“Every man is a genius. But if you assess a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it would spend its entire life believing that it was stupid” —Albert Einstein.
A very simple definition of intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply required knowledge and skills. From this definition, intelligence evidently has little or nothing to do with lofty academic laurels, intimidating credentials, or a ubiquitous social profile. Academic accomplishments may demonstrate brilliance in the acquisition of knowledge but do not demonstrate intelligence.
In his seminal book, “Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences”, Howard Gardner identified eight capabilities that profile human intelligence. According to him, everyone is born with a capacity to manifest one or more of those intelligences. A detailed analysis of these intelligences is not the thrust of this column today.
No matter where a person falls on the Gardner Multiple Intelligences theory, it establishes that everyone is capable of manifesting intelligence as long as they have the capacity to acquire, process and deploy knowledge or skills. Suffice it to say however, that brilliance may identify problems and give an academic approach to its explanation of it, but applicable solutions proceed from intelligent people. All progress in any society is traceable to those who have discovered, embraced, and are utilizing their dimension of intelligence to maximum advantage.
On a general note, there are certain qualities that highly intelligent people demonstrate regularly.
The first characteristic is that intelligent people are studious observers of their environment. They are constantly on the lookout for things, events, and situations that can be transformed into a learning and growth experience. Instead of complaining about the environment like the average person does, they listen to learn, not to comment or blame anyone. Because of their constant quest for learning moments, they are not usually excited by drudgery or any situation that does not challenge their intellect.
An incurable solution-thinker, while others see, analyze and grumble about social problems and personal challenges, the intelligent person thinks through the same events with a view to using them as platforms and opportunities for providing solutions. When confronted with the same challenges, intelligent people think solutions. Others think problems. When the ordinary person is busy amplifying problems, the intelligent person is literally dismembering those problems and thinking about how each dimension would be solved.
Intelligent people love to clarify their thoughts and process information deeply to solve problems. What this translates to is that they do a lot of introspection. Their predilection for continuing internal dialogue enables them to interrogate issues from a dimension that is different and deeper than ordinary. It is not uncommon to find them talking to themselves regularly. For this reason, even though they are very comfortable working with others, highly intelligent people are very comfortable in their own company and cherish the moments they get to spend alone. Their quest for solitude or alone moments is not borne out of paranoia, an unwarranted delusional feeling or belief that one is not loved or is being persecuted, hated or harassed by others. It is because they are so comfortable in their own skin and so preoccupied with their thoughts that they would rather avoid the distraction that people may constitute to that process. They do not play to the gallery and are not inspired by a drive to impress people. Remember the ones you called “nerds” in school? When it came to popular mental constructs, do you remember how they stuck out like sore thumbs? Even their dressing was different, remember? As “different” and as sometimes ostracized as they were, however, they did not shy away from anyone who sought to be their friend or needed their help.
As much as they love to introspect, highly intelligent people are never afraid to ask others for help when they need it. Smart people understand that they don’t have the monopoly of knowledge and so, are never ashamed to acknowledge the limits of their competence or expertise on any matter. Even if they are acknowledged as the smartest in their circle, they are not afraid of going outside that circle to court the company of others who are more intelligent or more accomplished in their pursuit or area of interest.
One attribute of highly intelligent people that many people may not easily recognize is that behind their taciturn nature, when you really get to know them, they have a great sense of humour and have no qualms expressing it even when the joke is on them. Very often, they even crack those jokes about themselves.
Highly intelligent people are not swayed by popular opinion. Social media fads, popular gossip, rumour mills and the various other inanities that sometimes shape social narratives don’t usually affect highly intelligent people because they are independent thinkers. Usually, what they have not verified, they don’t validate. What they don’t believe, they don’t broadcast and what they can’t confirm, they don’t convey. This requires a high level of personal discipline and the readiness, if need be, to go against popular drifts of thought and action, even at the risk of being ridiculed for their position.
While most people are fixated when it comes to opinions on matters or issues common to the collective, intelligent people are usually open-minded and like to expand the frontiers of thought on any subject or issue. They are experts at what they do but they do not think like experts. While others in their field accept certain things as “fait accompli”, highly intelligent people believe in the infinity of thought on any issue, no matter how professionally expressed. For them, no concept or theory is cast in stone. They ask questions and interrogate boundaries without breaking the law.
Intelligent people recognize that it if is going to be, it is up to them. They operate with the mindset that responsibility is the price of liberty. They therefore have no sense of entitlement that operates in the delusion that many people have of thinking that society, government, parents, or anyone owes them anything. They embrace the discipline of application of what they have learnt by paying the price of working it out. When things go wrong, they look inwards to fix it instead of looking for someone to blame.
To cap it all, highly intelligent people never discountenance the God-factor. Recently, I was watching a series of videos that profiled highly successful people. One thread ran through all of them. Over ninety percent of those interviewed acknowledged the role of a superior Being or spiritual power that inspired and sustained them, especially when they went through difficult times on their journey to the top. I was amazed. Note that not all of them viewed that Superior Being in the same context or definition of faith, but they all acknowledge that Power in the best way that they knew. Then it dawned on me that when you despise the God-factor and arrogate everything you become to your smartness it is real foolishness and blind EGO on parade. It is what you get is what you get when you Edge God Out (E.G.O)!
How intelligent are you?
Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
and then