Smart people are morons too

My friend, Devang, and I did this cardio work out class today up at the University. It kicked my ass. And it convinced me that I am a big fat fuckin' whiner in my own workouts and that I really appreciate someone kicking my ass.

I concede. Structured learning experiences, for all of their shortcomings - aggressive and counterproductive pressure is a very serious shortcoming that I don't ever want to deal with ever again, if I can avoid it; the inability to express and share thoughts, ideas, experiences and feelings as openly as you can in more intimate, informal, trusting, friend experiences is the biggest one - can be one of the best means of learning something new. I got my ass kicked today by a not-too-difficult workout. And I don't want to ever hear myself whine about hard work every again. Because I feel great for getting my ass kicked. Granted, our instructor offered us plenty of challenge choices - "Only do this if you want" - but it was a great experience, nonetheless.

And the experience had me thinking about all the places in my life - and there are far too many to count and it is in literally every place in my life - that I whine, internally, about how I don't want to do such and such.

But I am a fucking moron for every place in my life where I have taken for granted a great opportunity in my life. It is moronity that I have learned from. I don't take such opportunities - financial opportunities, work opportunities, school opportunities, relationship opportunities - for granted anymore. And that, as well as the tradeoff of freedom to determine the course for my own life, was the most important value that came out of taking them for granted. I think it was positive, overall, to experience the learning experiences and consequences (although, a lot of more artificial and imposed consequences are really just kind of counterproductive; the freedom to figure out mistakes with natural consequences is the ideal learning experience, by far, without a doubt) that made such learning possible.

But I just want to say that being smart doesn't mean that you aren't a moron, too. I've made big mistakes in my life and learned from them, I hope. Smart people do seem to get the bigger lessons learned more readily. But even that has limitations, I've learned. Plenty of smart people, myself included, who fuck up shit over and over and over again and still don't learn the lesson.

This question of pressure and aggression in public policy, right now, is one such fuck up.

But we're all morons, when it comes down to it. If we shared that more with one another in schools, maybe that would give everyone more confidence that everyone can be smarter and make fewer mistakes, over the long haul, as a consequence. But that would also involve me not making so many fuckin' excuses for why I'm such a whiner, so much of the time. That's my resolution tonight after getting my ass kicked by Andrea and the cardio workout I got tonight. If the point was to humble me and help me see what an out-of-shape, uncordinated oaf I am, Andrea succeeded marvelously.

I'm up for next week:).

Love,
Ben