Or, "On the Difference Between Smart People and Dumb People."
Like many, I do my best thinking in the shower, in the car, and while trying to fall asleep, three of the conditions least conducive to any kind of writing. And so, many of my substantial and worthwhile thoughts, the ones that might actually lend me some life insight, or actionable creative inspiration, are buried as my mind moves on or clicks off.
I think the latter is useful for a lot of creative people who can jump out of bed and hit the computer or the notepad (Flaming globes of Sigmund!), but by the time my mind is quiet enough at night to do any structured thinking, it's because I'm so close to sleep that the chatter of my parietal lobe has switched off, and the rest of my forebrain's daytime concerns are slipping away. This cuddly little focused, insulated, coherent, linear stream of thought is so blissful for someone who lives the daytime life of distraction, dissatisfaction, fatigue, irritation, and untied ends that belongs naturally to the cerebral, introverted ADD-er trying to m(f)ake it in the external world, and I'm loath to interrupt it.
So, in a state where I'm so relaxed that it feels like paralysis, I'm hardly going to do anything other than follow that train of thought right into a deep sleep. As if it weren't hard enough already for me to remember my occasional daytime a-ha! thoughts without writing them down to revisit later, it's a true phenomenon that we experience a brief amnesia for the last few minutes preceding sleep. This sieve effect explains why I sometimes wake with a start to my second alarm, with barely enough time to get ready for work, and no recollection at all of my first, more prudently-timed (read: wishful) alarm. I also read myself to sleep fairly often, and wake with a total blank on the last few developments of the story—I already had to read most parts of Moby Dick twice, so why not backtrack and make it three just for fun?
So that makes bedtime inspiration just about as bad as a dream in terms of remembering it long enough or well enough to record it before it disappears. It's like a quantum particle (or a shy kitty cat)—the more closely you attempt to examine and document it, the less likely you are to be able to observe its natural state.
But something did stick the other night, during my routine deliberation on the ambiguity of my place in the spectrum of human intelligence. Of course human intelligence is a continuous gamut, with only artificial, statistically-contrived class markers and (I suppose) no naturally defined upper or lower limit. But everyone knows we look at the world in convenient terms of smart people and dumb people—the Brits would call this "bright" and "dull," an appealingly tangible analogy.
The question of whether I'm the dumbest smart kid, or just the smartest dumb kid, has plagued me ever since I was made aware of my own supposedly-above-average intellect in grammar school, and then had that notion raked over the coals continually, and with mixed results, ever since.
In any case, I know I'm far from truly dumb (be I foolish, careless, nearsighted, idealistic, hypocritical or impractical, which I often am), and I often wonder what life is like when you're dumb—not an average joe, but really dull. Darwin Awards dumb, Is this chicken or tuna? dumb, Mission Accomplished dumb, refudiate, misunderestimate, and wee-wee'd up dumb, "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family" dumb. "I'm so smart" dumb. You know, Spencer Pratt dumb.
I'll give it a rest. I can't figure out whether you really know it or not when you're dumb. Surely you notice things not working out the way you planned, but what point of reference for success or competence do you have? The Dunning-Kruger effect holds that the more ignorant you are, the more confident you are in your own intelligence, and vice versa, and I think it holds true, but maybe only within two standard deviations of average. Surely there's no true genius out there who doesn't realize he's smart, and no true bumbling dolt who looks around himself, satisfied that he's gained masterful control of everything. It's anyone who's within arm's reach of average who's in trouble here—i.e. just about everyone1.
I suppose I need to insert an asterisk here—the Dunning-Kruger Effect deals in "competence," which is not the same as intelligence. It's a close cousin of the semantic relationship between skill and talent—one can be acquired; the other must be innate; they can both lead to mastery. A great intellect can still be terribly incompetent—a poor cook, a poor mechanic, a poor leader—and vice versa. The Effect is still popularly reduced to "the dumber you are, the smarter you think you are," and I will allow myself sort of the same bastardization because the underlying mechanics are the same. The less you know about any one thing (in this case, you necessarily lack competence regarding intelligence, because you have none), the less you're able to gauge how you stack up. See Unskilled and Unaware of It for a better-worded version.
The world of the smart person and the world of the dumb person are two vastly different life experiences, of course, arguably accounting for most of the bemusement, head-shaking, derision and typecasting flung at unfamiliars from both sides of the [statistically contrived] fence. It's been difficult for me to articulate the bottom line of this inevitable lack of sympathy between otherwise ostensibly kindred men, and the too-succinct conclusion I came to a few nights ago was that smart people spend their lives trying to do smart things, whereas dumb people just spend their lives trying not to do dumb things.
Now, that sounds about right, and it's so temptingly concise that I'd like to hang my hat on it and call it a day. For a few liminal moments, that conclusion seemed to be everything there was to know about the vast and perplexing gulf which sometimes separates men from other men. The trouble is, it implies that dumb people are aware of their dumbidity2 to the extent that they're actively trying to avoid its pitfalls, which, as we've established, is usually not the case. "Stupid is as stupid does" is a phrase I still don't think I fully understand—scary in the context of a quote about stupidity—but indeed, somewhere along the right lines, one can't be deemed to be stupid if they avoid the commission of acts which themselves can be deemed stupid.
