The difference between dumb and stupid

It's Wednesday and my friend A is visiting.  He's waiting for his class to start and is killing some time.  We haven't seen each other in a month, or so, so we're playing a bit of catch up.  Even though not all of the stories are about us, most were headscratchers.

To bring my friend up to speed, I remind him about X, Y and Z.  X and Y were seeing each other long-distance and Y discovered X was in a relationship with Z on Facebook.  There were no explanations or excuses.  Unsurprisingly, it was over between X and Y.  Two years pass and Y receives several messages from X, asking for forgiveness.  As it turns out Z was lying and cheating on X throughout their relationship (talk about karmic irony).  Y decides to give X another try and finds out that X went back to Z right after their reconciliation.

"So, he leaves this one guy who liked him and would've treated him really well and leaves him for another who repeatedly treated him like crap," I explain.

"And he did this twice to Y?" asks my friend.

"Yup."

"Hmmm," he drags out the word.  "Is he that stupid?"

"I don't think he's stupid.  I think he's just dumb."

"What's the difference?"

"That's hard to say.  I believe a person is dumb when they do something wrong and don't even realize it's wrong.  Stupid is when you do it on purpose."  This explanation makes sense, in a rather simplistic way.  "I don't think he did that [the two-timing] on purpose, like he wanted to hurt [the cockholded guy].  I also don't think he knows the difference.  Unless, of course, he's a sociopath.  But, I don't think he is.  So..."

In fact, I'm starting to wonder if Y is the stupid one.  He went through the same situation twice.  But, did he know it was going to happen?  Probably not.  Was there an inkling it would happen, again?  Probably.  He was screwed over once, and with that level of mistrust, he should've learned from his mistakes.  Sadly, he didn't.

David Hasselhoff's force

It's one of those long days that never feel like it's going to end and I'm texting my friend S about a couple of things we're doing this week.  I get frustrated about something that happens (it's not her) and we start to ramble about non-sensical items.  One of them makes me laugh.

"Mr. G said that the most powerful force in the universe was David Hasselhoff sucking in his gut."

And, that's all it took to make my frustratingly long day feel a lot shorter.

The year of me

It's the new year and with that comes a series of resolutions that no one ever seriously intends to follow through with.  I haven't   made any in years and I wasn't the worse for it.  Lose weight and get healthier?  Pass.  Make more friends?  Meh.  Plot the demise of my foes?  In progress for the past few years.

But, this year is different.  I'm making a resolution.  Just one, to keep things simple.  For 2012, I've decided to be selfish (in a good way).  Without going into detail, I can say I will no longer consider the needs/wants of others at the start.  Unlike before, I'll come first... for now.

That doesn't mean that I'm going to destroy anything that comes across my path on my quest to world domiation; you can be diplomatic while doing that. 

Basically, I believe if I'm happy, then I'll want to make everyone feel the same way as I do.  And, if you don't like it, you can fuck off for all I care (and I won't since I won't care about your feelings since they're secondary to mine!).

So, happy new year.  It's going to be a good one, because when you get down to it, it's always about me.