ghosts & admissons

SPoiler Alert: I'm Dumb as Shit!

On the train ride back from Montreal is where a lot of my blog posts are born. Usually they are spawned by recalling a conversation that I've had, but have tuned out of. During these times I'll imagine myself as a giant turtle or pirate or something, and as people speak to me I'll drift away to hide inside my shell or conquor the high seas. It's these sorts of thoughts that I expand upon on the train and end up publishing on the pages of ghosts & admissions. But this time the thoughts, and the trip, were different, these thoughts were calling into question my very intellect.

This weekend I saw "La Tratoria" an opera by Verdi. At least that's what I think it's called. I originally thought it was Romeo and Juliet and even asked my neighbour if that was Romeo on stage in one of the opening acts. I was surprised/embarrassed when I found out it wasn't even by Shakespeare (which made me feel ultra dumb cuz he does plays not operas. Doh!) So after the opera on the way to Pizzadelic I discussed the performance with my co-watcher, I was disappointed to learn that I didn't grasp a single iota of it. I gave up trying to decipher it pretty early on. Instead I spent the time reading the French sub titles trying to figure out the English rendering, then laughed at myself when I saw how off I was. But her insight and understanding was so thorough that I was actually ashamed. It went from a critical evaluation of the opera itself to a commentary about how this particular piece conforms to certain negative stereotypes within our culture at large. Needless to say I was a little disappointed with my grasp of the whole thing, as I hadn't picked up on any of these nuances

I told my Mother that I saw it, hoping that she'd think I was cultured or something (she used to be an opera singer herself). She went on to explain all the reasons she loved it, and once again I was astounded at how I didn't comprehend one bit of it. It was almost as if every sentence was independent of each other with nothing connecting or relating one from the next. So on this train ride home I pondered all this I started to fret that I may be dumber than I am aware of. I also thought about how I'm bad at picking up on sarcasm, and terrible at interpreting text messages and emails because subtly is lost on me. I was once told by a friend that small children and people suffering from down syndrome have similar problems-not a comforting thought. So now I'm wondering if I'm not really smart at all and if I've just been tricking people into thinking I am. I'm good at faking a lot of things (chiefly emotions) and now I'm concerned about my mental prowess. I'm sure a whole host of my anon commentors will agree with this and won't spare me one bit. But this whole incident has me feeling like a bit of a sham cuz I walk around like some sort of whiz kid saying stupid quotes like "difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week." This has got me down and no amount of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" can help.

So now on top of trying to iron out my social life and spiritual integrity I'm wondering if my ego has tricked even myself into believing that I am smarter than I truly am. And as further proof of this whole argument, I didn't "get" Borat the movie. I needed someone else to tell me of it's elements of political satire, but she'd never know that cuz I faked a comprehension of that too!

It's gonna be a rough week...

posted by El Chupacabra @ 4:11 PM