Do you ever think about stupidity? In everyday jargon, it has become reduced to describing someone who’s acting foolishly, saying something nonsensical or just being annoying.
While it’s not far away from one of the many “official” definitions, it carries a much more serious and profound meaning—and dangerous consequences if practiced daily and voluntarily.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines stupid as silly or unwise; showing poor judgment or little intelligence.

Another, shorter definition is lacking thought or intelligence. As simple as that.

So, what are intelligence and thought, then?

The Cambridge Dictionary gives a straightforward definition: the ability to learn, understand, and make judgments or have opinions that are based on reason.

There is one that I like even more, and it’s from the Collins Dictionary:

Intelligence is the ability to think, reason, and understand instead of doing things automatically or by instinct.

What a powerful definition. Straight to the point.

What I respect and appreciate even more is not only the ability to understand, but the willingness to become aware—to choose intelligence over stupidity and to seek wisdom. Unlike stupidity, which sits next to every fool waiting to be picked up, wisdom and intelligence are offered to us by God on a daily basis.
For free.

James 1:5 (NIV) says:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.”

In Proverbs 3:13-14 (NIV), King Solomon says:

“Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better return than gold.”

The more I observe people nowadays, the more I notice that, as unaware as they may seem, as robotic as they may have become or are becoming, there is still a large portion of humans who voluntarily, continuously, shamelessly and without even a drop of repentance, choose stupidity.

In one of Indie Tribe’s songs, there’s a powerful and demanding question:

“God is talkin’, only question is, will you interrupt?
Are you stupid? Are you dumb?
You gotta pick one!”

So, while I try to have understanding for people’s pasts, their upbringing, social influences, relationships, financial situations and everything else, I cannot stop asking myself one question:

Am I asking for too much when I ask for respect?

The amount of stupidity I’ve tolerated over the past few months brought me to the very thin red line of tolerance and forgiveness.

An older lady who happens to be my neighbor recently pulled my braid after first almost commanding me to turn around so she could see how long my hair was. The very next day, she commented on its length again before grabbing my braid. While I stood on the stairs in shock, calmly asking her why she did it, she stood with a bland smile, confused by my directness.

I felt sadness and anger overwhelm me, and then eventually, forgiveness. Still, I kept thinking of a diagnosis and the closest I came to was evil stupidity.

Fast forward few weeks, this diagnosis didn’t seem to have an end.

I saw people laughing at survivors of sexual assault—both men and women (as if this is a matter that should be approached from a gender point of view). I saw people defending a rapist. I heard people accusing a mother who threw herself and her daughter from a fifth-floor apartment after years of domestic abuse, public humiliation, lawsuits ignored by corrupted institutions, and no one to protect them for years.
I watched videos with courageous police officers arresting pedophiles at different locations while gathering horrifying evidence, only to read comment sections filled with arguments about race, gender and political affiliation.

Not a single empathetic comment about the kids. Most people tried to be funny by writing miserable comments.

Just like that, convinced they are “cool,” “hilarious,” “trendy,” or that they somehow belong (to a group), they deny their loss of self and of dignified individuality. They decide to stick to stupidity, unaware of the harm they are causing. Or worse, they are very much aware but do not care about the consequences.

I wonder, where is the line between stupidity and evil? Or, is it, like Voldemort, so parasitic, that it acts like one thing with two faces?

The worrying part is that, like bacterial or viral infections, stupidity does not attack only one person. It either passes onto another, who decides to kiss the fool and play along, or grows into a big infection and gets passed onto someone’s open wound.

People rarely think about how their prideful choice of “It’s not that serious” can affect someone or the whole society.

The latest, seemingly innocent thing that threw me off the rails was a like. Yes, a like on Instagram, from a person I wholeheartedly love, on a post where someone thought it would be entertaining to compare a bad day at work with a victim’s PTSD from sexual molestation.

It took me a few hours to rethink if I should confront them or not about this, only to hear God tell me that it’s His will to talk about this.

“Spit it out,” He said.

And, of course, if it wasn’t for His mercy and His Holy Spirit within me, I would’ve thrown flames. Instead, I let Him speak.

This is a person who is very well acquainted with the sexual abuse history in my close family circle. When I confronted them about it, and after a longer conversation about what I tolerate and won’t tolerate in any kind of relationship, their apology was followed by a genuine, repentant and almost introspective admission: “I don’t know how, when or why I have liked this.”

“You will find the answer to your question in the last verses of Jackie Hill Perry’s First Draft and in Proverbs,” I said, having no energy to further tell an adult why laughing about child molestation is neither funny nor edgy.

When one finds more excuses to explain their affinity toward tolerating what’s evil, rather than find the strength to hate what is evil, that very same person quietly, in apathetic modern cynicism, begins to comply with amoral, unethical, and inhumane conduct. Once thinking that, by laughing, they would calm the storm of degeneration, they end up in the same corner with the ones who, with their evil spirits, work on destroying the core values of human existence: empathy and wisdom.

Please, never allow yourself to become this person. And, if you somehow have lost your way, here is a source of encouragement on how to unbecome.

Song of the Day: ARE YOU STUPID – indie tribe.