Scott Adams

Post by **Martin Hash** » Mon Mar 16, 2020 9:58 am

Scott Adams.jpg

If you asked most people, almost anyone, really, to name a wise person, they would name a famous person instead. Our society has conflated fame with wisdom to the point where being wise without fame is considered foolish. It's not like I've known this disturbing fact my whole like, only after I became wise did it become apparent to me. How did I become wise, you may ask? Well, I thought about what wisdom would actually entail: experience, knowledge & self-awareness; both width and breath. I then drew a circle and divided it into pie slices, labeling each with a component of the things that make up life: science, law, medicine, business, art, philosophy, sports, travel, and personal issues like family. After that it was a lifetime of targeted achievement until I felt “wise.” That actually happens: for the longest time, forever almost, you feel like there's mysteries you're just not privy to, but those become fewer and lesser, until wisdom peeks over the horizon. The funny thing is, when I went over the pass into Wisdom valley, there wasn't anybody there, none that I could see anyway, so I started looking around.

I knew there were what I consider wise people in the past: Benjamin Franklin, for example; read his biography and you can tell yourself. Probably most of the Renaissance Men: Leonardo da Vinci, Imhotep, Francis Galton, Cicero, etc., were wise, but it's as hard to read dead people's minds as it is live people's so I wasn't certain. I started looking closer to home: who did I take advice from growing up? Certainly not teachers, no one ever taught me anything, I taught myself despite them. No, I took my wisdom from comic strips; first “Peanuts” then “Dilbert.” It turns out Charles Schulz had a lot of self-awareness, but I wouldn't consider him wise; however, Scott Adams also wrote some best-selling books that seemed to indicate he had the goods. I also started watching his daily YouTube channel: turns out he publicly predicted Trump would win just like I did.

Scott Adams Books.jpg

Scott Adams may be the most insightful person I’ve ever investigated but the guy is a bundle of neuroses; and as successful as he's been, he's only experienced a piece of the pie of universal knowledge; he fills in the rest in with psychosomatic illnesses, affirmations, metaphysical ideas ("God Debris”), a truly cult-like personality (“the simultaneous sip”), and is unable to make deep personal commitments; the guy's a mess. I haven’t been able to last through two minutes of his YouTube channel for the past couple of months because he’s gotten mystical about how his thoughts control the universe around him, and he tells stories about great coincidences that happen when he wishes them to.

I was about to write Scott off the Wisdom list but then I had my own coincidence, and it was with Scott's new book, “Loserthink.” Scott had been promoting the book, and I intended to buy it but I just hadn't gotten around to it. My wife and I travel a lot, and we were coming home from the Caribbean; before departure time, while we were walking through the Orlando airport for exercise, I was listening on my earphones to Scott Adams' channel. He was blabbering about his book, and just as he said the word "loserthink," I happened to be looking at a rack of books in front of one of the little shops in the airport concourse, and the bright orange title I was reading exactly when Scott said "loserthink," was "Loserthink." Of course I bought it. I sent Scott an email offering to be his consigliere but I haven't heard back; maybe he hasn't wished me to do it yet?

Loserthink.jpg