(For life theory #1, click
here.)
Last semester was horrible (this one's worse, but that's a story for another time). There was shitloads of work, and the end semester exams were absolute disasters. So to get over the calamity that had been the past six months, me and S decided to do our (by now almost customary) end-semester shenanigans involving contraband, the night after the last exam. We got a nice big fat one rolled and were generally content with ourselves. Unfortunately, the exams had taken a toll on S and she fell asleep. I could not, of course, let a good thing go to waste. So after a few futile attempts to wake her up, I had to pick another partner in crime. Now G does not involve herself in shenanigans of this kind. But she is a nice enough friend to give me company when I do. So we sat out on the terrace while the stick at the end of my mouth burned out. At some point, the conversation tuned to something like this:
Me: X has a very pretty face.
G: Indeed.
Me: And very nice hair.
G: Hm.
Me: That's not really fair.
G: Say what?
Me: I mean, she doesn't deserve it. If I had my way, I'd like to live in a world where people only get what they deserve. And what they deserve should be based on how intelligent they are. And X is not intelligent. She is, in fact, the complete opposite of that. And by intelligent, I don't mean book smart.
G: Hold up. So you're proposing a world where only smart people are good looking?!
Me: Yes, that's how it should be! Attractive people get what they want. That should not happen if they are dumb. Dumb people do not deserve to look good, that's not right. In my ideal world, attractiveness would only be bestowed upon those truly deserving of it, and those truly deserving of it would only be those who are intelligent.
I remember G laughing a lot, so I gather it would've been a funnier conversation than I can presently recall. That might also be because a lot of it hinged on me using X as an example, and G happens to think that my disdain for X is rather comical.
Now I realize this is a very flawed model. Although I think that for a person not fully in her senses, I did rather well. Its inherent failings however were pointed out to me by a couple of friends much later. A world like that would mean a certain section of population hogging all the resources, the resources here being intelligence and good looks. That part which had neither of these would be left to fend for itself in an environment of adversity, to say the least, since they would have neither of those valued resources to progress in life with.
But the fact that I came up with such a world, and in fact was ardently passionate about its desirability, gave me pause. I've thought about it many times since, in varying states of sobriety. And I've come to realize that I perhaps value intelligence above all else, sometimes too much. Much more so than other people do. After all, the first book I ever saw my Dad read was Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats.
A friend recently told me about a phenomenon called
sapiosexuality. It had instinctive appeal for me. I can't recall a single instance in my life when I've been attracted to someone purely based on their looks. They have to at least start talking for my mind to assess their appeal. Only when I have some basic impression of their overall level of intelligence can I mentally process any sort of inquiry about their desirability.
MS Word lists "good-looking", "nice-looking", "beautiful", "gorgeous", "striking", "eye-catching", "smart" and "pretty" as synonyms for "attractive". Only one out of those eight relate to the mind, and that itself is debatable. To me, it's extremely unfortunate that societal constructs today make it impossible to divorce something as subjective as attraction from pure physical appearance. But while that may be so, it's not enviable to possess an inherent condescension of people who're not all that smart. For instance, I'm almost physically incapable of carrying on any form of prolonged conversation with people below a certain level of intelligence. It's agonizing to make that effort. It deeply saddens me when I make a witty joke and certain people don't understand it, but as a consequence, I immediately start looking down on those people.
There are many qualities one can possess which make them a "good person", or someone others tend to like. Kindness, helpfulness, generosity, love. The weird thing is, I can forgive the absence of all of them, as long as someone is intelligent. I have no qualms being close friends with a person who doesn't donate to charity or feel for the poor, or even someone who steals an occasional twenty rupee note from my wallet, as long as I can make intelligent conversation with them. This raising of the quality of the human brain to a pedestal worthy almost of worship, even at the cost of, and much above, other values which may be more significant or important, is unhealthy to say the least.
I realize that all this ranting sounds rather presumptuous, especially because of the inherent assumption that I myself possess very high intelligence. While I wouldn't say that that's necessarily true, I do believe I'm smarter than the average 20 year old Indian girl. And I'm open to the possibility that that is mere illusion. Unfortunately, this belief had long ago transcended from an objective, empirical fact about myself open to challenge, to an internalized thought stubbornly etched in my mind. It's like marriage, you suspect that there's something wrong with that construct but it's close to impossible to overturn deeply ingrained beliefs that society holds about it.
In other news, Game of Thrones Season 3 starts on Sunday! Life will regain a smidgenny modicum of the excitement that it used to have, before Seervai, Baxi and Nariman readings took over. And it will be awesome.