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Dumb People

No, this isn't going to be a rant about how much I get annoyed by other people doing silly things. That just doesn't come from the right place. Sure, it might be (darkly) funny in the right context, but it encourages all sorts of behavior that I'd rather not encourage. However, this is going to be a post about an off-hand comment my sister made that absolutely cracked me up. It'll take a bit to build up to the punch line, but it's a good one, trust me.

With that said, let me start with something of an unofficial motto of mine: do things the hard way. I don't mean that I have to do every last task in the absolute hardest way possible; mowing the lawn with a pair of nail clippers would be difficult, but there's no point in doing it that way. No, I mean that when I'm faced with a choice, I almost always choose the tougher road. More often than not, it's the right thing to do. I rarely want to do things that way, but that's precisely the point. If I need to have a tough conversation with a Mild Ex because it's the right thing to do, I'll grit my teeth and do it. I don't duck tough bosses or professors, I dodn't skip out on difficult courses, nor do I believe in cherry picking the easy tasks at work. It's the road less traveled, for sure, but it seems to have worked out okay so far.

Anyhow, all of this translated directly to the way I tutored my sister when she was younger. She just so happened to pick a major in college that was very similar to mine (copycat), so she often had questions about some of her course work. Me being me, I would make sure she understood why she was doing things, rather than just teaching her to memorize things by rote. I'm not going to lie, it was rough going at times, but thanks to the magic of the Internet, we slogged through it. The best way to explain it was the following exchange with a friend of hers on one random night:

Friend: "Hey, we're going out, you want to come?"
Sister: "No, I can't. My brother's helping me with my project."
Friend: "Wait, still? Didn't you start like three hours ago?"
Sister: "You don't know my brother ..."

Luckily, this approach paid dividends down the road. Not only did my sister need help less and less often as she progressed through her academic career, but she was actually able to explain what she knew to others. She did it the hard way, but she was a much better computer scientist as a result.

So, with all that backstory out of the way, you'll understand a little bit of where my sister was coming from in the following exchange:

Sister: "I hate dumb people"
Me: "Haha, what makes you say that?"
Sister: "It's all your fault. You never let me take the easy way out, so I hate that they get to."

I laughed good and hard at that comment. It was a validation, a back-handed compliment, and a lament, all rolled in to one witty line. I am apparently responsible for adding more character to this world, though that does also mean I have to be very, very careful not to say or do stupid things around my sister. I suppose I'll take my chances.

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