Is humanity socially retarded?

As a blonde heroine in a popular animated adaptation of a novel said, "I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it." Increasingly, I find this to be a core feature of humanity. Those individuals able to adhere to their own counsel are quite rare and generally lauded as exceptionally wise. The vast majority of people, on the other hand, insist stubbornly on not heeding their own advice.

A stranger or a friend can draw you aside and disclose a situation they are caught up in and ask what you think they should do. In almost every instance, you will assess their issue and proffer a course of action that seems most prudent, perhaps even providing your reasons as to why you suggested what you did. Chances are they will nod while they listen because they expected what you had to say. In short, they already knew what they should be doing; they were just hoping you'd provide them with a more comfortable alternative.

So they will wait until you finish relating the advice they requested and then methodically tell you why it won't work.

Frankly I'm astounded that advice columns or call in programs are so popular, it isn't as if anyone is actually going to do what the expert recommends. The vast majority of evidence seems to indicate that people are going to continue to do what they wish to do, despite frequent or reasoned arguments to the contrary. I can only attribute the popularity to the social fascination with the pain and misery of others along with talk shows, "human interest" stories, and serious vehicular accidents.

Is there anything more annoying than a friend wholly committed to insanity? He has dated several exotic dancers without any of them failing to become festering explorations of angst and misery. He could give you a point by point breakdown of why strippers are unsuitable relationship material for him. He might even solicit other's opinions that buttress his own conclusions. Someone confiding in him that they were thinking about dating such a dancer would be met with a wealth of personal experience and perspective as to why it would be a bad idea. Nevertheless, this same man will continue to attempt forging healthy relationships with exotic dancers.

Or consider the woman who contemplates starting an affair with a married man. Perhaps she spends a couple months polling her close friends and her logic until she can recite a litany of why it is an exceptionally poor idea. Let's say this is something she's staunchly warned her own friends against getting involved with themselves. What can be really said when she is now an active participant in the affair?

How many times have I myself committed myself to some course of action while every last rational fiber of my being has howled in horrified protest? How many times have curled up in agony, bludgeoning myself with the knowledge I knew better? Am I finally done with stubbornly denying reality?

It's so poisonously easy to give in. Such a temptation to blindly believe that this, your personal situation, is the great exception. You alone have stumbled across the unique confluence where, this time, conventional wisdom is utterly wrong. You want it so god damned fucking much to be true. Seriously, are we just communally, suicidally stupid? I can understand where need or desire could fuel inspiration or adaptation to a given situation, but repeatedly trying to fuck a hornet's nest because you really really really think it would be fun is nothing more than a way to be picking stingers out of the urethra.

I don't know if it's just some irrational need to be unique or whether the pursuit of pleasure is so hopelessly all-consuming. I do know the excuses tend to fall as light and insubstantial as snowflakes until they're drifted so high they cannot be ignored. It defies rational thought. Everyone knows the results are all but assured, but the pattern never wavers. It's like we're almost doomed to be strapped in like crash-test dummies with no power to affect the outcome rushing toward us we knew was coming before the first buckle clicked shut. But maybe that's the point; it's the triumph of irrational thought.