Almost Smart

I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a couple of new people fairly well recently, as well as learning and understanding my old friends more deeply, or at least trying to. Throughout these experiences, particularly the ones with newfound compadres, I have found myself juding a couple of them to be almost smart. They do the majority of the hard work to be self aware about a situation, and in fact take all the right steps, up until they make the final leap to a conclusion, at which point they somehow get lost and utterly miss the mark. It reminds me of someone doing a maths problem, applying all the correct techniques, their working is perfect - but then they bafflingly note down the wrong answer. People’s biases and condioning are alarmingly obvious in these moments, and I must confess I feel a certain amount of schadenfredue in them.

With that being said (and rather judgmentally at that), it would be awfully naive of me to assume that the same fate never befalls me, but the nature of the beast means it’s inherent that I am as blissfully (or perhaps not) unaware that I am doing the very thing I have just cruelly laughed at. So begins the arduous journey of trying to unwind my own almost-smartness…