Looking Stupid

August 31, 2026

Greetings from the poser,

In the iconic movie Broadcast News, there is a line that has always stayed with me: "It must be nice…to always think you're the smartest person in the room."

It was a bitingly sarcastic line, but I have to admit, I’ve always sort of wished I was the kind of person you might say that to.

I have been in conversations all my life where my main job was to not look stupid. You may guess that I am exaggerating, but the next time we are discussing the electoral college, you will recognize the glazed look in my eyes.

I’m not stupid… probably.  It’s just that there are times that my ignorance about a particular subject might be in contrast to the average person. It’s not a syndrome or caused by the water or childhood trauma. It might be that I just haven’t reached my potential yet. (That’s what my high school French teacher said when I begged her not to fail me.) I have knowledge of things, it’s just a rather selective, and shallow, kind of knowledge.

I should be more confident in my own abilities, but sometimes I’ll admit I am intimidated by people, especially if they have a lot of letters after their name.  Like PhD, MD, JD, ASE, IHOP, even Jr.  It’s like their brains come with an official endorsement, whereas mine is somewhat generic, like the ‘In’ or ‘Out’ signs on doors.

So, I often find myself over my head when talking with people who know more than me, which for reference is a very large pool of humans.  Sometimes I will try to fake it, which you will notice because I am speaking in run on sentences, which are way too long for Yes/No questions. There will also be irrelevant segues to topics I am more familiar with. Like lunchmeat.

There are a few areas of life that I can hold my own in a conversation. Running is one of these. Recently, I was talking with a friend of mine about running and he asked me about my VO2 max, at which point I took running off the list of things about which I can hold my own in a conversation.  (So you know, VO2 is NOT the rocket that Werner von Braun invented in WWII.)

In the last two months I have had to hold up my end of the conversation about car repair, religion, business, philosophy, music, poetry, The U.S. Constitution, cheese, podcasts, the stock market, and the TV show Stranger Things. I should not be in the room with any of these discussions.

Sometimes my lack of intelligence will interfere with my intelligence. For example, I might be listening to you tell me about how plumbing works but my mind is asking me what the difference between a copay and a deductible is. This might be why I haven’t learned anything new in recent decades.  I have a few key pieces of knowledge that I hold on to, and at the top of the list is: Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty.

A couple years ago I was reading a book about animals to my granddaughter Ila. She was four at the time, and it was a delight to share this moment, looking at the brightly colored pictures, reading the simple sentences, turning the thick cardboard pages. 

I said, “Look Ila, that’s a turtle.”  Ila put her hand on the page: “No, Anda,” she said, “that’s not a turtle.” I was feeling so happy, I thought that this would be one of those teachable moments I had heard about, so I pointed to a whale “See Ila, this is a whale” and then the turtle again “And this is a turtle.”  Ila took a breath, and a little exasperated said “Anda, that’s not a turtle. It’s a tortoise.”

As soon as she was not looking, I Googled it and she was right.  Right now I still can’t recall what the difference is.

I am a writer, which is not a licensed position, I guess because no one will get hurt if you write a mixed metaphor. (Paused here to look up ‘metaphor’ to be sure) A few years ago I was working with an editor, and I had to pretend that I knew the eight parts of speech. (I got noun, and pronoun, although I thought the latter was a noun you used to describe professionals like doctors and plumbers and whatnot.) 

One day my friend Tom and I were waiting in a line, talking.  We noticed in the window a guy working at a desk, and we wondered if he was busy stealing our identity or something. In the window there was a small neon sign, which we guessed was the name of the business. It read ‘Cower King’.  We both scratched our heads at this, saying how ridiculous the name was, mocking the company trying to look too clever.

We edged past the business as the line progressed and Tom finally said, “Oh,…it’s Co-working, not Cower King.”  Which caused us both to laugh like eight-year-old boys.  It’s still funny to me, but I was a little mortified. This kind of stupid could be dangerous: I am not sure I could prove to ICE that I am from this country.

Don’t mistake this essay for false modesty, if I were really smart, I wouldn’t have written any of this, but once I got rolling I couldn’t stop, and now it’s written there’s nothing I can do about it. 

You may wonder if there is some deep-seated insecurity I have that makes me doubt my intelligence. Let me say here, there is nothing deep about me, including my seating.  I have made it through what is probably most of my life with whatever IQ I have, and I’m not ashamed of it, most of the time.  I will say that whatever brain wattage I have, it has allowed me to not take myself too seriously most of the time.  That’s a gift.

In the scene from Broadcast News, the woman who is confronted with the line about how nice it must be to always think she is the smartest person in the room, gives a perfect answer. 

“No, it’s awful.”  In a way, I’m glad I don’t have the pressure, because I think she’s right.

Hope this finds you smarter,

David

This essay was written by the author and does not include Ai content.

Copyright © 2026 David Smith