04 · STUPIDITY — Immobility

For years I believed stupidity was the same thing as ignorance. Then I changed my mind. I saw people with little education who understood the world. And people with impressive credentials who could not understand themselves.

Stupidity is not a lack of knowledge. It is the refusal of knowledge. It begins the moment we stop asking questions. It is the comfort of believing that what we know is enough. Stupidity loves absolute certainty. It hates nuance. Distrusts doubt. Always has an answer ready. And for that reason, never listens.

When stupidity arrives, growth stops. And when growth stops, life keeps moving. But without us.

Sometimes it becomes almost a social illness. I remember a mother who took her eight children to a doctor. She was distressed. She insisted that only one of them was intelligent and wanted the other seven improved. The doctor did not lose heart. Seven consultations. Seven prescriptions. Seven invoices. The mother left satisfied. She had received a diagnosis. According to her, her children would soon become different. They remained exactly the same. Only poorer.

No treatment had failed. It simply was not the disease. The illness belonged to her. And no prescription could cure it.