Intelligence and whatnot

[mousme]

I'm still debating whether to post this. Even if you see this posted, I'm probably still debating.

See, my friend forthright wrote a post about intelligence the other day, proclaiming notably that he was smarter than the vast majority of his readership, and probably the majority of other folks out there. Naturally, it sparked quite a bit of debate and discussion, although not much controversy.

Why am I writing about this? Well, because it made me think. Now, of course there was the whole issue of how being smarter than average gets you beaten in school (although forthright claims this was not a big problem for him, other than a few isolated episodes), but I've already covered that in some earlier posts of mine, so I won't go into that either.

What I was thinking about, really, was my reaction to the post. See, my reaction was kind of a "Yeah, and?" type of thing. That's when it struck me that, generally speaking, I tend to pick friends who are much more intelligent than I am. By a long shot, that is.

Now, don't get me wrong: I am not stupid, nor do I think I am. However, it remains that most, if not all of my friends are far more intelligent by anyone's standards.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.

I guess I was trying to figure out if I unconsciously gravitate towards people that I know will not only stimulate me intellectually, but will force me to grow as well. I'm not sure.

Also, I've been having a frustrating time with my own brain these past few years. Most of you know this by now. ;)

Mostly, I have this sneaking suspicion that I'm getting stupider, or at least that I'm getting uneducated. As in, what little knowledge I acquired over the years is slipping away little by little. I don't remember things that I know I used to know. I'm not as quick on the uptake anymore.

I don't write anymore, for one thing. No more fiction, no more poetry. I used to be quite prolific, back in the days when my brain still worked. Now, there's nothing. There are a few ideas, but they never translate onto the page. I've tried a few times, but somehow I can never quite get anything to work on the page anymore. I shudder to think what my written French must look like these days (my own prose, not technical stuff).

Most frustrating of all is my almost complete inability to focus on anything for more than, say fifteen or twenty minutes at a time. I'm not sure if this is simply my broken brain playing tricks on me, or if it's a side effect of the meds, or what.

My brain is atrophying. Bad enough that my meds cause aphasia (not being able to find the words for what one is trying to express), but now I have the attention span of a twenty-four hour gnat, and the brainpower of a mentally challenged groundhog. I occasionally have thoughts of trying to regain that lost knowledge, and somehow every time I either get sidetracked (there's that attention span thing again), or else I get overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff I've forgotten.

Bleh. This got disjointed and rambly, and isn't going anywhere. I'm posting it now, but may think better of it later.

Comments

[forthright.livejournal.com]

Wow. I mean, wow. Seriously.

You see, the thing is, I'm not sure I'm more intelligent than you - despite my arrogant proclamation. You wrote an enormous novel when you were fifteen years old. You did two degree programs at the same time, while living with mental illness, and pulled off something like a 3.9 GPA. Your facility with languages exceeds that of practically every human being I know. You were a finalist for the Rhodes Scholars program. I did none of these things, and suspect that I could not do them.

Now, of course, one could claim that it was not due to intelligence, but could be atrributed to hard work, nerdish predilections, or obsessive personality traits. All of those may be true, to some extent (as must be true of anyone who actually *does* anything in life, as opposed to just having capacities). Yet it remains true that by no one's standards, looking around our circle of friends, could you be considered in the lower half of us, intelligence-wise. Not by a long shot. :)

If we sat down, side by side, and wrote IQ tests, if I had to bet I'd still bet on myself. But I wouldn't bet much.

[ex-digitalis869.livejournal.com]

Metafi post much?

My eyes glazed over less than a paragraph into his post.

So I scrolled to read the punchline.

And you, chica, worry entirely too much about your intelligence. This seems to be a recurring anxiety.

We like you, even disjointed and rambly. I don't give a rat's ass if my friends have to fumble for words (because of medication or otherwise). I like the spirit that drives the mind as much as the mechanics of the mind.

[alcinoe.livejournal.com]

I have been through this myself. Usually this is focused on my creativity or lack of which really, because I have never had great faith in my intelligence in general.
What you need to do is force yourself to write. I mean it. I am still not up to where I was once upon a time, but I have allowed 14 years plus to disintergrate my creative flow, still I am noticing a difference just by allowing myself to write some crap for a while. Just pages of absolute garbage, and as I feel some of the goodness flow back, I go back and rewrite, and it gets a little better over time.
Frankly, I think that you could lose 3/4 of your intelligence and still beat me in a game of riddles. **hugs**

[mousme.livejournal.com]

My eyes glazed over less than a paragraph into his post.

LOL.

Great, now I'm not only disjointed and rambly, but I'm either confusing or boring. ;)

Yeah, I worry too much. It's what I do. Worrying is an art form. I guess I needed something new to worry about now that I have a job again. :P

Thank you. :) It's nice to be reminded that people like me not only because I appear to be intelligent (which is a huge issue for me, generally speaking... *sigh*). Anyhow, thanks. :)

i never knew there was a word for this

[chasingthenuns.livejournal.com]

aphasia- this happens to me ALL the time. i just stop talking because i can't remember the word. of course i probably won't remember it's called aphasia either. :)

Re: i never knew there was a word for this

[mousme.livejournal.com]

LOL!

Aphasia is pretty extreme, though. It's become considerably alleviated in my case since I started getting used to the meds, but at one point I was barely able to string two sentences together without faltering, stuttering, or both. :P