Reading comments in a different forum, stumbled into an old attitude of my own, and the insight to pull me out of it. She was angry at being pegged as unfriendly, hostile at being misunderstood by others calling her "too smart." Difficulties at work, being too fast and efficient, others feeling threatened and made to look bad.
Being smart is fine, it's good, but to be happy, we have to continue to be even smarter. It's not that we are too smart, it's that we need to be even more intelligent in different areas. If we can learn, we need to learn kindness and compassion. Knowing that others can be one-up, and that is really fine. We have to be willing to understand those dim people, since expecting them to understand us is frankly stupid. We have to learn how to get people around us thinking optimally, by giving them time and peace and warmth. We need to let the slower find their own solutions, since the slower answer can often be the right one, a better one. A bright light can blind as much as enlighten. We need dusk and dawn to spot what is invisible at noon.
Hard for us to get that when we are most accused of being "too smart" what we really need to do is get even smarter. We need to learn soul smartness, heart wisdom, body love.
Like cooking, some foods and ideas need a wok, some need a slow cooker. Some high heat, some simmer. To be really intelligent means knowing when high speed and high intellect will entirely ruin the idea. A tough question, a tough bit of meat, probably needs a leisurely stew. And the wise cook knows when to lightly steam a nice bit of fish, or bring broccoli to a bright green snap.
In the end, the problem isn't being too smart. It's being stupid in too many important areas. Being fast, when slow is required. Not allowing other versions of intelligence to work well. Like one particularly brilliant, but obnoxious surgeon I once had to work with (Dr. Evil I called him, when even his name made me break out in a rash.) He enjoyed riling people, then berating them for failing, spreading chaos and confusion. An evil bullying bastard of the first order, and that he was undoubtedly a genius, with astounding technical skill, meant only that patients died because of him, although he saw himself as the savior of the hopeless. He wasn't bright enough to see where he was totally lacking in humanity and wisdom. Skills he could have learned, if only he'd seen them as important, useful, not to be disdained.
Perhaps, thankfully, I can see this, at least now, because I am not a genius. Sub genius at best, on a good day. Pretty smart, so I can compass how the truly brilliant think. Aware enough of my own limitations that I can, on a good day, appreciate the plodders. Tottering on the wire between, I know quite well how dumb I am, and how smart. Didn't always, but I have a pretty good sense of it, especially as my own abilities fray slightly at the far edges, even as I gain depth.
Wouldn't trade my journey now. Nor the grey hair, red face, bad back, sore joints, not one scar. All proof, evidence.
5 comments:
great post, zhoen.
it's a bit of a problem for me, as well. i get so very impatient with others, their failings and missing (what i think is) the obvious. i call my husband "slowpoke" while he calls me "quickpoke." thanks to him i have learned that both are sometimes necessary. i still bristle at having to explain things to someone, but being in grad school is slowly teaching me that for all the times i have to explain, others must explain things to me just as often. it's humbling but a very good lesson to learn.
i don't ever want to be a dr.evil!
There is not a day that goes by that I am not reminded (myself, mostly) about my own shortcomings. This helps me to recognize how all of us have both moments of clarity, and moments of dysfunction.
Your point about the requirement of using varying speeds at varying times is apt.
Exactly what Phil says!
What we call "intelligence" is only a very narrow sliver of what intelligence really is.
I know well enough that there have been plenty of times when I've been the fool to have been suffered, if not gladly, at least with a good grace, and I'm always a bit suspicious of people who claim their problems with others are because they're too clever.
That said, workplaces can be fraught with bitchiness and pettiness, and bullying people can be very good at making their victims look as if they're the ones being difficult and isolating themselves, out of jealousy or to keep their own bit of power. And it can be very galling to have to put up with people whose intelligence and capacities you don't have much respect for in positions of superiority.
I worked in a place, a kitchen, where I was by far the most educated, well-read, over-qualified,long-word-using cleverbugger in the place, but my lack of sense of urgency was a standing joke, and many of those I worked with were often brighter, quicker, better at multi-tasking and more adaptable than I was. It was a tough but wonderful couple of years, I was accepted and appreciated as I was anyway, and I don't think I've ever learned or laughed so much.
I don't move very fast on anything very often, and am dense and inept about many things. Tom gets impatient with my pace and my distraction and procrastination, often with reason. But I know that sometimes acting too hastily is a mistake, and things can turn out better if left to develop, and my distraction and long-looking and browsing habits often yield results and mean I know about things which people who rush through focussing only on what they see as important miss out on. I'm absent-minded and forgetful but remember extraordinary things. I've never had much of a career, not being driven ehough, and I'm not sure that I'll ever feel that I've attained full adulthood, but I've enjoyed some of the stuff I've seen along the way anyway.
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