Instead, it's smart people who spend time avoiding being dumb (how hard they have to try varies, but it's the fair success there that counts). So what do dumb people do? If they lack the self-assessment necessary to compel them to avoid their own stupidity, then the commission of stupidity becomes a given, and what follows is that they spend their time dealing with the consequences.
I really liked when I hit on the notion that smart people spend their lives trying to do smart things, because it betrays the "smart" individual's sense of self-consciousness about their own intelligence and its accompanying pressures. But it's also fundamentally flawed—it implies that having to avoid doing dumb things is a non-issue for smart people, who are thusly freed to focus only on higher pursuits (wrong), and I think it hints that dumb people aren't also consciously trying to do smart things, unaware of their lack of potential (wrong again).
So there you have it: Smart people spend their lives trying not to do dumb things, and dumb people spend their lives dealing with the consequences of doing dumb things. Not very uplifting, but perhaps more realistic. Everyone tries to do smart things; everyone fails at that with varying frequency. Everyone does dumb things; everyone just spends varying amounts of time cleaning off their shoes.
So, my best thinking might be a little overrated in terms of game-changing revelations that can be aired out and left to stand on their own. But then again, most any idea can look like total shit if torn to shreds and illuminated from the right angle (most, I said). Best thinking is still probably good enough to deserve one of the those German loanwords that goes just beyond the sum of its English counterparts (Schadenfreude; perfectenschlag), especially since I had to give up on its awkward Newspeak construction, goodestthink. And my best thinking is still an oasis of focused rumination in the sea of my otherwise intemperate brain. So I should probably keep trying to reel it in, to stuff and mount and admire.
In the car, I guess I could get used to the better-than-nothing utility, and awkward talk-to-yourselfing, of my phone's speech-to-text feature, and as for thinking in the shower... I think I've just been inspired to buy more of those bath crayons I had when I was a kid. That's going to be awesome... if I can get that daytime a-ha to stick for more than a few minutes.
1 I think this, the tendency of smart people to doubt themselves, and inept people to overestimate themselves, coupled with everyone's innate tendency to mistake confidence for competence, indirectly explains most of the world's problems. But I'll spare that tangent for now.
2 Just call me Shakespeare.
Like many, I do my best thinking in the shower, in the car, and while trying to fall asleep, three of the conditions least conducive to any kind of writing. And so, many of my substantial and worthwhile thoughts, the ones that might actually lend me some life insight, or actionable creative inspiration, are buried as my mind moves on or clicks off.
I think the latter is useful for a lot of creative people who can jump out of bed and hit the computer or the notepad (Flaming globes of Sigmund!), but by the time my mind is quiet enough at night to do any structured thinking, it's because I'm so close to sleep that the chatter of my parietal lobe has switched off, and the rest of my forebrain's daytime concerns are slipping away. This cuddly little focused, insulated, coherent, linear stream of thought is so blissful for someone who lives the daytime life of distraction, dissatisfaction, fatigue, irritation, and untied ends that belongs naturally to the cerebral, introverted ADD-er trying to m(f)ake it in the external world, and I'm loath to interrupt it.
So, in a state where I'm so relaxed that it feels like paralysis, I'm hardly going to do anything other than follow that train of thought right into a deep sleep. As if it weren't hard enough already for me to remember my occasional daytime a-ha! thoughts without writing them down to revisit later, it's a true phenomenon that we experience a brief amnesia for the last few minutes preceding sleep. This sieve effect explains why I sometimes wake with a start to my second alarm, with barely enough time to get ready for work, and no recollection at all of my first, more prudently-timed (read: wishful) alarm. I also read myself to sleep fairly often, and wake with a total blank on the last few developments of the story—I already had to read most parts of Moby Dick twice, so why not backtrack and make it three just for fun?
So that makes bedtime inspiration just about as bad as a dream in terms of remembering it long enough or well enough to record it before it disappears. It's like a quantum particle (or a shy kitty cat)—the more closely you attempt to examine and document it, the less likely you are to be able to observe its natural state.
But something did stick the other night, during my routine deliberation on the ambiguity of my place in the spectrum of human intelligence. Of course human intelligence is a continuous gamut, with only artificial, statistically-contrived class markers and (I suppose) no naturally defined upper or lower limit. But everyone knows we look at the world in convenient terms of smart people and dumb people—the Brits would call this "bright" and "dull," an appealingly tangible analogy.
The question of whether I'm the dumbest smart kid, or just the smartest dumb kid, has plagued me ever since I was made aware of my own supposedly-above-average intellect in grammar school, and then had that notion raked over the coals continually, and with mixed results, ever since.
