Growing up, intelligence was revered. In my
family, I was informed that my IQ was pitifully low, lower in fact than my
older sibling, respectfully high-enough, or the asserting parent in question, who was purportedly brilliant.
But it went without saying, without age or wisdom,
really, that this construct seemed nothing more than empty crap, to my young
self.
What I came to trust was the sound of my brother's voices and the pull of my German Shepherds
next to me and the sway of the Pines.
When
I got older, I realized that in fact, we become more wise and even more
intelligent as we age. No one had ever mentioned that, ever. Not in person or
classes or books. It seemed the strangest omission, something that could give
everyone a smile, that maybe at 40 or 60, and certainly at 16, if they took care, they could have
more to work with, than at whatever age they currently resided in.
As
I grew older, I noticed all the many kinds of intelligence people had, which
just delighted me.
To
go grocery shopping and end up spending exactly your budget.
To move into a new
home and pop those belongings right into the best kitchen places.
To
have a car stuck in a ditch or a big bloody cut and know without pause what to
do.
To
be able to do math in your head!
To
be able to sing a great fun song any time of the day or night that it was
needed. Because sometimes, it really is needed.
To
read music!
To
be able to sew things up.
To
be able to cook something and have it come out reasonably well.
And
best of all, to have what I was not born with, which was Common Sense. As in,
NO, it is not a good time to climb on a car while it is driving. NO, it is not
a good idea to go out on a windy day on a Canadian river by yourself in a
canoe. And NO, it is not a good idea to go shopping for food when hungry, to go
to a bar when upset, or to write a poem when you are convulsively sick with a
flu.
But
one thing I found interesting was knowing geniuses. Especially since it's not
that one type of person is more valuable than another.
And
a genius that values themself for being human, accepts their geniosity, but
is comfortable with its pros and cons, is a very healthy person who just so
happens to be a genius.
I
was friends with one genius, who was maybe 10 or 15 years older than me. It was
so nice to know them, and so comfortable and good.
One
of the interesting things was to observe how inimitably their geniosity took
free reign at whatever on earth they focused on long enough. Like an engine
that, if you keep turning the key, eventually will start anywhere anytime, some
geniuses will just begin generating analysis and innovation and evaluation and
replication and creation as an inevitably dynamic, if they pause long enough.
Which,
I began to realize, was kind of exhausting for them.
As
if there was not a very functional gear shift or brake. Just this small quiet
remarkably dynamic going going going all the time, and as soon as their self hit
the ground, the dynamic began catching its tread on the earth, and generating
ideas and concepts and responses and all kinds of things.
So
we would sit together and they would show me things and I would respond and
they would perceive so remarkably the infinitesimal aspects of my responses and
respond in kind.
Which
was a pretty wonderful dance to have with someone. Pretty lovely and remarkable.
And
one of the things they loved about our friendship was how inexorably my
creature self tends to have an inborn dynamic of catching sight of the
remarkable, and then sinking into it with an acquiescent devotion.
So
they would gaze upon and interact with and begin to respond to and generate and
evaluate and all that would begin moving and spinning and singing and shifting.
And
I would be going along watching and feeling and smelling and taking note and
smiling and being so tenderized by so much, and then begin evolving into that
dynamic they were having, while their dynamic involuted into mine.
Sometimes
we would just convulse in laughter, because in some ways it was all too much,
and in other ways, it was really nothing at all.
