I’ll Be The Stupid One!

I had the strangest sensation that this little voice, so resistant before, was beginning to enjoy itself

Mar 08, 2024

Happy International Women’s Day!

This week, in a direct response to the rollback of women’s reproductive rights in the United States and elsewhere, France has made abortion a constitutional right.

We are haunted by the suffering and memory of so many women who were not free. We owe a moral debt [to all the women who] suffered in their flesh. Today, the present must respond to history. To enshrine this right in our constitution is to close the door on the tragedy of the past and its trail of suffering and pain.
Gabriel Attal, Prime Minister, France

Politics can be lovely stuff.

But only six countries in the world have gender parity or superiority for women in their parliament: Rwanda, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mexico, Andorra and United Arab Emirates (and a hefty asterisk on that last one). Women leaders occupy 45 percent of seats in only six European parliaments.

The UK is not one of them. We are dominated by men: 65 percent sausage in The House of Commons and 71 percent sausage in The House of Lords. There’s a reason it’s not called The House of Lords AND Baronesses.

We should be glad. We should be annoyed. We should be inexorable.

… And Happy Friday!

For those of you new around these parts, welcome 👋

My name is David and I’m a writer, outdoor instructor and cyclist-at-large with Thighs of Steel. In this newsletter, I write stories that help you and me understand the world (and ourselves) a little better.

For the past eight years, I’ve published a story every Friday, but, on the whimsical roll of a die, I took the last four weeks off.

Thank you for all your messages of goodwill for this unexpected writing sabbatical. Lots of people have been asking me what I’ve learned from the past month of silence and what plans I have for the future.

[PLACEHOLDER TEXT 😉]

Even when we leave nothing to chance, chance is our guide.
Roberto Bolaño

Welcome to edition 392.

I’ll Be The Stupid One!

Do you struggle to be stupid? I do. I have a really hard time being stupid. I hate it.

Not A Clever Boy

During my triumphant primary school career, to maintain my position as one of the irreproachable Clever Boys who knew everything, I perfected the art of making declarative statements with utter conviction, easily overwhelming with my sophistry the doubts of those unsure whether, say, Britain’s largest export by value in 1997 really was Midsomer Murders.

The rapid spread of first Wikipedia (2001 😟) and then the iPhone (2007 😭) really screwed me up.

For the first time, my friends could see, in real time, that I was making shit up to look clever and then, if challenged, defending my fabrications with backsliding logic to avoid looking stupid.

I got a reputation for peddling what became known as ‘Dave Facts’: false statements that had just enough grounding in reality to sound plausible.

My Dave Facts were a classic coping mechanism for someone stuck in a fixed mindset: my knowledge and intellect are god-given and eternal.

Better to make up the facts I don’t know than to admit ignorance and invite the possibility that I’m not as smart as I think.

But, aged 25, I’d finally been found out. I didn’t know everything. I was, definitively, not a Clever Boy.

The Voice In My Head

Fast forward sixteen years and, earlier this week, I decided to analyse my financial statements going back more than a decade. (Stay with me.) Income, expenditure, savings, investments, the lot. Gulp.

Despite a sincere love of spreadsheets and numbers, I noticed a voice in my head that was really resistant to doing the work:

Wah! How do I download the data? Waah! These numbers don’t make SENSE! Waaah! What does all this jargon even mean?! Waaaah!

Within five minutes of starting, my primary urge was to push the spreadsheets away and forget about them, or to (grumpily) get someone else to explain them to me — not to patiently listen to their explanation, but so they could magically transfer their knowledge into my brain.

I needed to already know the answer. And I didn’t. I needed it to be easy. And it wasn’t.

Because I love spreadsheets so much, I pressed on, despite this whiny voice. After a while, I noticed something very strange happening to that voice.

Once I started grappling with the numbers, I noticed the voice had drifted into the background. Then, gradually, I noticed the voice coming forward again, but with curiosity, like he was looking over my shoulder, watching me as I figured out the spreadsheets.

I had the strangest sensation that this little voice, so resistant before, was beginning to enjoy itself as we learned something new together.

With the help of my counsellor, I started exploring where that voice came from inside of me.

