The Hierarchy

There is an unspoken hierarchy of readers. It is determined by the way in which they tackle a book.

At the top of this imagined pyramid are the purists – people who read to soak up the elegantly constructed literary style and savour brilliant metaphors, inventive characters, breath-taking imagery, and sparkling dialogue. These are people who appreciate words, in themselves. The story is beside the point. In fact, many of them believe the plot is a mere distraction from the art. They see the wood beyond the trees, as it were. I dare count myself among them.

Not far behind are the academics – readers whose infatuation stems from the classroom, perhaps the first novel they were made to analyse and never got over it. They’re often underlining or highlighting, turning down pages, looking up words they’re not familiar with, and scribbling pithy comments in the margins. These readers are those that appreciate by thorough dissection and analysis.

The book worshippers are next. They ensure all their books are covered, preach about bookmarks, and absolutely NEVER let a book touch the floor. They look at the book as a sentient being, a living, breathing object of desire that must be treated with utmost respect. They make a point to read every word, every footnote, every single detail.

And then there are the readers who just want a good old-fashioned story and make no qualms about it. They skip over long descriptive paragraphs, skim through digressions, and zero in on the who-what-where to the nth degree. A subcategory of this is people who read books for sex, violence, or any other particular proclivity, and speed-read passages that don’t interest them or don’t stick to the canon.

How about them multitask readers, hmm? Those who read while cooking, cleaning, talking on the phone, or driving. Which is stupid. These people often boast about their vast collection of e-Books. THOSE ARE NOT REAL BOOKS FFS. Nothing can compare to the sensual feelings paper between your fingers can evoke.

The bottom feeders come next and include the status readers, a group of wannabes who don’t really want to read the book at all, but want to be seen with it – like arm candy, the proverbial young blonde on the arm of a famed tycoon. They skim the book for plot and carry it around like a designer bag. For shame.
Even worse are the people who listen to audio books, the new version of condensed books, or read novelisations of current movies. These people consider themselves readers, but they’re not. They’re just hopping onto any old bandwagon in the hopes of being included in conversations. Know this now; I will not endure you. I ought to group the narcoleptics in this category of non-readers. People who’ve had the same books sitting on their bedside table for months, and also the bathroom readers; you know, the ones with magazine racks near the toilet that hold dog-eared collections of outdated YOU magazines. You disgust me.

But let’s not forget the hopeless unfinishers – people who like choosing books, buying books, starting books, but the only thing they can’t seem to do is finish the book. They continually deceive themselves, thinking this is the one book they are going to read all the way through, and I do think they are well-intentioned, but like diets and New Year’s resolutions, the will to persevere usually fades. Alas.

However, in my opinion, the most frustrating category is the people who read a book, and JUST DON’T GET IT. I hate when I have to point out a most obvious lack of comprehension to one of these.

There are hundreds more subcategories. I might delve into those in my next rant.

You're Stupid

Interacting with people is a difficult process if you're nothing like them.
This is because most people are stupid.

Typical conversational question: "How do you come up with such cool ideas? Please tell me so I can be as cool as you." Now I don't know how to answer this enquiry without insulting the person. I don't want to say, "I'm sorry to report that if your brain does not create ideas, you are dead." And I can't say, "Everyone gets ideas. If you're getting bad ideas, it's probably because your brain is defective." My most likely reply would be, "I'm far too busy to be bothered with your ludicrous and insignificant question. But thank you for asking." The truth is, there's just no graceful way out.

In fact, from now on, I'm going to charge anybody who gives me their opinion. People are idiots. If I have to listen to their opinions, I deserve compensation.

Now let's consider why people are stupid:

1. Stupidity doesn't hinder reproduction.

Humans are a rapidly growing element of Earth's ecosystem. There are more and more of us all the time. As species go, we are incredibly successful. But stupid people have been around since the beginning, right? There always has been stupid people, and there's no dearth of them now. We like to allude our evolutionary success to the fact that we are able to survive longer than our caveman predecessors, hence the increase in populace. If that were so, then cockroaches rule the world - they have the numbers, and they're not stupid enough to believe that it's because of the size of their brains.

Stupid people breed. Exponentially. Stupidity actually enables the growth of the population quite a bit. Think about people who get married, have kids, and say - "Now why did I do that? Oh yeah, I was stupid." Not thinking clearly is very helpful in making the whole mystery of chemical attraction seem worth pursuing. The bonding process, which is essential for human survival, doesn't give a damn about what we think of as smartness, it cares about irrationality and chemicals, both of which it highly values. None of us would put up with each other for a moment if it weren't for the saving graces of stupidity and bonding.

2. Nothing shocks us anymore.

Many times I see people doing something stupid, and I'll proclaim to myself as such. That emotional jolt I experience is my brain's way of reminding me to never be as stupid as the person I just saw. This is my body mapping out what I should and shouldn't do, and making it stick by attaching it to some emotion (usually disgust, because people are disgusting). In modern times, however, it has become socially acceptable to do stupid things. Think of something like Jackass that commends stupidity. People witness such idiocy with reverence. They're way past the point of being disgusted because their brain no longer recognises the difference between stupidity and humanness. They never will experience the profound visceral stupidity reaction that heralds intelligence. Sigh.

3. People are sheep.

And I don't mean they taste good. Okay, maybe they do.
What I was referring to was the inability of Other People to make informed decisions for themselves, mainly because they lack the desire to actually attain information. Instead, they are led almost willingly by others.

Technology magnifies the ability of one person to have a big impact on other people. Sadly, these positions of power are held by the people who are equally as stupid - but have a larger ego. This explains why stupidity is immune to education - all the educated ones are holed up together, getting infinitely more intelligent (refer to previous blog post), while the rest of humanity tends towards the other extreme.

I assure you, the limit does not exist.

In fact, it is my belief that scientists will eventually learn how to convert stupidity into clean fuel. It is truly the only unlimited source of energy.