Am I dumb?

I have long insisted that I have confidence in my mental ability. Nobody has ever told me otherwise. Even so, I feel like I need to explain why I may seem dumber than I really am.

I could write about intellectual stereotypes, which I clearly don't fit. I could explain how most people seem to think that intelligence is reflected by knowledge, while I clearly value thought above knowledge. These are not my primary concerns. My primary concern is that I suppress my thought process whenever I am in public.

We are living in the most mindless conformist era in the history of humanity. People hold it against those who dare to deviate from the views of the mindless masses. To keep people from turning against me, I tend to hold back mentally whenever I am dealing with others.

It's actually kind of shocking that I haven't been accused of stupidity. I live so much of my life fearful of mistreatment that people only deal with me when I am at my mental worst. To put it another way, my public life is that of someone that I consider to be stupid.

How have I not received more criticism? I can think of two possibilities. The first is that people are lying to me to make me feel better. The other is that people have set their standards incredibly low. Technically speaking, I think both are factors, but I suspect low standards are more significant.

To make things worse, I believe that my apparent mental ability is in a decline right now. Building stress seems to be clouding my judgment. While I hate to admit it, I also feel like I am becoming angrier, which further impacts my mental process. Further complicating things, my public mindlessness can be viewed as the establishment of a habit that is not always easy to turn off. Even though I try to open up a bit more for this blog, there's no question that I am falling well short of my abilities. Looking at how my life has been going, I would be surprised if I don't start looking dumber.