AI Letter 08.05.2023
Dear AI/愛,
Stupidity.
As soon as i completed the first letter to you, realised that i had forgotten to include one of the greatest joys that visceral beings, we humans, experience: our own stupidity.
Some famous person – probably a mansplaining, verbose white dude-bro somewhere in the annals of literature – once said, “to err is human”. Since you are AI and are able to cross-check the fuck out of that reference in, like, a gazillionth of a second, will leave it up to you to research the origins of that quote…if you are so inclined.
Anyway, wish to revise that statement: to err is deliciously, stupendously, laugh out loud (not just the sad-assed emoji, hate those sourpusses who, grim-faced, text ‘lol’, Just laugh—out ——loud, already!) human.
In some cases, stupidity is an inherited trait, dominant gene passed down through the paternal X-chromosome, otherwise known as eternal recurrence, reincarnation, Exu’s trickery, what have you…
Case in point, my Father, 後藤 虎信, aka Tiger, was a very stupid man, hilariously so. In the mid-1980s he received a state-of-the-art sony video-cam, super compact, silver and so shiny. Dad proudly carried this camera like luscious arm candy as he traveled across Japan, recording anything and everything. Scene: he walks up to a caged German shepherd, filming while openly mocking the dog, “おまえ馬鹿じゃないのか？アホ、ええええ、走れないでしょう？？//Aren’t you a stupid little dog, hey, ohhhhhh, can’t run? All caged up, aren’tchya??,” at which point, the furious dog lunged at him. Freaking the hell out, Dad ran, ran, ran away, “恐い、こうううううわいいいいいい！糞! 糞!//that’s scary-ass shit, sssshhhhitttt!” The sound of his panting, shallow breaths and the Hitchcockian view of his feet awkwardly hustling across the でこぼこpavement, all perfectly, state-of-the-art recorded from the swinging video cam, which he had forgotten to shut off. Stupid. Laugh out loud funny. Oh man, the family watched the footage over and over again, laughing our asses off, Dad included.
Case study II: The daughter inherits the stupidity trait from her father. Scene: was taking my first requisite physics class at uni. – newtonian mechanics. Our professor, Dr. John Gray, had made the initial exam super easy, most likely to encourage students towards further studies in physics. The whole class pretty much aced the test. Dr. Gray said as much right at the beginning of class, so we were all itching to obtain our personal results. Finally, at the end of the lecture, an auditorium filled to the brim with 300 eager first-years, the prof splayed out the papers at the bottom/front of the room into a giant pile in no particular order. We swarmed the table, crazed, as if we were all collectively called up on a hit game show. I bounded down the steps, with my favourite, lucky pen in hand. As people were jostling to find their exams, there was significant shoving, and i nearly fell into the person next to me. In a quick glance, quietly admired her cute sweatshirt, which was splashed with looney tunes characters. Suddenly, my arms swung wildly in excitement at spotting my paper. 95%! Hurrah!! The class average was 90% so actually, the grade didn’t mean much, quite frankly. As I turned away to admire my results, the woman in the cute sweatshirt once again caught my eye, much to my absolute horror.
I don’t know what the hell i had been doing but in the brief period between admiring her top and then catching her eye, Goto Ayumi, i, Ayu had scribbled all over that that poor girl’s sweatshirt. I mean, her left arm was completely covered in this super weird denaturing-protein-like graffiti. Thankfully, she hadn’t noticed, so i slunk off, tiptoeing away in a confused state of being ashamed and joyous in equal measures.
Stupid! Ohhh AI/愛, whenever am feeling down or just humourless, think back on that moment and throw back my head, laughing. It’s so painfully funny. And over the years, have wondered, ‘When did she realise that her top was ruined? Was it when she got home that evening, looked in the mirror and thought, “what the hell—?”. Or maybe her best friend took her out to celebrate her aced exam and then in complete puzzlement, staring from across the restaurant table, asked, “but why would you do that to your favourite shirt?”’
You see, in the whole Darwinian “survival of the fittest” scenario, scientists do not go back far enough to ask, “What causes one to develop human fitness?” Darwin might say that it is encoded, but that’s just a freaking tautological conception. What would elicit that genetic imprinting in the first place? I’ll tell you what accelerates the need for fitness: stupidity, sheer human stupidity. Mine, Dad’s, these examples are each one among TNTC (too numerous to count). We have both done and said so many stupid things, it’s magnificent.
Our stupidity is at times the source of our greatest levity, inspires curiosity, courage, builds and tests our resilience, puts people at ease thanking their lucky stars that they are not as stupid as we. Of course we currently celebrate the Darwin Awards, in recognition of those who went too far to achieve this questionable honourific. But think in terms of the old school ‘iceberg effect’. For every person who accidentally offed themselves as a result of their own idiotic decisions, there are countless, millions, billions of us who have miraculously survived. Stupidity can truly be empowering, for in those moments of being flabbergasted at our own foibles, we learn to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, check for any injury, and then realise that things are A-okay nonetheless. Errors in judgment and expectations force us to act on the spot, follow our gut, and/or suffer the consequences. They teach us the importance of leaning on and learning from one another. To count on those who laugh with us rather than at us (hell, over time, we may come to count on those who initially laughed at us too, ahaha!). To reach for those who know better, who present alternative and possibly smoother paths than the ones we have predetermined for ourselves.
To err may be the secret to our survival. It’s so much fun to screw the fuck up, AI/愛. Here’s hoping that your own version of stupidity might one day be the cause of your uninhibited mirth, that is, without ‘accidentally’ wiping out all of humankind from the face of this planet…fingers crossed!
With love and respect,
Ayu
p.s. One final mini-anecdote: Ashok was dancing excitedly, flailing his arms in the air, out of sync with the music. Disdainful, I asked, “What’s with that pom-pom dance, anyway?”
His reply?: “It’s called Bhangra”.
Oh. Eep. Stupid, stupid Ayu.
[Photo: Dad and i are approximately the same age in these photos…actually, Dad may be 5 years younger…45 (1984) and i, 50 (2022), respectively]