I've always been a self-professed blog-hopper/blog-stalkarella (whichever floats your boat) and have enjoyed reading most of them. Recently, I've been reading certain blogs which discuss politics and spew thoughts and opinions on current affairs or the like and generate what most would call intellectual stimulation. Reading them has, fortunately or unfortunately I've still yet to decide, heightened my awareness of my inadequacies and sparked a pinch of envy that I am not as 'intellectual' or perhaps I do not have the mental curiosity to constantly read and update myself and spin theories and opinions.

But despite me not being fluent on politics and current affairs, reading about them has transpired a new train of thought about people and their psychological and personal make-up.

There's always been a social stigma on those who are less smart, or to be perfectly blunt, stupid. Most admire the clever and successful because they exude a certain aura of knowingness and on a more objective plane, tend to make more good sense. I, for one, detest being labelled as stupid or bimbotic or shallow or any of the like, but at the same time I recognise that I possess no extraordinary intellectual abilities. I probably own the same brain with the same mental capacity as the next average person, but certainly (I REALLY HOPE NOT!!!) not stupid.

However, I've always believed that every person is built with the same biological ingredients, except doled out in different proportions. For example, I have can warble a tune somewhat decently but I'm not great and I have an inclination towards the arts and I'm utterly crap t science (but I can grasp the idea that water molecules are made from two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom during a reaction) and I am generally a nice person and a little bitchy sometimes. Then there's say Person A next to me whom I'll loosely call Mary who sings fantastically and is great at chemistry and physics and can string a sentence together somewhat decently and is generally bitchy but can be nice at times. I believe everyone has polarities embedded within them, mixed and bake together in different proportions to produce different cakes.

Perhaps, it is this belief that has always led me to ponder and grapple with the action of stereotyping. I, personally, hate being stereotyped because I believe everyone is a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional human being. Who and what are we, in our capacity, to label someone as intelligent or stupid, or deep or shallow?

From blog-hopping, most people garner a perception of the bloggers by reading their blogs. A fancy schmancy blog full of philosophical terms can lead to perceptions that a person is deep or in some cases (ha ha) pretentious. A blog littered with celebrity gossip and endless narcissistic photos of one's self can lead to a perception that the person is shallow, bimbotic or whatever. But then I reckon it is good to keep in mind that blogs are one if not two-dimensional. We see certain aspects of a person, but we don't see the rest.

For example, I know I'm not some high-flying intellect, but neither am I some shallow, meaningless person. I'm not a super optimistic person bubbling over with never-ending vapours of happiness, but neither am I a melancholic freak. Like any other normal person, there are some days where I feel reflective and pensive, there are some days when I just feel like gushing on and on about my absolutely new and fabulous pair of jeans. There are some days when I'm screaming with excitement and some days where senseless tears spring to my eyes and I feel like hiding under my covers all day.

Perhaps, it's this argument that helps me to justify my own feelings of inadequacy. Because after I read some more intellectually stimulating blogs, I felt ant-sized and not at all very clever or mature. But, my down-the-middle-road tendencies came through and perhaps helped me to understand that just because I don't spin political theories, it doesn't make me any less of a person, it doesn't make me any less mature. So just because I am currently feeling very reflective and more pensive than usual, it doesn't mean that I don't feel like blogging about the OMG-thissuperfunnythinghappenedtome-ANDIGOTNEWJEANS thing that happened to me yesterday (LOOK BELOW).

And also, it doesn't mean that right now I am feeling terribly shallow and superficial about how I've put on weight.
And how I absolutely hate it.
And I want to lose it.
And how... Okay, I guess you get the picture:)