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Current Rants Past Rants Associated Tomfoolery The Suspects Worship Goes Here About the Ranter 1331 |
Date:
November 3, 2002
Currently Thinking The world would be a better place if more people gave me money. Just trust me on this one. Philosophy of the Day Once I cried because I had no shoes... then I met a man with no feet. So I took his shoes. I mean, it's not like he needs them, right? Current Celebrity Infatuation The Jackass guys: For making a movie that paralyzes the general public in a fit of hysteria about poisoning today's youth while said youth steals their wallet. |
The Adventures of Mr. Smarty Pants
*Steps up to the podium* My mother always said that IQ tests only measure just how well you can take an IQ test. What she meant by this is that IQ tests don’t really have any bearing on how smart you are or what you’re capable of. Of course, I never really thought about that at the time because I was a teenager and was probably preoccupied with inhaling the refrigerator. However, I remembered this little piece of advice yesterday after I took an IQ test and was kind of surprised the results. To give you an example of IQ test scores and their meanings, the vast majority of people have an IQ somewhere between 85 and 115. An IQ of 75-80 is borderline mentally deficient, 150 is genius and so on. Only 2% of the population has an IQ over 130. Apparently I have an IQ of 134. My first thought when I read my score, after I almost choked on my juice box straw, was “huh?” The words of a gifted individual indeed. This score means that I could have a shot at Mensa. Me. The guy who once accidentally poured orange juice in his cereal and didn’t notice it until he realized that Cheerios are not supposed to snap, crackle and pop. The guy who, when in the army, once referred to his assault rifle while speaking to a sergeant as “that thing that goes bang”. The guy who thought, until the age of 16, that the words to the song Jet Plane were “I’m leaving on a jet train.” Jet… TRAIN. These are not the actions of a smart person. If anything, that little army incident resulted in a sound ass-whupping that may have retarded me for life. But then I took 4 different tests and they all gave me about the same score. There is no justice in the world. Oh, I probably have the genes for it. My father is a professional author, my mom has two degrees and works in a college and my sister, now a landscape architect, blew through school like so many potato chips at a Jenny Craig clinic. Still, I am of mixed emotions about this result. I don’t do all that great in school, although I do pretty well for someone who procrastinates as much as I do, but this means that I don’t have an excuse anymore. Instead, everything that I get wrong in school is now my fault. This is bad. Now I have to say to myself all the time, I know I COULD do better, but I’m too much of a shifty lay-about to do so. Then I remember my mother’s little saying, and I feel better. It doesn’t mean anything. There are tons of different types of intelligence and you can’t tell me that a little test and a stopwatch can define your skills exactly. Most of the tests even say that they only examine language, mathematical skill and spatial problem solving. There are other types of intelligence such as emotional intelligence, social intelligence (which I think I am severely lacking), musical and artistic intelligence, etc. We all have our talents. I can’t tell you what’s wrong with your car, a saxophone and I would sound like a dehydrated duck crapping out a buffalo and I still don’t remember how to do long division, but I could probably write you a novel in a day. There is little use for intelligence if one does not use it. I knew a guy in highschool whom the teachers all said had a very high IQ, but you wouldn’t know it from being around him. He was a dunce. He acted, spoke and graded like a moron. He never changed as far as I knew. I would not be entirely surprised to find that he’s a gas-station-attendant-for-life now. Or he could have gotten his shit together and is on his way to a CEO position. The point is that intelligence doesn’t mean squat if it (and therefore you) makes no difference in the world around you. Most people would be far more inclined to give credence to someone who helped others, knew what they were doing, liked it and cared about it than someone who was just an intelligent jerk. Intelligence is made to be shared. No matter how much of it you have, there is always the ability to spread it around a bit. Even if it isn’t ‘traditional’ intelligence, there are other types that mean just as much. The only universal sign of intelligence that I’ve ever noticed is the realization that one can never know enough. This aspiration should be a central figure in everyone's life and I will never understand the people who don’t have any. Many people never manage to pull themselves up off their barca-lounger shaped rear ends and do what they’ve always wanted to do. I’ve known what I’ve wanted to do since I was 5: be the best darned flying trapeze artist EVER. My backup plan is a homicide detective, but that’s kinda far-fetched. So the moral of the story? Put down the beer, turn off the tv, unchain the midget and use your intelligence, in whatever form you have it in, to do what fulfills you and helps others.Or don't. Far be it from me to judge. But when you wake up one morning and you're sixty, don't come to me asking for free handouts of Depends. Besides, I can't hear you from way up on this trapeze. I hope I haven’t lost any readers over this unhelpful little speech (as if I ever had any... play along). Next week I’ll be go back to being the ranting, condescending, sarcastic, judgmental bastard you’ve all come to know and tolerate. I just thought this time I’d give a little encouragement. Keep me posted. I’m going to sit here and use my vastly superior intellect to create a tastier spray cheese. *Descends from his podium* -Porkchop |