November 3 - More on Smart

More on being smart:

Often times, when one displays above average intelligence, those around them tend to think the intelligent person knows everything. This could be, in part, because a lot of intelligent people know a lot of things and take immense pleasure in letting others know that they know a lot of things. I think some of it boils down to the transitive property, too: If Person A knows a lot about cars, then Person A must know a lot about my car, so I can ask Person A questions about my car.

Intelligence does not equal infallibility.

It is very possible that Person A knows things about your car specifically, but knowledge about one thing does not necessarily translate into knowledge about something else. Even something related. I, for instance, know a lot about Doctor Who as it has been laid out in a television series, but I know nothing of the comic books, novellas, or radio plays or another media in which Doctor Who stories have been disseminated. I'm not opposed to knowing that stuff, I just haven't learned it yet. Which means that when I'm arguing Doctor Who with someone, I am arguing from the viewpoint of one who has just watched the show (several times) and there may be gaps in my knowledge base because of things that happened in the Whoniverse outside of the television show.

In general, I am the first to admit when I am wrong. Though I do like to get into Devil's Advocate type discussions with my best guy friend when I get flustered by being wrong. Every now and again, though, I find myself in a situation where someone expects me to know something that I would have no real reason to know, and my hypothetical answer becomes the go-to-answer and when it is then proven to be the wrong answer, then I feel like a heel for having to admit I was wrong. Because I would like to think that a) my general ignorance on a certain topic should be known within that circle or b) that when I gave my hypothetical answer, I mentioned that it was hypothetical. It's possible that I didn't, though, and we get a better look at exactly how not-infallible I really am.

I sometimes think I should downplay my general intelligence so that those around me don't start to automatically assume that I know things I would have no real way of knowing. If I'm not the reliable one that everyone can turn to, my imperfections show less. Maybe the better coping mechanism would be to embrace and/or flaunt my intellectual imperfections more.

October 28 - Weird

I like being weird. Like Moss, it's all I've got. 

I just finished a lovely book called What If? by Randell Munroe, which is a series of silly physics questions answered very honestly and often hysterically by a former NASA physicist who now draws cartoons on the interweb. It is hysterical. 

To me. 

I realized that this was an important distinction - that it's funny to me - when I was describing the book to a woman who didn't seem to find it funny. It either had to be that I was describing it wrong, or other people don't find it funny that if you tried to build a periodic table of elements out of the elements themselves that very bad things would happen. The woman then said to me something along the lines of, "Oh, you're such a cute nerd." And it struck me that it is probably both - I was describing a joke badly that not everyone was going to get anyway. I'm the weird one. And I like being the weird one. 

That being said, we had a discussion in rehearsal the other night wherein we were each encouraged to share something about ourselves that may not come up in regular conversation, as a sort of bonding exercise. Other people talked about their beliefs or sexuality or traumatic experiences. I found myself thinking about seventeen things that I could share, but what came out of my mouth was that I am vegan and I am an introvert. We didn't talk further about the introversion (which I would have liked to talk about), but a few vegan jokes were made. In retrospect, I picked the wrong things to share. 

I should have said that I am a member of Mensa. Most people know I'm smart, or they figure it out after a while. I'm not sure they know how smart. And I always try to downplay it. Always. Even talking about it here feels distasteful and wrong, like I'm not supposed to brag about this gift I was born with. I memorize things fast. I learn fast. I make connections between things quickly and easily. I'm really good at most of the things I do. I have learned a lot of things in my life and retained a lot of information. But our society and our culture currently hold ignorance and youth in high regard (see Craig Fergason's piece where he claims to know why everything is messed up). So for me to talk about how smart I am...it can be an alienating thing. Something else to make me feel weird and different from those around me. So I don't talk about it much, and when it comes up, I shrug it off or downplay it. 

Well, in the name of enjoying my own weirdness, let me say, "Hi. My name is Kitty and I'm really smart. That's not a bad thing, if for no other reason, because it allowed me to enjoy What If?, which is a really lovely book."

Seriously, find a copy and give it a read. It'll make you feel smart, too.