He actually IS the smartest person in the room. TSPIRs may think they are Stephen Hawking smart...No. |
We all know the type. You try and have a conversation with
this person – a reasonable interchange of discourse. Or maybe you didn’t try to
have a conversation with this person. Maybe you made a statement, something
that didn’t require a response. Perhaps you made a comment about how it would
be nice to take a moment and remember the victims of the Holocaust. And then
the person goes off on you about how Germany is strangling the Greek economy,
leaving you absolutely baffled because there is no correlation between the two
things. Or you walk outside with this person and look at the blue sky and say,
“Wow, it’s a beautiful sunny day.” The person says “No. You’re wrong. It’s
raining.” You have found yourself with “the smartest person in the room.”
I think I’m
going to shorten this to TSPIR because it’s faster to type and it feels like
something you would say when you wanted to spit, and that’s what I find myself
wanting to do when I’m around the smartest person in the room. (Please note,
most often TSPIR is not ACTUALLY the most intelligent person around. It’s a
self-awarded title). These are DANGEROUS times for those of us who have to deal
with TSPIRs. It used to be that if you wanted to know something, you had to go
to a library. There was this magical collection of books called The
Encyclopedia. Everything in the encyclopedia was researched and vetted and
known to be fact, or fact as far as current science had proved. And there were
other books in the library called “nonfiction.” These books were written using
something called “research.” The research was done by a human who went out and
found factual information either in books containing other vetted factual
information or by going to primary sources and recording the facts themselves.
Nowadays,
there’s this wealth of dangerous text out there for TSPIRs to draw on called
the Internet. You can find any information you want on the Internet. And the
best part about it is that none of it has to be true. People think everything
they read on Wikipedia is true. It’s not. That’s why it’s FREE. “Wikipedia the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit.” Ugh. It’s like
TSPIR heaven. They say a little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous. Well,
the world has become an intellectual war zone. And the TSPIRs are like unmarked
landmines.
Have you noticed
that you can’t say anything anymore without someone telling you that they know
more about it than you do? EVERYONE’S an expert these days. It makes for pretty
hilarious eavesdropping, to be honest. Do you think you know some TSPIRs, but
you’re not sure? I can help you identify these people. They generally have to
have the last word in a conversation. It’s to a degree that is noticeably odd –
as in, the conversation’s over and they’ve decided to keep talking. They might
come and find you to let you know that something you told them last week, only
because you thought they might find it interesting, was erroneous. They are
also the type that in the absence of an actual ROOM will use places like
FACEBOOK to take over as their vehicle for existence. There are walls in a
room, so your Facebook wall is as good a place as any for them to prove their
superiority by showing off their knowledge, no matter how misguided or just
plain wrong it might be.
It wouldn’t be fair
if I pointed these people out and didn’t offer an escape plan. They don’t
respond to reason. And arguing only eggs them on, so responding in a logical
manner or trying to continue conversation is the worst possible course of
action. Whatever you do, DON’T STAY ON TOPIC. Throw them off. Pick something
nonsensical and start yelling it in their face. “Chicken shit and baked beans!
Chicken shit and baked beans!” They won’t know what to do with something like
this. It’s not a statement they can argue with. It’s not a fact they can try to
disprove. It’s nonsensical crap. It also serves to warn anyone else nearby that
there’s something not right going down and they should just steer clear. There
is a better course of action, however, and it is my preferred method. Since I
don’t have any need to feel like the smartest person in the room myself, I’m happy
to just leave the room and let these jerks have the room to themselves. They
can keep arguing alone. They can say whatever they want. Who gives a rat’s ass?
Let the forest fall on them and they can find out if it makes any noise when it
knocks them unconscious. When they wake up I’ll be long gone and way less
irritated.
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