Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Stupidity and Invincibility

A few years ago, a friend declared that the most confident people in the world as a group are young children, because they don't know what failure is. Even if they have tasted failure, they may not be able to comprehend it as failure. Approaching a task without fear of failure is by definition, confidence and so younger children are the most confident amongst all human beings, he concluded. My friend was quite drunk when he said this and so was I and even though he promptly threw up after mouthing these words (thereby slightly jarring the wisdom of his observations), I think there may be some amount of truth in what he said.

My corollary to this theory, based purely on non-scientific methods, chief amongst them being wild guesses, is that alcohol dulls the failure-recording part of the brain giving you the feeling of invincibility and supreme confidence. Which is why people, when drunk, do stupid things doomed for failure. It is also the reason why a couple of years ago, when my old classmates NB, SB and I formed a plan of running in 3 different directions on Juhu beach (in Bombay) to confuse a police jeep headed in our direction, the plan seemed perfect. As the jeep came in our direction slowly, we had realised that the police could potentially detain us for
(a) drinking in a public place at 3 am
(b) Having bought alcohol illegally from a shady side-alley after the bar we were in had shutdown for the night and we were kicked out.
(c) loitering in a public place at unearthly hours

Anyway, the plan to not open our mouths thereby betraying any smell of alcohol and to start running in 3 different directions at the first sign of trouble seemed so flawless that we failed to notice that
(i) even though our mouths were shut tight to safeguard our little secret ,we were holding bottles of liquor in our hands.
(ii) we could barely stand up let alone run
(iii) any vehicle can catch up with a drunk running man especially on sand
(iv) the jeep was not a police jeep - it was just a bunch of people who had come to the beach for a late night drive.

However doomed for failure our plan was, at that moment it gave us a sense of invincibility only the completely plastered can feel. I am sure many of you understand what I am talking about because many of you have experienced that feeling before. Many of you have also experienced the very familiar feeling of incredible stupidity that follows after the effects of the alcohol have worn off.

We should all be thankful that most of us can depend on this feeling of stupidity to eventually wash over the temporary feeling of invincibility, otherwise we would believe all the time that wearing a towel over your neck like a cape gave you abilities to fly and fight crime. And if you were like some friends of mine, you would even believe that you could attract women by your animal magnetism - all you had to do to make them swoon was go stand near them and stare.

I also have a theory as to why there is a legal age set for drinking in every country (or atleast every country where drinking is legal). As children grow older, they slowly start to understand the concept of failure, but they still have not grasped it at the same level as adults. Which means their confidence levels are still high and their sense of stupidity is still low. So if they were to consume alcohol before attaining the legal age, the results of the imbalance generated between invincibility and stupidity would be catastrophic. So for the sake of the children, hide away the alcohol so that you don't disturb the balance of the universe and also so that there is more left for us adults to consume and eventually regale ourselves and others with tales of invincibility and stupidity.

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