Stupid things I’ve done

Stupid things I’ve done

Recently, Ted Rall wrote a book that chronicled some of the worst things that people have done. I wanted to touch on a related subject: the stupid things people (namely, me) have done.

I was in middle school in Yukon, Oklahoma. I’m not sure if it was 7th or 8th grade, because those years were all of a blur. We were in the gifted and talented class, and there was an Apple II in the room. Someone had created a simple text adventure in BASIC, and I modified some of the lines to say some inappropriate things, mostly sex-related. Sex was a big motivator for me around that time (puberty kinda gets you thinking about it), and I thought it’d be funny to mess around with this other student’s program.

I was caught, sentenced for two days detention, and had to apologize to my gifted and talented teacher. I remember breaking down on the phone trying to talk to her and realizing just what an idiot I was, messing with someone else’s stuff. The thing that kills me now is that I really didn’t have a good reason to screw up this guy’s program. He was a friend; I had no grudge against him. I just was…selfish.

I think that’s the defining factor for most of our stupidities in life. I’ve been selfish and stupid many times since then, and I still hate it in myself. I know that Ayn Rand preached about the virtue of selfishness, but there doesn’t seem to be much virtue in being stupid.