I posted a brief message yesterday about being dumb and the connection between dumbness and writing. Later a prime example of my stupidity presented itself.
I got what amounted to a chain email. It promised that if I forwarded it on to my friends and family I would be rewarded with thousands, maybe even tens of thousands, of dollars. Now I knew it was a long shot but I hit forward anyway and stuck some email addresses in the box marked "To." I didn't put the addresses of everyone on my contact list. After all, I didn't want to be greedy.
Right away I got a response from a friend who declared the original email a "hoax." Later I got an email from another friend who reminded me of the mathematical improbability of the whole scheme.
I felt like an idiot. I tried to be compassionate toward myself. However, I am generally honest and I knew that my belief in the email, however weak and fleeting, was at best naive. So I said to myself, "You are silly and naive, just like everyone else."
Later it occurred to me that an occasional act of stupidity can be a useful thing. As a human being it reminds me to be compassionate toward others when they are stupid. As a writer it gives me a broader range of experience to draw from. I can write with sincerity about what it feels like to act stupidly. And so many of the best stories begin with acts of stupidity.
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