Children go to school to learn different subjects. Some pick up quickly, while some learn slowly. However, school has a place for everybody. There are extra classes for those who take more time to pick things up. There is no problem with that. But what if the students who have not picked up the subject become insecure? What if they try to project as if they know? As soon as the teacher asks a question, they raise their hands and start answering it incorrectly. What if they say it with a lot of conviction, under the belief that confidence is a measure of knowledge? Such students will work hard. First, they will damage the learning ecosystem because teachers will have to spend more and more time helping students unlearn the wrong things rather than focusing on the right ones. Second, they will do greater harm to themselves because their learning will never commence.

This is a typical phenomenon where the confidence of knowing is disproportionately higher than the actual knowledge. In most cases, people have a very limited capacity and therefore find it difficult to learn continuously. However, their self-image is very high. That’s why they try to fill the gap between their actual capacity and their self-image by showing false confidence. They tend to sit on the mount of stupidity, believing they know and trying to convince others. They see a valley down the hill. They do not wish to pass through that valley of despair because passing through the valley of despair will shatter their self-image of being competent. That’s why they are happy sitting on Mount Stupid even if that’s completely out of touch with reality. Since they live away from reality for a long time, they develop many types of complexes.

The whole ecosystem suffers because of such people. They don’t want to see the truth, and that’s why the solutions are often quite out of touch with reality. Everybody works hard and gets nowhere. Slowly, the entire system collapses. One person holding a key position in an organisation and sitting at Mount Stupid may do irreparable damage to the entire organisation. In organisations, societies, and families, one person’s decision significantly affects others’ decisions. That’s why people sitting on Mount Stupid damage the whole of the community. All these unexamined beliefs get passed on to the next generations. Many people speak with great confidence about the existence of a ghost, a ritual, and the harmful effects of not following a norm. They will force their children to follow these belief systems. The more afraid and unsure they are inside, the more forcefully they try to convince others. They don’t have the capacity to know the truth and therefore try to become increasingly assertive. The more people subscribe to their belief system, the more confidence they get. 

No society, community, or family can live happily at the Mount Stupid. It’s just a mount built with a lot of mental stories. A gust of wind of reality can raze it. The people standing on the Mount Stupid know this, and that’s why they are so insecure. Yet because of their fear and incompetence in building capacity, and sometimes due to the temporary comfort of sitting on the Mount Stupid, they refuse to look beyond. However, time and tide wait for none. Nature will make everybody grow. We have only two choices. Either get down from our Mount Stupid and embrace growth as part of life. Or to wait for a crisis and then be forced to grow. The comfort of sitting on the Mount Stupid actually gives birth to pain in moments of crisis. Life is for constant growth and not for sitting comfortably on the Mount Stupid.