Smarts

When I post something, I’m done with it. I think it through as much as I ever want to, then I drop it on you and move on to the next idle thought that happens to distract me.

A month ago I posted a piece about IQ. I tried to move on, but something about that piece wouldn’t let me. It held onto my head with a tenacious grip. It followed me around, staring over my shoulder, giving me that uneasy I’m-being-watched feeling, then when I sat down to write, it jumped in front of the screen to distract me.

This has never happened to me before. I’d like to say it was all a mystery, maybe a trick played by a fickle muse, chalk it up to writer’s block, but it wasn’t. No, it was something much simpler. Something missing from the IQ piece. Something, if I’d only open my eyes, that I’d see staring straight in my face. That something was the truth. The whole truth. The essence of the matter.

You see, I only told part of the truth in the IQ piece. Normally, that’s not a problem. I’m a walking contradiction, my head a safe harbor for opposing thoughts. It’s a tangled mess up there. I could never write anything if I felt obligated to record every relevant strand of thought. No, I have to weed ruthlessly in order to avoid distraction, to convey comprehension, to maybe even capture the essence, even if in doing so I have to smooth over most of the contradictions that roil about up there.

So when I wrote of learning my IQ from my mother, of keeping it a secret, of doubting its veracity, and of retaking an IQ test as an adult, I was reporting the truth, and in doing so I smoothed over a mess of contradictions, as I often do, but in this case one of those contradictions just happened to contain the essence of the matter, and I’d discarded it while writing the post. I wasn’t hiding it from you so much as I was hiding it from myself, I began to realize, as it nagged at me week after week, goading me fill the void I’d left in my earlier post. Yesterday I decided to give in, so here goes:

One day I was an average third grader, average height, average grades, average skill in sports. No particular distinction. Just one of the crowd. Then my mother, filled with pride, revealed my IQ score to me. And the next day I was far from average, highly distinguished, no longer one of the crowd.

The IQ carried great expectations, expectations I often failed to achieve, so it’s fair to say, as I did in the post, that I spent a lot of time doubting the utility of an IQ score. But I also never thought of myself as average again. My IQ score wouldn’t let me. Not that I struggled too much. Deep down I’d always wanted to be special, and the IQ score was the first evidence of specialness in my life, so I embraced it with a bear hug even while I doubted it. I honored by nurturing my mind, lavishing attention on its care and feeding. I stretched myself, often painfully, to justify its potential. And I dared to dream of more from my life than the safe government job my parents, children of the Depression, dreamed for me. Along the way, you could say my IQ score became the foundation for my entire self-image. I became my brain.

And then the contradictions really started to tangle things up.

From the beginning, I kept my mind a secret. It was partly out of polite concern for those less gifted than me, as I wrote in my post, but it was mostly out of other concerns. Part of me wanted to remain average, one of the guys, so I thwarted any outward displays of intelligence. I often denied knowing what I knew, not wanting to sound like someone they weren’t. If I let a thought slip out, I’d quickly follow it with "I heard that somewhere." My natural indolence, when combined with a stubborn refusal to pay attention in the classroom, produced sufficiently low grades that I successfully deflected attention from myself in school.

This deflection served other purposes too. For at the same time I wanted to be seen as average, I also needed to see myself as smart. My entire self-worth was built on my superior intellect, after all, and if I took the risk of exposing my mind to others, allowing them to challenge it, I might get something wrong, dashing my stature in their eyes and, worse, in mine. I couldn’t let that happen, for I had nothing else to fall back on. No Plan B. I was either a legend in my own mind, or a nothing.

(From the beginning I’ve been a champion black-and-white all-or-nothing thinker, a rigorous dialectician in my own mind.)

So I jealously guarded my mind, careful not to expose it to others. On those few occasions when I couldn’t hide it, when, for instance, I had to take an important test or write an important paper or lead an important negotiation, I would work harder than anyone, thinking everything through every possible way, absolutely determined to ensure that no one would ever have any reason to judge me poorly, to conclude I was wrong, to doubt the superiority of my mind, to undermine my self-image. Then, exhausted, my status preserved in my own mind for the time being, I’d hide again, cycling back to extreme indolence from extreme effort, then cycling back again.

