"Have you ever noticed that idiots have a lot of friends? Just an observation."

-I Am the Messenger
by Markus Zusak

Although I don't recommend this book in the least (I stopped reading it because I got bored), I find this character's observation amusing. Why do idiots have all the friends? You know the less-than-intellectual-people that other people love being around? Why do people love being around them? Even when these "idiots" are not good looking, and do not have all the money, they manage to attract others to them. Funny. We use the term idiot in a derogatory way but often flock to those that fit the description. It just doesn't make sense. Are the people who get a laugh out of their ignorance idiots? Or is it the people who are ignorant but pretend that they know a whole lot the real idiots? Or are we all idiots? This seems like the most reasonable answer. None of us knows everything, therefore we are all ignorant of something, therefore we are all idiots to some degree. So maybe what makes an idiot an idiot is how much they don't know. Maybe that is what puts us on different levels. Maybe what attracts those of us who aren't the kind of idiot that has all the friends to one another is our common lack of knowledge (our above-average idiot level) or our common knowledge (our mediocre idiot level). Or maybe, just maybe, it's our actual knowledge that attracts us to each other and the only reason we often seek the company of idiots is because we don't really want to know anything. Perhaps we seek to lower ourselves to a level below our personal, mental scope. Then again it could just be that we want to have fun and, in the end, idiots have all the fun.

Lydia