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Thinking about things can be quite the mindtrip. I suggest avoiding it as much as possible.

Has anybody been asked the question “Would you rather be brilliant and miserable or a happy imbecile?” Of course you have, it’s the first philosophical seed in the mind of teenagers. Unfortunately, this question also stifles the opportunity to really consider the answer - not surprisingly, of course. After a lifetime of “Who’s Hotter?” questions have lost their meaning.

First of all, before you even answer, it’s important to understand what it’s assuming. The reason this question really provokes some curious thought processes is because it resonates with us more than “Would you do a dog to save your brothers life?”

The latter is ridiculous. Okay, I can try really hard to imagine what it would be like to have to have sex with an animal (positioning, whether or not I could turn the gun on whoever the fuck is putting me through this) but it’s not so unreasonable to imagine ourselves one day having to choose between ignoring a potentially threatening thought to maintain our current state of “happy” ignorance or investigating a renegade thought bubble that whispers “Something is awry.”

What do I mean by this? Everybody knows, but it’s very difficult for our brains to allow ourselves to recognize - that is, how to deal with the question of right and wrong.

“Would you rather be a grumpy genius or a happy imbecile?”

This is playing with our heads. The most all-consuming moments of our lives have been when we actually had to think about something. It is when we hear a speech about Darfur and suddenly it hits home - there are entire family trees starving to death while I gorge myself on buffalo wings - and we unexpectedly feel nauseous and ashamed, disgusted and helpless, torn between embracing that thought or sweeping it out of sight so that we may eat in peace. It’s at this moment that everybody makes their decision between doing what’s right - embracing what you’ve just discovered - and wrong - forcing Family Guy scenes through your head to wipe your emotional palatte clean.

But I must warn you - once you go with the latter, you will never be affected by the same thing quite the same. You are now desensitized. You’ve chosen ignorance over meaning. And you know this, so after your brother is done speaking at the dinner table, you’ll attack this meaning with ignorance and say something like:

“Fine! I’ll skydrop my iPod on their village!”

You’ve just made a hostile attack on something you don’t understand. That wasn’t a passive joke, it was a chiseling away at somebody else’s life so that you can stand stronger in your own mind (of course, you have to build yourself up after saying something like that because by saying that you’ve already lowered yourself to a worse place in humanity). And maybe somebody will laugh at the joke, maybe somebody won’t. But it doesn’t matter either way - you’ll convince yourself that “People need to lighten up!” and “Jesus, not everything is so serious!”

But when you really try to think of people dying by the tens of thousands, their life seeping from their body like blood from a bullet wound, we can allow ourselves to understand just how serious the situation is.

Not that you can’t make a joke about serious things:

“Darfur? More like DOOFUS!”

I find that funny. But not in a dirty way. I just got finished explaining why we need to care about Darfur, so you’re obviously not supposed to think “Doofus” next time somebody mentions Darfur. Instead, try imagining the tens of thousands.

But back to the point, we are constantly choosing between easy ignorance and difficult thinking. We just never admit it to ourselves, and that is why when somebody brings it up outright - we freeze.

“Um… I’d honestly rather be happy and retarded.”

From my experience, most people say that. Why do they say that? Because they are justifying the way they want to act at the time.

However, you don’t need to be Einstein to make a difficult decision.

Nor must you be an imbecile to screw up royally.

Bad choices will follow you wherever you go - whether you’re powerful or poor - and the consequences will too. To picture this, try imagining yourself as Kenneth Lay (the founder and a key figure of the Enron scandal):

You are filthy rich, powerful, privileged - You are also one of the most hated men on Earth.
You buy whatever you want, you own seven mansions - and You just ruined thousands of lives.
You have a landline with George Bush Jr and Donald Trump - and a land line with Hell.

WHOOPS! - I mentioned religion. Bad Ben.

Oh well, I wanna roll with it, even though I know that by now some of you have allowed your ego to get in the way of finishing this article (if anybody even READS this article). You’re going to snap out of things, a buzz-word having been spoken and convince yourself “Hell?! Wait, I’m atheist. And to think I was almost fooled by this guy.”

But for the sake of literature, I want to use the word “HELL!” But not like that, I want to use it to describe a place that any one of us can, has and WILL experience in this lifetime:

It’s the feeling of Holy Shit I screwed up and there’s no way out of it.

Some of us will understand this more than others, depending on how many independent choices you’ve made in your life, but anybody can relate. It’s the sudden sinking in your chest when your thoughts go from optimism to being submerged in a thick, dark fluid at the bottom of your chest. The rope is cut and you can’t see how the “hell” you’re going to survive.

That’s Hell. And when you don’t think about things - when you ignore your thoughts - you run the risk of experiencing Hell all the more.

To prove to you that Kenneth Lay went through hell, I’ll refer to his heart attack. To show you what I mean, let me put you in his shoes:

“The damage is done. Thousands of people that trusted, believed in and supported me have lost their life savings and I have ruined their lives. There was that janitor that always took care to clean the office - who once said I was his ‘hero’ and that one day he’d be like me - I remember he asked me for some insider advice… and I told him to buy. He just got done telling me about how he wanted to put his daughter through school and buy a car… I told him to buy. Why did I do that? For all I know, him and thousands like him, have lost their hopes. They have lost what they worked for. They lost everything because of me. Because of me. Oh, God, what can I do? Oh my God please… how can I make it up? What have I done?”

Cue the heart attack.

Although, it’s entirely possible that his thought process went like this before he died:

“Fuckin idiots… leeches… morons…”

This is because he sacrificed his humanity. You and I (I hope) are still human. We can relate to guilt, to regret, to self-hatred.

Perhaps we should stop thinking about where our lives are now - and start thinking about where they’ll fit in when it’s over.

“Would you rather be a depressed genius or a smiling imbecile?”

Next time somebody asks you that question, don’t answer it. It’s a trick. To make the right decision can very easily cause a bout of depression and misery - ask a junkie what it’s like to go through rehab. And that is what you’re doing when you make the right decision - you’re cleaning yourself out. If you’ve been caught up in a lot of bad shit, you’re going to go through this tough cleansing process. If you’ve been goin good for a while: try going even better. We have no idea how dirty our souls are.

And there we go again - I said soul. Another mention of religion. I guess I’m losing my audience as I go. But I’m almost over so stick with me.

You don’t have to believe in God to understand the concept of Hell and the Soul. I’ve already explained Hell, but the Soul is so much more. The Soul is your state of being. Getting a new car or taking drugs can imitate having a satisfied soul like sacharrine can imitate sugar - but it’s not the same.

To have a satisfied soul is to go to sleep so happy that you drift off…

It’s when you did something unexpectedly kind and the recipient of this generosity is so taken aback that you both might cry.

And these feelings can not be imitated, at least not for long:

For a Junkie, they think it’s drugs. But then they end up slack-jawed and beedy eyed before ultimately dying.
Sex fiends constantly hurt those they are most intimate with, thinking that it’s that brief second after getting off that they live for.
Corrupt CEO’s get their high from power - and they quantify their power in dollars and esteem. To earn their power, they forego family, friends and conscience.

It may take a death bed to give you the right perspective, but it doesn’t have to.

And for those that want some instructions, try this to get you going. It’s something I was once told:

Try going a month without getting mad at your friends or family.

And yeah, I won’t always write like this.

‘BEN’

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