My whole life people have told me how smart I am. Clever, creative, wellread, insightful, logical, the list goes on and on! However, I’m not sure how much this has helped me make my way through life.
In fact, stupidity might be one of the only things that keeps me going. Note that I said “one of the only things”. Stubbornness plays a big part as well.
I’m stupid enough to believe most of those things I was told as a child, even if my vaunted intellect tells me they aren’t true. Things turn out the way they need to. Good will triumph over evil. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. All you need is love. Take your pick, the platitudes and trite bits of wisdom are nearly endless.
They say every cynic is a wounded idealist, and I am the living proof. Yet try as I might I can’t abandon the idea that everything will turn out all right in the end. At this point, that hope is all I have left.
You see, I am in my own personal Nefud Desert.
If you don’t know what that means, you might have a different favorite movie. One of my favorite movies is Lawrence of Arabia, a romanticized take on the real life historical figure T.E. Lawrence, who helped organize the Bedouin tribes of the Middle East to fight the Turkish Empire, and by extension the Kaiser of Germany, during WWI.
In order to sneak up on the entrenched Turkish gun positions in Aqaba, Jordan, Lawrence and his Arab allies must cross the deadly Nefud Desert, a near suicidal task but the only real option. You see, the guns at Aqaba point not at the desert, but out at the sea to keep the British Navy away.
In a pivotal scene, Lawrence, Sharif Ali and the others reach their point of no return. They cannot turn back and they must reach Aqaba, because now the camels will start to die without water.
I am at the halfway point of my own Nefud desert. I have begun to die. Oh, I haven’t contracted any disease nor been diagnosed with anything fatal (knock on wood), but I am getting older. There is more sand in the bottom of the hourglass than the top, and I have no guarantee I will achieve any of the grand goals I set for myself in my youth.
Nevertheless, I keep dreaming and keep going. I’m too stupid and stubborn to do anything else.
