Fox News funnyman Greg Gutfeld penned a thoughtful op-ed on his experience with the late Scott Adams.
The ‘Dilbert’ comic strip creator passed away last week following a battle with prostate cancer, and his death has prompted a flood of tributes and condolences. Gutfeld’s piece was nothing short of a heartwarming insight into the relationship the pair shared.
“I came across Scott Adams accidentally, but it couldn’t have come at a better time for me,” the host wrote. “It was around 2015 or so, and I was hot and bothered by Donald Trump.”
“My friends and relatives had jumped aboard the Trump train, but I resisted — and resentfully so. I had my reasons for it, no doubt. But I never question what lurked beneath those reasons. Turns out it was self-doubt — the weak armor of an insecure ego,” he revealed. “I found myself dreading work, and angry that nearly all my predictive powers had failed. Every day I would say, ‘Trump’s finished!’ and he only got stronger. This wasn’t like me.”
In the midst of his personal political turmoil, Gutfeld was advised to read the works of Adams by some random commenter on X, then Twitter. On a whim, he opted to take the suggestion and pulled up the comic artist’s blog, which he says “changed his life.”
“Scott was already a world-famous cartoonist, of course — the creator of ‘Dilbert.’ He had a pile of bestsellers. But I knew little of that world. And I had no idea what I would discover when I entered the Scott Adams universe — a place where the most profound thinker ruled with a cup of coffee, a goofy grin and a deep understanding of moist robots — i.e. humans,” Gutfeld explained. “Scott loved humans, but understood the nature of their pain — caused by how little they understood the reality behind the one they took as real. While some people would tell you they knew life’s secrets in order to impress upon you their brilliance — Scott was only trying to help. It’s why Dilbert was so successful. He was expressing the reality behind the reality. And we immediately got the joke.”
From his writing, it was clear that Gutfeld was in awe of how Adams’s brain worked, and how he was able to see the bigger picture and distill it down to a comic panel that delighted Americans for so many years.
“It was then, daily, that I listened to “Coffee with Scott Adams” — certain I would glean some valuable insight into the world. And that prediction never failed. He would offer reframes of issues and ideas that would change the way I looked at things. I remember Scott talking about the joys of being fired,” he recalled. “Having been fired three times in my life — I remember being angry and resentful after each one. Turned out, as Scott pointed out, I should have been grateful — because each firing was a step forward into a better career. My life never got worse after being fired — it only got better.”
Ultimately, the problem burdening most people is the existence of the ego. Once Gutfeld heeded Adams’s call to kill the ego, he says he “felt a weight lift.”
“I worried less about slights, or embarrassments. If I was wrong, I embraced it. In fact, losing the ego enabled me to see the worth in being wrong — for it merely sharpened my own ideas. I abandoned the sunk cost fallacy and learned to leave stupid opinions behind.”
“I hate that he is gone, because he helped me so much. He changed the way I thought, and by doing so made me a happier, better version of myself,” Gutfeld wrote of his friend at the end of his piece. “I fear I will lose that gift now — with him gone, and I told him so a few months ago. To which he said, ‘No, you got it now.'”
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Sierra Marlee is a millennial whose hunger for the truth in a world of fake news has led her to write. Marlee also contributes to BizPac Review.
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