank some water, and put on my jogging shoes. I grabbed my digital camera and the house key, and set off along the lonely Sunday morning roads. It was surprisingly cold, so much that I could hardly believe this was the height of summer. I had to remind myself that it was only a couple of weeks since the longest day in the year. It felt like spring or fall, certainly not like a summer that had seen many sunny days. But the young trees along the road gave away the truth: They had long, green shots that where new from this very summer.

One problem with weekends is that we know we can sleep longer in the morning, so we stay up longer in the night. This does not make for the best sleep quality, and it certainly doesn't make it any easier to get up on Monday. Getting up early on Sunday should help with that problem; and I better have something specific to do, or I would just lie back down and fall asleep again.

It worked. I came back wide awake, and it was not until around 1 in the afternoon that I fell asleep while playing Dark Age of Camelot. And then I slept for two hours... Now it's midnight and I'm wide awake. Oh well; back to the drawing board.

***

It is unnerving how history repeats itself. I had thought of an entry for today: How we can be smart and dumb at the same time. Then before actually writing it, I sat down and read through the three "years ago" entries. And there, three years ago, was my musings on how smart does not mean mature. This is certainly based on my own experience ...

Actually I think I am slightly more mature now than I was three years ago, despite today's picture. It is for illustration purposes only; I don't actually want to play hide and seek. I did like that when I was younger, though. I thought it was very exciting; but it's just not the same anymore when you reach the age of the grandparent generation.

***

Anyway, smart and dumb. To be intelligent just means that you do not need to do dumb things. It does not mean that you don't do them. You still have the option of acting stupid. So not only will you still do stupid things when you don't have enough information, no matter how smart you are; you will also continue to do stupid things when you feel like it.

Now, wasn't that a revelation?

I guess sometimes - perhaps pretty often - we do stupid things because we like to. And I think that's OK as long as we harm no one, not even ourselves. Of course, sometimes we may even do that; but that is where we should start our work. It is not realistic to decide to never do anything dumb. Keep it simple, stupid. Or smart...

***

Further proof that acting stupid or immature is seen as a good thing:

My lover is a chance to play the fool,
to shake a lot of trees and break the rules.
She's bringing me back the boy inside,
my lover gives me time...

Chris de Burgh, My Lover is.

But since I don't really have a lover, I guess I have to do it myself. Oh wait; that did not come out right! I mean, I guess I have to break the rules myself. Trust me, there are worse things to break than rules. For instance hearts.