Do this for thirty years, and you’ll find the results are very interesting. Not to mention contradictory. My mind has propelled me into places that value my mind, and those places regularly test it, and so far, due in part to my Herculean efforts, I’ve managed to stay one step ahead of all potential inquisitors, preserving my self-worth. And my reward? More tests. Harder tests. It’s like I keep winning pie eating contests, but the prize is more pie.

It’s getting harder for me to keep up. My mind is growing weary, resisting the never-ending chore of staying one step ahead. I’m burned out, as they say, but my self-image is so tied up in this I can’t seem to step off the wheel.

And I’m getting dumber by the day, the huge effort I expend preserving my stature within my narrow niche of knowledge leaving less and less time for the idle mental dilly-dallying that fed my mind so richly so many years ago. More and more, I bore myself.

Sometime along the way, I started assuming everyone I met was smarter than me. This assumption has obvious defensive benefits, ensuring that I never let my guard down, but it also produces an odd side effect, for my usual reserve keeps me from engaging most people, so I end up leaving my assumptions untested, which results in me often feeling like the dumbest guy in the room.

I’ve long fancied myself an autodidact, for such a free and independent mind cannot be confined within a mere classroom, or learn from a mere teacher, or follow a prescribed course of learning. And there’s some truth in that, for I’ve learned a lot on my own. But, let’s face it, my affection for DIY can also be explained by my unwillingness to assume the role of student, to subordinate myself to others, to admit that they may have something to teach me. I spend so much time reinventing the wheel, blazing my own path only to get lost, unwilling to follow a guide. And there’s a limit to what one can learn on one’s own, and, at this stage of my life, I’m reaching it. I can’t face this stagnation, but I can’t seem to move either.

In the same vein, you can learn a lot by asking stupid questions. Or so I’ve heard.

And can you imagine what all this has done to my ability to connect with people? I either shield myself from you, or overwhelm you with overworked and over thought ideas, a heavily polished form of performance art, if I do say so myself, but one designed to keep you from penetrating into my heavily guarded mind. So is it any wonder I leave you puzzled, no idea why I’m so quiet one minute, so animated the next? If I succeed, no one really knows me, and even those who think they do probably like me the least, for only they’ve seen enough of me to perceive the pride that lurks just beneath my deceptively placid non-descript exterior.

Of course, the greatest threat to my self-image comes from myself, for no one is perfect, and every day brings fresh evidence of my own stupidity to undermine this foundation I’ve carefully constructed with my flawed intellect. Delusional thinking can help prop up even the shakiest foundation, or so I’ve found, but delusional thinking can only carry you so far, especially if you flatter yourself as being smart and inquisitive and self-aware, for the minute you open the door and look deep inside yourself you will find that you cannot avert your eyes, or forget what you see, and as all your delusions subside your left with only this gaping void between your self-image and your reality.

And, so, today finds me on very shaky ground. I’m smart and stupid, and only getting stupider while I get smarter. My confidence is fueled by my insecurity. I’m lazy, but no one works harder. I hide from people, but need to perform for them. I see with perfect clarity, but what I see is my blindness. I’m cemented into my self-worth, but it’s only built on sand. And standing there, planted in the shifting sands, I’m watching this train wreck in super slow motion and part of me wants to leap up and save myself while another part of me has this morbid curiosity to stay and watch the destruction.

I’m just a walking contradiction. The good news for the blog is that there’s a ton of material here. The bad news is I’m losing the desire to perform. The good news is that I still have this need to write. The bad news is that the words around here may not be as much fun to read. The good news is I may get better. The bad news is I may lose my mind. The good news is that may not be such a bad thing.

So avert your eyes, if you can, otherwise prepare yourself for anything other than entertainment, unless watching train wrecks is your idea of entertainment. And, please note, in the interests of full disclosure, that other people actually have to pay psychiatrists and psychologists to listen to the stuff you’ve just read for free. Thanks.