The importance of being a little stupid

It was a tiny moment that made the center of our day.

I’d always been a bit manic, restless, eager and in a rush for life. I’d considered my online presence minimal (intentionally so) and have always fully embraced the cliche of being allergic to small talk; I’m a maximalist for the experience. For any flight that exceeded six hours, there’d at least be one other city I’d have to check out. If its Europe, I’m ‘popping in’ to at least two other neighboring countries, even if for a night. Once, I pulled an all-nighter running through Budapest after a day of spelunking and bathing simply because I had no idea when I’d ever be back. That was over 10 years ago and lo and behold, I’ve yet to step foot back in Hungary at all.

These last couple of years have been difficult, to say the least, in absolutely life-altering ways. Despite feeling things so deeply, I can be utterly blunt once an era has passed. In 2020, I underwent a harrowing divorce, celebrated with that odd combination of grief and utter relief. It was only weeks prior to the pandemic that I’d spent 2 weeks on a solo trip hiking around Kathmandu, overlooking the Himalayas from tea house to tea house and upon my return, from the airport in fact, that I’d begun gathering the papers. And then one week later, the world was on lockdown. It was for years surrounding this time in my life that I operated in sprints, taking the good and the bad in fits and starts. But when I came across this gorgeous poem, it indelibly changed the way I perceive, think and live.

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Since the discovery of this poem, I’d faced the center of my sorrow many times over and found the person who will stand in the center of the fire with me. The person who’d become my center and whom I’d create the center of our days for for as long as I can.

As we spent a beautiful day at the park, intending to read but instead just talked and laughed together, an impulse took over me. I grabbed his notebook and began to draw quickly and discreetly before I’d raise any suspicions. And then, ta da, the reveal:

We shared honest laughter; longer and harder than should be appropriate for two sober adults staring at the sky in the park.

Stupidity has a bad rap, even considered a bad word when used harshly. But what it can do to open up a moment between people is so deeply underrated. Remember when we all used to speak in Anchorman or The Hangover quotes?

I don’t have any reason for this word dump besides a quiet encouragement of finding the opportunities for stupidity and silliness when emails or, worse, slack messages can be so complex and maddening. Maybe it’s just me, but I have no idea how else to get through the ugliness of modern living with all our access to information, our virtue signaling, and gray morality without being just a little bit dumb.