#4 - Stupidity (or, My Bank Account and I Are Relieved)

An exciting update: I've decided to cancel my premium Wix subscription after experiencing some domain connection troubles. Pity. I liked that no-nonsense URL.

So much for the "club."

But really, not much has changed; we can still be a corner community! We'll just have to let the occasional ad into the family.

Hm.

You know those moments in life when everything stops and it hits you that you might be very stupid? I’m afraid those moments are occurring to me less and less as I progress in college. It’s a little frightening, because then I do silly, spontaneous things like spending over $150 on a domain and a fancy plan that will last exactly one year, and then only realize how stupid it is after the fact.

(But Hannah, your heart was in the right place! Accountability! Creative output!)

Thanks. But can we focus on the stupidity for a moment? I think I'm getting somewhere. "Everything stops and it hits you that you might be stupid..."

Might be!

I entered college taking it for granted that I was an idiot. In the weeks leading up to September of freshman year, I wrote journal entries about what a relief it would be, to finally admit my stupidity and have people believe it.

A few months before, I had given the valedictorian speech at my high school, had expressed sincere gratitude and love for my classmates and teachers, had enjoyed standing up at the pulpit and reading out my own words to people in church pews who weren't going to interrupt. But, while that experience was thrilling and the words were true at the time, in reality I felt very one-dimensional all throughout high school. (Surprise!)

It might have been the guy behind me in Algebra II who started it. One day he leaned over and asked me if I knew that I held the highest GPA in our grade. I didn't know. (How did he?) But for the next three years I wasn't allowed to forget it.

Now, certainly, there are worse labels in high school than the "smart one." I won't complain about that label. I didn't complain about it, for the most part. I simply bore it. When I could, I tried to diffuse the odd comments from acquaintances – and they really were comments, not compliments – strange melting pots of envy, self-deprecation, and relief, wrapped in sentences like "Hannah's the smartest, pick her, she'll know" and "That test was so unfair, even Hannah thought it was hard." I let loose my defense – "I'm just good at memorizing" – whenever I had the chance. (And my defense was true.)

Still, the label wasn't harmless. By senior year, I was exasperated. Desperate to prove people wrong. Desperate, really, to disappoint. So when Princeton University came calling with its "Congratulations!" – on April Fools Day, no less – all I really wanted to do was cry.

I see now, of course, how terribly ungrateful and self-pitying a reaction that was. But at the time, that Ivy League acceptance meant two impossibly dissonant things for me: financial security for my parents, and one final nail in the big wooden sign on my forehead: "SMART."

How perfect. How frightening.

How lonely.

I began doing some research on my classmates. Statistics revealed that my test scores were, in fact, lower than those of the average accepted student. Facebook allowed me to read up on my peers' carefully-worded statements of academic interests and passions, many of which were astoundingly different from my own – not to mention more precise; more articulate; more noble, even.

And suddenly my feet hit the ground.

And, just as suddenly, they went right on through.

And I was falling.

It was a new sensation, and I welcomed it. Eventually, crouching ankle-deep at the very bottom of Wherever, I discovered a new, humbling identity – idiot. Ah! There it was, ripe for the claiming. I claimed it, then sighed, and called the new heaviness relief.

Freshman year began just as stupidity took the wheel. I worried about not worrying; cried exasperated tears when things were "too good"; wondered if my classes weren't hard enough because I seemed to be doing alright even without pulling all-nighters (or doing most of the readings). Somewhere within me was an inexhaustible supply of guilt.

Let me write in the present tense now.

I am not an idiot – though I am ignorant of many things, and I do my best to remember it. I try to ask questions, and I prefer answers from people rather than from the Internet. (Are these two sometimes the same entity? There's a question.)

Not only am I ignorant, but I am uncertain. Good heavens, am I uncertain! I will inevitably write about that, too, at some point, soon.

Once more – I am not an idiot. But there must be moments when I realize I am stupid. There simply must be moments when I step back and gape at all that I don't know. The moment I lose these moments is the moment I make myself one-dimensional.

Please don't interpret this as advice. I don't want you to feel stupid; I'm not even using that word correctly. What I'd like this to be, if I'm allowed to announce it, is just an offering of an observation. Here it is: I cherish my moments of stupidity, because at this stage in my life they may be the nearest I can get to humility.

Thanks for listening.