I keep promising myself I won’t make the claim that I’ve found genius in another funny romp from Dan Harmon-and-his-friends (I know Justin is the technical creator, but Rick IS Dan Harmon), but last night, in the episode “The ABCs of Beth,” there was an exchange that sort of sums up the pain of the post-post-modern world that we live in.
Beth: Am I evil?
Rick: Worse. You’re smart. When you know nothing matters, the universe is yours.
I think anyone who grew up and was considered gifted gets this sentiment. I never had access to a father like Rick. I never had a portal gun, and I never had an imaginary world. But I remember a point where I realized I was intelligent and many of the people around me weren’t… at least weren’t as actively questioning as I was. I never specifically thought I was better than anyone, but I spent most of my early-to-mid-teens trying to figure out why people didn’t scrutinize life. I felt alienated by the fact that I thought deeply about things, that I wanted the world to make sense.
The truth of being intelligent in contemporary America is that you’re seen, by many, as evil. We live in an era where there’s “imaginary facts” and “fake news.” It makes most people who are intelligent cynical. And it makes most people who are intelligent incredibly volatile. Working in the academy, where most people were the star student of their high schools and have hence never known how to be a work-a-day American, it’s easy to see this sense of intelligence as disregard.
However Rick also hammers home the absolute truth of it all. He talks about how when you’re smart you don’t care about anything (he and Beth even recognize that they are just one of many of a set of infinite versions of themselves), but he then offers to clone Beth so that she can go off and follow her heart and her mind without harming anyone. She asks him why he would do that if he knows nothing matters.
T0 which Rick says, “Maybe you matter so little that I like you. Maybe that makes you matter. Maybe I love you…”
It’s rare that in 22 minutes someone makes you laugh seven or eight times, hits you with the desolation of being intelligence, then reminds you why it’s all worth it anyway.
Kudos, Rick. Get your schwift on.