A few years back, one drunken night - and the night was drunk or full of drunken people. I was not drunk - one of the first guys to have ever given me a writing job said to me, "So what do you want to do now?"
"I want to kill idiots," I said.
This stemmed from an elegant conversation with another person I respect. She told me, "Amir, our jobs, as smart people, is to kill fucking idiots. Evil happens when good, smart people do nothing."
Only, I did not put it as elegantly. It was just, "I want to kill idiots." And that was it. I was also trying very hard to get ISA-ed and to bring down a Government, so killing idiots seemed like a good reason for living.
The old guy put his hand on my shoulder and said, "You know, the difference between you and me is that I am older. And as an older man, I can take more shit. Let the idiots be idiots. There is nothing they can do to us."
I was like, fuck. Here were two people with two very different perspectives. On one hand, you can't allow idiots do anything, hence killing them is the best option. On the other, Nit-Shit did say that gaze into the abyss, and the abyss gazes back.
I thought I was the abyss. You gaze into me, and I kill you so hard, your ancestors will die. I may still be the deepest, darkest, most powerful abyss EVAR, but there are other abysses and and they are not just shallow, but also full of holes.
Still, the guy's philosophy was that instead of destroying idiots, you can simply be unreachable. Untouchable. Invincible.
It would be a few years before I had an inkling of what that would entail.
These past few days, I have been beset with people not behaving as they should, according to my own bias.
For example, in the midst of an extremely busy day, my mother called me up and asked, of all things, the history of Planta Margarine. She wanted to enter a cooking competition, and that was one of the questions.
I was so enraged, I was quoting George W Bush.
Bush: I am irradiated!
Me: I am irradiated! Wait. Wha-?
For the record, my mother is not an idiot. In fact she is the the most successful emotional manipulator I know. She just has a great sense of timing to ask for the history of Planta Margarine.
So, again, my mind wandered to the conversations I had with those two, and what I have learned in those five years since.
First, idiots will always be there. Often, devoured by Desire. Pathetic, dry husks of beings sapped empty by Desire.
In his masterpiece The Sandman Comics, Neil Gaiman (chaos be upon him) took great pains to differentiate Desire from Dream. He made them almost polar opposites and showed what great things dreams can achieve and how poisonous desire is.
So going back to those two philosophies, the answer was amazingly simple. Both were correct.
To react to idiots is in itself idiotic. To allow one's self be affected in any way by idiots is stupid.
Also, to allow idiots to roam free is also stupid and evil. Because idiocy is contagious. Like syphillis.
So what you do is simple. Remove yourself from the plains of Leng - the battlefield of idiots - and destroy them with solid bombs from above.
Our jobs, as smart people, is to never be touched by idiots, and also to destroy them. Not with hatred or any other sort of emotion, but with The Truth. There is no fear, if you are in line with The Truth.
In fact, idiots are deathly afraid of The Truth, for they are creatures of lies and deceit. Creatures of Desire.
I am Dream's, and Destruction's.
I am sharing this as it was shared to me. May you never be an idiot.
