From a young age, everyone is told certain things about the way the world works and about the so-called path to success. Before we’re even old enough to form our own opinions regarding the right track, several specific ideas are usually already engrained into our minds. For me, it went something like this: in order to have an accomplished life, I needed to do well in school. To do well in school, I had to take rigorous and varied classes and, invariably, excel in them. To excel in those classes, I had to be intelligent. And to be intelligent – or, at the very least, to meet the criteria for intellience set down by the powers that be – I had to adhere to and satisfactorily manifest the unambiguous facets of mental prowess, as could be measured by tests.
I never really questioned this rationale, because it’s all I ever knew. So, growing up, the knowledge I possessed about what made someone “intelligent” was based only around this limited view. I thought being smart was an academic thing, proved by how much knowledge one could retain from textbooks, how effectively one could solve an algebraic equation, how high one’s GPA was, and how many honors classes and extracurriculars one could fit into his or her already packed schedule. This, I was told (by the nameless, faceless “they” of society), would give me the leg up; this extremely limited view of what it was to be intelligent and what it was to apply intelligence would help me be successful. It’d get me into the best schools; help me land the best jobs. And since all of this intelligence was almost completely linked to schooling, to book-learning, to the educational system at large – and judging by the fact that so many students were struggling in school – I also began to conclude that intelligence was congenital. You either were intelligent or you weren’t. There was no “maybe she was born with it, maybe it’s Maybelline”-applicable tagline, because it couldn’t be faked. You had it or you didn’t. No one seemed eager to disuade me from this way of thinking, either, so I played by the rules of “general” intelligence and bought into this easily believable idea all through elementary, middle, and high school. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Just ask for a defintion from someone around my age, and you will get similar responses, time and time again. Smarts. Brains. Facts. Knowledge. Inherited. Logic. Reasoning. Natural ability. Testable. Every defintion I heard about what it meant to be “intelligent” was imperical, quantifiable. It was all very cut and dried. All very objective. All very…stifling.
To some degree, maybe that is intelligence. Being able to jump through hoops, perform well under pressure, fill in the bubbles on those Scantron sheets, and all the while hope that whatever innate, unmoving capacity for cognition you hold within your person is enough to carry you along on your way. Maybe a high intelligence quotient, a 4.0 grade point average, and an unwavering air of understanding about, I don’t know, everything is what it means to be smart. But if it is, then it certainly isn’t all that it is. Because if the only thing intelligence is and stands for is bound up within the realm of academia and is nothing more than what is taught within the four walls of a classroom, then that definition is way too constricting. Where does the real world come into play? Where does personality come into play? Where does talent and innovation come into play? Where does pretty much every aspect of the human condition standing apart from logical reasoning come into play? Thinking about this, my perception of intelligence has significantly shifted, and I’ve come to realize that the information I’d been fed about intelligence – the information we’d all been fed about intelligence – wasn’t completely wrong. It was only just telling part of the story. So, yes, book-smarts and traditional education and high scores on entrance exams and analytical ability and being just brilliant little Einsteins and Shakespeares are some of what makes up the defintion of intelligence. The rest of it, though, is open for a lot more personal interpretation.
To demonstrate this, I’ll share an experience I had about a month ago. It was then that I met two of the smartest people I have ever encountered, a dating couple who, for the purposes of anonymity, I’ll call Jack and Jill. Both of them have completed a high school education, but neither has completed college. Jack dropped out, and Jill never started. They’re both funny, both well-spoken, both driven. They both work at Starbucks, but that just stands as a day job for them. What they really do (what makes them come alive, in their words) is photography. They approached me to collaborate with them in the capacity of writer for a gallery show they are doing in October, and I jumped at the opportunity because I have never seen two people with such an incredible eye for imagery. The way they can work with their cameras, the way they manipulate light, the way they edit, the way they develop, they way the dive into their environment and find the perfect shot…if that’s not a manifestation of intelligence, then I don’t know what is. They are both right around my age, and they already have a flourishing photography business, a booming list of clients, and have plans to expand their business out of state. They’re doing what they love and they’re amazing at it. They have heart and they have savvy. And that’s smart.
This tiny sample of real world experience brings into light the other side of intelligence. There’s the brainy side previously discussed, of course, but then there’s this: the immeasurable, subjective, creative, passionate real life side. It’s the side where a person engages what they know (that book-learnin’ that finally comes in handy), combines it with what they love, and applies it as situation demands. It’s the part of intelligence that is an equal distribution of knowledge, possibility, and demonstration. It’s the part of intelligence that is about knowing and doing. It’s the part of intelligence where genius all comes down to having the right skills for the right situation and using them at the right time.
And this brings me to the final side of intelligence: potential. We can’t all be brilliant photographers like Jack and Jill. We can’t all come up with theories of relativity like Einstein or write sonnets like Shakespeare. But one thing I was taught growing up – as counterintuitive as it was in light of the rigorous standards of intelligence I believed up until just a few months ago – was to never let go of dreams. If you have passion and work hard and seek out chance, you achieve whatever you want. People who’ve done great things already always seem as if they are a race apart. They are built up in our minds as people so far above and beyond anything we can ever hope to attain. I used to think that it was just fate, or the “old” intelligence I ascribed to, or the unfolding of some innate genius that got those people to where they were in life. But the thing is, if I had Jack and Jill or Shakespeare or Einstein in school with me, they’d seem impressive, yes, but not totally unlike my other classmates.
And that? That means that it wasn’t just destiny that brought these people greatness – it was intelligence. This new intelligence. This new intelligence that is a beautiful combination of analytical ability, personal desire, creative and practical application, and potential. This new intelligence that a person has but that a person also has to use. The greats in the world had it, and they also had to work very hard to do what they did. I think that’s one reason we started believing in genius in the first place: it provided us with an exuse to be smart without actually being smart or applying our abilities. If these masters were able to do what they did only because of some unexplained Jack and Jill-ness, or Shakespeare-ness, or Einstein-ness, then it wouldn’t be our fault if we couldn’t do something as good as they. But maybe genius is overused. Maybe geniuses are just people who had this new intelligence and actually did with it everything that they could. And, you know, we can, too. Because, in my opinion, we all have this new intelligence, in varying degrees. We all have some knowledge in something, that we can apply in someway, that we can excel at somehow as long as we’re passionate about it and as long as we strive for it. That’s what leads to success, in the long run. That’s how the world really works. That’s intelligence.
Jack and Jill, who I’ll actually name, are really Chris and Melodie, and they are two absolutely incredible people. Their gallery ”To Dream…” is taking place in Colorado Springs on October 7th and 8th, from 6pm to 10pm both evenings and will feature their unbelievably beautiful photography as well as some of my original writing. Please come check it out - you won’t be disappointed.
Information can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=275367802489525
