Published on 12, July, 2020
Or are you like me? Expecting at any moment to be outed as an intellectual fraud. It's an area of high,possibly pathological,insecurity for me. I think it connects to the bullying related trauma. Being treated as a lesser person by my school age contemporaries, especially as a teenager.
Intellect is overrated.
the only thing that matters (in my opinion) is the capacity for Growth: openness to reasoning, a desire to understand, and a healthy relationship with doubt (scepticism or whatever you’d like to call it- a thing which allows us to have a little laugh at our control issues, admit when we’re wrong and interrogate our own bias)
JuniperFromGallifrey said:Intellect is overrated.
Intelligence without the wisdom to apply it is worthless.
I did all the academic overachieving stuff long ago and it was little benefit to me in the real world other than opening doors to interviews.
Once you start having the opportunity to apply the mechanics of your brain you will start to realise that you need to understand the environment into which your bright ideas will be deployed and this is where a wisdom comes into it.
I've seen some great ideas deployed in ways that were truly apalling and counterproductive because the propellor head who came up with it didn't understand how normal people think and react.
I think the missing part for many people and not just those of us with autism, is opportunity. I dont' know how it works in other countries, or how it is now as a young person just starting out in this country, but we seem to be channelled into certain things and it feels as though what and how much you can achieve has been decided as soon as you walk through the doors of reception class.
Having the wisdom to deploy your intelligence is also different for different for different people, it's the intersection between what you've been taught and what doors you can open and will be allowed to open. I'm a hairdresser, an occupation that's often thought to be filled by stupid people, particularly stupid women, or gay men. Talking about holidays is something thats often cited as a reason for stupidity, it's not, its because many clients will tell you all about thier horrible illnesses and gruesome opperation and other things they should really tell their doctors or a therapist, we don't want to know! Also many people don't know how much science we have to know, everything from care of electrical tools, to the biology of skin and hair, how hormonal changes effect the hair and scalp, the chemistry of many of the products we use and how they interact. We have to know about colour, art and geometry, I never really understood geometry until I did hairdressing, so much of a good hair cut is about angles. We know about running a business, how to manage our time and that of others and we're still called thick, yeah right.