Brilliant

So much of the way we judge others, aside from sound indicators like looks and wealth, is by how much a person knows. We talk in terms of our skills, our degrees and our knowledge in areas that should set us apart from others. But I think this is stupid. It's far more fun, and more realistic, to judge people based on what they don't know.

How a person comes to know something is an easy concept to understand. My husband graduated from USC's film school. It's no surprise that he is both extremely enthralling and terribly annoying to watch films with. He also acquired some other skills from his time in graduate school, like photography, writing, editing and how to survive on a steady diet of Mt. Dew and frozen waffles.

But who cares? That's not a difficult concept to understand. A man went to school and learned some things. Whatever. What's more interesting to me are the things that people don't know. Not just sheer stupidity, more like how people escape knowledge on things. Shall I offer a series of embarrassing examples about myself to further illustrate my theory?

Alright, but don't judge. Because you may think you are super smart and know so much more than I do. But don't forget, I know far, far less than you.



Tone Deaf
One time, while driving to the movies with Jim, the song "Money for Nothing" from the Dire Straits came on. I laughed when I heard the chorus, which confused Jim. I explained that this song always struck me as funny because most banks offer free checking, so why make such a big deal about it?

Silence.

A few minutes later Jim said, "You know it's, 'money for nothing and your chicks for free', right?"


Word Confusion
It was only recently that I discovered that "aison" isn't a word. As in the classically boring John Malkovich film, Dangerously Aisons.



South Paw
I do not know my right from my left. Laugh all you want. Feel free to give me lots of helpful tips to remember the difference. I know, I know, my left finger and thumb make an "L". You don't get it. I truly do not know them. I assume for others it is a reflex that is as natural as "touch your nose" or "look up." But to me, I have to stop for a few moments and think it through.

It's understandable. I'm left handed. Many left handed people who grew up with right handed learning instruments (like scissors, school desks, siblings) struggle to understand direction, and some (it's an embarrassingly small number) have trouble distinguishing their right from their left. During Driver's Ed class my teacher almost shit himself when he said, "Turn left" into what would have been a church parking lot, and I instead tried to turn right. Into a ditch.

Feeling frustrated by my inability to master something so simple, my father pulled me aside and said that he read somewhere that Da Vinci (also left handed) didn't know his left from right either and that he could only distinguish between the two when he picked up a paint brush. He explained that numerous people with extremely high IQs have struggled with their left and right, even Einstein.

And there's nothing smarter than rationalizing away stupidity by claiming it's extreme intellect.



Facial Ticks
I cannot read digital clocks. No, no, I know what I typed. Digital. When I see the numbers on a digital clock, 11:32, I understand that is eleven thirty two; I'm not such a dumbass I can't read numbers. I just can't read time in numbers. I need to see numbers in a pie-like perspective so that I know how many pieces of pie I have until my next appointment, or how many pieces of pie I have been waiting in line.



Phonics
I was surprised to learn, a few years back, that the silent game in which you act out a person, place or thing in order to have your teammate guess, is spelled with a "CH." It is not, as I had assumed, Shhhhhrades.



Positively Negative
My sister enjoys teasing me about the time she tutored me in Algebra. Keep in mind that my sister is a mechanical engineer and I am, well, creative with colored pencils. She became frustrated at my inability to grasp the concept of negative numbers. I thought, and still strongly believe, that a negative sign and a minus sign are two different symbols with very different functions. So, to me 5 - 2 cannot produce the same result as 5 + -2. You see, in our sixth grade Algebra book the "-" sign was always just slightly (perhaps a millimeter) longer when it was used for minus than when it was used to denote negative. My sister tugs violently at her hair reminding me that minus and negative are the same goddamn thing, but the book visually showed them differently.

And while I'm never going to see them as the same function, I later wondered if it was somewhat impressive that I even noticed the infinitesimal difference between the signs in the book. Perhaps that, in and of itself, meant I was a genius.


My sister would tell you that's a negative.