I got the sense that it’s a young Dave, perhaps as young as ten: the primary school kid who wants to run around, bashing nails with a hammer, digging holes in the sand and jumping off the monkey bars.

That kid is, like a lot of kids, pretty impatient. He wants to know everything immediately and be good at everything immediately. He doesn’t want to go through it all carefully and methodically like an adult — that’s booooring.

But he’s really internalised that he’s a good boy and part of that is not getting anything wrong, like, ever. Naturally, he fears looking stupid.

My counsellor asked, ‘What does that little boy need to you carry for him?’

‘He needs me to take responsibility for being the stupid one,’ I replied.

‘Don’t worry, little Dave,’ I said to myself, ‘I’ll be the stupid one here. You go on being your creative, wild little self. I’ll be up at the front, clearing a safe path for you with my fumbling adult stupidity.’

When I said this out loud, I felt a huge relief. It’s okay to be stupid. Actually, it’s more than okay: it’s essential.

The danger is not that we look stupid, the danger is that we don’t show up.

Why Stupid = Smart (For Me)

Now then. I don’t really believe that I actually am stupid. I just need to remember that being bold enough to risk looking stupid is a power move.

But I’m aware that a lot of people have totally internalised the message that they really are stupid.

If you’re one of those people, then (a) you’re not stupid, but also (b) maybe my whole let’s be stupid message won’t work for you. That’s okay.

But, for me, stupid = smart.

Although I still HATE being stupid in lots of ways — negotiating with loved ones, making big life decisions, and committing to career moves to name but three — there are two ways I have long tried to embrace stupid, and the gamble has, more often than not, paid off.

1. Social Stupid = Social Smart

The entire fabric of society is held together by strangers prepared to look stupid.

Until I was about 34, I struggled with looking socially stupid. Talking to strangers was scary. It was so much easier to stand moodily on the sidelines, looking all mysterious and, hopefully, vaguely cool.

Eventually I accepted that this approach was zero fun and had an extremely low return on investment. So I started to give fewer fucks about talking to strangers.

Much to my surprise, I discovered that looking stupid is not only way more fun than looking vaguely cool, but that other people quite often LOVE it.

In my experience, most people are relieved that someone has said something, that someone has reached out, shown a bit of themselves, and made a bid for connection.

Gambling on looking stupid is how we connect: through our vulnerability.

We’ve got ‘cool’ the wrong way around. It’s the ones most prepared to look stupid who are the most comfortable in their own skin and the people we find it most comfortable to be around. That’s not stupid; that’s smart.

2. Work Stupid = Work Smart

For years I co-wrote a successful radio sitcom called Foiled. You cannot co-write comedy with another person without getting comfortable with looking stupid. And by ‘stupid’ I mean ‘not funny’.

I was incredibly lucky that I worked with a brilliant writer (👋) who was happy to indulge laughter on even my worst jokes, before discretely removing them from the final script.

But both of us having the courage to look very stupid in front of very funny people was the only way that those scripts got written.

The same is true of any work that involves any level of creativity, collaboration, construction, production, publicity, sales or service. All work, in other words.

There is always the risk that someone will hear your pitch and give you the dead-eye.

That’s okay. Be the stupid one anyway because it’s only the stupid ones who are there when the deal goes down.

7 Little Ways To Stay Stupid

Start from where you are
Stay present
Stay connected to yourself, other people, your surroundings, or whatever you’re doing
Stay curious: ignorance is a helpful signpost
Say something out loud to someone (then listen)
Take your ‘little voice’ by the hand and explore together
Take the first step, then take it piece by piece

TIGHT

A friend’s documentary about bodybuilding in India. A gorgeous picture of small town dreams, big time sacrifices, and men smothering each other in oil. Superb.

We are all fucking humans, man.

If you get a chance to see it, do. Most likely you won’t, not until my friends get a network on board.

If you know any production companies or network bosses keen for tight docs that are deep, funny, universal and feature a lot of bare torsos, then please message me back.

If you enjoyed this story, then I’d appreciate a heart, comment, reply or share. Absolutely no obligation to do any of those things — I’m a random internet person, after all — but if the spirit moves you, then I won’t know unless you do.

The David Charles Newsletter

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