In any case, I know I'm far from truly dumb (be I foolish, careless, nearsighted, idealistic, hypocritical or impractical, which I often am), and I often wonder what life is like when you're dumb—not an average joe, but really dull. Darwin Awards dumb, Is this chicken or tuna? dumb, Mission Accomplished dumb, refudiate, misunderestimate, and wee-wee'd up dumb, "I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family" dumb. "I'm so smart" dumb. You know, Spencer Pratt dumb.
I'll give it a rest. I can't figure out whether you really know it or not when you're dumb. Surely you notice things not working out the way you planned, but what point of reference for success or competence do you have? The Dunning-Kruger effect holds that the more ignorant you are, the more confident you are in your own intelligence, and vice versa, and I think it holds true, but maybe only within two standard deviations of average. Surely there's no true genius out there who doesn't realize he's smart, and no true bumbling dolt who looks around himself, satisfied that he's gained masterful control of everything. It's anyone who's within arm's reach of average who's in trouble here—i.e. just about everyone1.
I suppose I need to insert an asterisk here—the Dunning-Kruger Effect deals in "competence," which is not the same as intelligence. It's a close cousin of the semantic relationship between skill and talent—one can be acquired; the other must be innate; they can both lead to mastery. A great intellect can still be terribly incompetent—a poor cook, a poor mechanic, a poor leader—and vice versa. The Effect is still popularly reduced to "the dumber you are, the smarter you think you are," and I will allow myself sort of the same bastardization because the underlying mechanics are the same. The less you know about any one thing (in this case, you necessarily lack competence regarding intelligence, because you have none), the less you're able to gauge how you stack up. See Unskilled and Unaware of It for a better-worded version.
The world of the smart person and the world of the dumb person are two vastly different life experiences, of course, arguably accounting for most of the bemusement, head-shaking, derision and typecasting flung at unfamiliars from both sides of the [statistically contrived] fence. It's been difficult for me to articulate the bottom line of this inevitable lack of sympathy between otherwise ostensibly kindred men, and the too-succinct conclusion I came to a few nights ago was that smart people spend their lives trying to do smart things, whereas dumb people just spend their lives trying not to do dumb things.
Now, that sounds about right, and it's so temptingly concise that I'd like to hang my hat on it and call it a day. For a few liminal moments, that conclusion seemed to be everything there was to know about the vast and perplexing gulf which sometimes separates men from other men. The trouble is, it implies that dumb people are aware of their dumbidity2 to the extent that they're actively trying to avoid its pitfalls, which, as we've established, is usually not the case. "Stupid is as stupid does" is a phrase I still don't think I fully understand—scary in the context of a quote about stupidity—but indeed, somewhere along the right lines, one can't be deemed to be stupid if they avoid the commission of acts which themselves can be deemed stupid.
Instead, it's smart people who spend time avoiding being dumb (how hard they have to try varies, but it's the fair success there that counts). So what do dumb people do? If they lack the self-assessment necessary to compel them to avoid their own stupidity, then the commission of stupidity becomes a given, and what follows is that they spend their time dealing with the consequences.
I really liked when I hit on the notion that smart people spend their lives trying to do smart things, because it betrays the "smart" individual's sense of self-consciousness about their own intelligence and its accompanying pressures. But it's also fundamentally flawed—it implies that having to avoid doing dumb things is a non-issue for smart people, who are thusly freed to focus only on higher pursuits (wrong), and I think it hints that dumb people aren't also consciously trying to do smart things, unaware of their lack of potential (wrong again).
So there you have it: Smart people spend their lives trying not to do dumb things, and dumb people spend their lives dealing with the consequences of doing dumb things. Not very uplifting, but perhaps more realistic. Everyone tries to do smart things; everyone fails at that with varying frequency. Everyone does dumb things; everyone just spends varying amounts of time cleaning off their shoes.
So, my best thinking might be a little overrated in terms of game-changing revelations that can be aired out and left to stand on their own. But then again, most any idea can look like total shit if torn to shreds and illuminated from the right angle (most, I said). Best thinking is still probably good enough to deserve one of the those German loanwords that goes just beyond the sum of its English counterparts (Schadenfreude; perfectenschlag), especially since I had to give up on its awkward Newspeak construction, goodestthink. And my best thinking is still an oasis of focused rumination in the sea of my otherwise intemperate brain. So I should probably keep trying to reel it in, to stuff and mount and admire.
In the car, I guess I could get used to the better-than-nothing utility, and awkward talk-to-yourselfing, of my phone's speech-to-text feature, and as for thinking in the shower... I think I've just been inspired to buy more of those bath crayons I had when I was a kid. That's going to be awesome... if I can get that daytime a-ha to stick for more than a few minutes.
1 I think this, the tendency of smart people to doubt themselves, and inept people to overestimate themselves, coupled with everyone's innate tendency to mistake confidence for competence, indirectly explains most of the world's problems. But I'll spare that tangent for now.
2 Just call me Shakespeare.
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