“The American Revolution was started because the English put tacks in our tea.” ~ anonymous American essayist, potential future blogger, and possible leader of today’s Tea Party movement.

I am not an intelligent person. This will become clearer to you with every essay you read. However, if you can’t find the internal fortitude to soldier through them week after week please, take my word for it: I am an idiot.  You may ask how I know this. Well, it certainly isn’t because I’m capable of awe-inspiring, deep, logical thought. I’ve already established that I don’t really have that going for me. But, since I do have the unenviable ability to actually hear what goes on in my head before I say or type it, trust me. I am not a brilliant thinker.

Of course I’m not smart. I’m a human being.

Just because I’m not the shiniest olive on the apple tree, (see?), doesn’t mean that I don’t think, though. I just don’t do it effectively. And those piss-poor cognitive skills are what binds us together as a species. We don’t all look the same. We don’t all speak the same language. We don’t pray to the same God. And as this recent rise in organic foods and veganism shows, we sure as shit don’t eat the same foods. The only true thing that connects us is our incredible fucking stupidity.

Now, I probably shouldn’t have cursed just then. There was really no need for me to gratitiously upset or shock you. But it’s as they say: profanity is the sign of a weak and feeble mind attempting to express itself forcefully. And I definitely want to get my point across to you. Dammit.

Based on some things that I discovered while I was “doing the Google,” I am going to unscientifically say that, since the beginning of human existence, about 85 billion people have lived and died on this rock we call home. (Call home for now, Xenu! For now!) (And for those of you who don’t know who Xenu is, feel free to “do the Google” about Scientology, “the religion so weird that even Mormons feel comfortable making fun of it!”) Or. I could link it for you here. It is not an accident that, of those 85,000,000,000 souls, we can only think of maybe 1,000 truly brilliant ones that have lived here among us and changed the course of human evolution. And even THAT’S being generous, as I know for a fact that I can’t think of a 1,000. I mean, Sir Isaac Newton, of course. I can think of him because he invented gravity and that cookie that I love. Then there is, umm…Nikola Tesla. And Jim Henson. (Pure genius.) Are there any others? I certainly can’t think of any right now. Maybe that guy who hung out with Pinky. Or, wait. He is an animated figure. He’s also a mouse.

My point being, of course, the vast majority of us are, and have been, slobbering, incoherent drones who, were it not for the creative, intrepid genius of a mere handful of genetic mutants, would still be living in caves, pooping in corners, and dragging womenfolk off by the hair to go make babies, convinced that Two & A Half Men is the funniest, most popular show on television. The human race has advanced tremendously in the past 160,000 years. Individual human beings, however, haven’t. They still think it’s funny to light their own farts and post video of it on YouTube.

But even Copernicus would think that was funny. (That’s another smart human, by the way. Copernicus. He invented the Milky Way or something. Just Google it.)

Lately, perhaps because I’ve seen some incredibly stupid things happening, I have been obsessing about the concept of intelligence on both the individual and collective level. I am trying to determine how relevant intelligence is to humanity. I am not convinced that it’s terribly important. Humans have done a lot of stupid shit throughout the course of history, and we’re not extinct yet. I mean, I think intelligence is important, although I do not have a lot of evidence to support my claim. Intelligence not only makes us more self-aware–as was clearly illustrated in the movie “Short Circuit,” (if you never saw that movie, it was about a robot who got “short circuited” somehow and thereby magically became intelligent. “Number 5 is alive!” was the big catchphrase. Just Google it.)–but it also helps improve civilization. Nevertheless, I have a lot of questions about the subject–questions that I cannot begin to resolve in this essay. But, since I’m a fucking idiot, that’s not going to stop me from asking them.

Here is just a sampling of some of the questions that rattle around in my brain in a continual loop:

What is more important: Having the ability to think rationally, logically, and deeply about complex issues, or being able to communicate effectively to the masses? You can be one of the brightest intellectuals in the world, earn the best degrees from the best schools on the planet, and you can use the intelligence honed therein to write dense, complex position papers about serious global issues such as climate change or peak oil, and you can methodically, carefully prove that we need to change the behavior of our society as soon as possible in order to survive…or you can be a gum-poppin’ small town mayor from Alaska who sums up the opposite view with “Drill, baby, drill.” Which person is having a greater effect on the evolution of the species, the brainiac or the maniac? Think about it: the policies of America today are more closely aligned with Sarah Palin’s outlook than that of the UN Climate Change Conference. I think a full 40% fewer people in America now believe that global climate change is occurring from when Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” documentary was first released. Is it a coincidence that in that same period Glen Beck and Sarah Palin have risen as populists as rapidly as the levels of carbon dioxide and methane have risen in the atmosphere? In other words: Does intelligence stand a chance against blindingly stupid charisma?

What percentage of the people on the planet now even have the capability of grasping the severity of the issues that plague the planet, much less the ability to work on solving them? And if we the people, this teeming, selfish mass of thoughtless hormones and primal urges, are blind to the real dangers that lie before us, how are we going to avoid them? Should we even try to focus on the problems facing us, or should we all just go back to watching Ice Loves Coco?

Are people instinctively aware that the human race is burning through the resources on this planet too quickly, even while they claim ignorance on the subject? Do we know in our gut that we don’t have much more time left? Is that why we don’t bother to pay attention anymore? Is the enormity of what is before us too frightening? Is that why we gravitate to the simplisitic comfort of religion or the Food Network? Does belief in an all-seeing, infallible, omniscient God relieve us of guilt and the responsibility to learn how to live as respectful citizens of the planet? After all, it has already been written that He is going to destroy the earth, so what is the point of trying to save it? Are the only two responsibilities you have on this earth to vote for the next American Idol and save your own soul? In other words: Are we simply, incontrovertibly, genetically, stupid?

Here’s another question: (I shouldn’t ask so many questions, I know. But, it beats the fuck out of swearing.) Have humans always been deliberately thoughtless like this? Part of me wants to believe that centuries ago, the common man and woman yearned desperately for knowledge that they didn’t have access to. They suffered and toiled in obscurity while secretly aching to know more about the world in which they lived. Today, though, knowledge is EVERYWHERE! All you have to do is do the Google. You have to really work hard to remain a fucking idiot in this day and age. Thanks to social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, the instantaneous sharing of thoughts with many different people is commonplace. It’s hard to remain in a bubble of ignorance in that environment, right? People all over the world, (and Canada!), can help you shape ideas, form opinions, and teach you about issues that you didn’t even know existed before you met them online. All of these factors, you would think, would raise the collective intelligence quotient of the species. But believe it or not, people are still as dumb as bag of fucking hammers. Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the Reader’s Comments section of any newstory posted on Yahoo! News, particularly articles about Barack Obama or the gays.

So, when I grapple with the concept of intelligence, that is a brief sampling of the questions that I’m trying to resolve within myself. I’ve already well-exceeded my 1,000 word allotment for today, (Oh, I know. Ssh. Don’t cry.), so, like a battery-operated vibrator that runs out of juice before you’re done, I will leave you here unsatisfied, begging for more, and kinda pissed off. Hopefully someday we can explore this topic a little further, if you want to. And maybe when we do both of us will come out of it a little wiser in the end, which would be good for humanity. Until then, I’ll see you on YouTube.

And, PS: don’t put any tacks in people’s tea. That tends to rile them up.