Are you or have you been obsessed with intelligence?

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I began worrying about my level of intelligence when I was in my late teens, at around the time when I started noticing I was capable of academically outdoing most of my peers. I knew I was not a genius, but apparently some of my peers believed I was one. Some other people, including high school teachers, on the other hand, never got tired of reminding me that I was not as intelligent as I thought I was in spite of being an A student. Funny, how some folks think they know what other people think; and even funnier that they are often wrong. End of digression

I'm very intelligent, but by no means a genius, and I always test better than I actually do academically, because while I work hard, I don't kill myself trying to perfect my grades. My problem is, I have almost no tolerance for people who aren't intelligent. Obviously, I don't have a problem with children or the mentally disabled, and I can get along with people who are less intelligent, but I find myself getting really frustrated if the people I hang out with on a regular basis are unaware of politics or things like that. I've realized in many ways that I value intelligence over being a good person, which I'm ashamed of. I saw Sumner Redstone speak at my college, and I found myself admiring him, a brilliant but stubborn and sometimes unpleasant man, more so than nicer people who aren't very smart. I've become preoccupied by wanting to be a genius, and I get frustrated that I'm not absolutely brilliant. I go to BU, a good but not amazing school, and I turned down Wellesley because I thought it might be too serious and isolating. But now I feel sometimes like I'm too smart for BU, and I look down at the friends I've made for not having as high SAT scores or being as informed as I am. I don't know what to do about this intolerance for less intelligent people, but yet a jealously of very intelligent people.

I think I did notice it a bit when I was a kid, and worried that I didn't have enough of it. Because I believed that there was almost nothing you couldn't do with intelligence, so I pursued it. I know people used to tell me how I was good at math, or they wrote in my yearbook how they believed I was smart, but in my own opinion, I never believed I was good enough. I have no idea what my teachers think of me. I'm sure most of them had a lot of respect for me, and don't think of me as a trouble maker, but I've never asked them if they thought I was smart or not; I didn't think it was appropriate.

I still have obsessions about intelligence. There is still almost nothing you can't do with intelligence. That probably also explains why I'm still a math geek.

I always thought I had a massive mind until i was about 11, when test scores gave me high marks, but no Level 9999999999999.
When I was about 14 or 15 I found that I can memorise loads, but otherwise, I'm not so smart. That was a downer

quirky, there are plently of smart kids on the other side of the Charles...

Not particularly.

Tim

I'm pretty intelligent, and I am always happy with how good I can be, but I CAN, of course, always be better. When I was younger, I always felt I was maybe the best, FOR MY AGE, at what I could do well. I STILL don't know if anyone was better. These days, as an adult, some are clearly better than I am. They studied hard, adopted a hobby, and kept up. I let it slide. Even on COMPUTERS, I let it slide. So I am not THE best, big deal. Still, some may think I am, or think that I think I am.

Frankly, I think the ones that claimed I was a know-it-all were jealous to a degree. I just kind of laughed it off. I never knew everything, or claimed to. I just apologize for knowing something about the subject. I just know a lot about what might seem like everything. I never claimed to know everything about even one thing.

As for SAT scores, some take special classes and learn nearly the whole thing by rote. A person with average ability, but a great memory, could probably score perfectly on them. A very intelligent person that never studied for them may not do nearly as well. One test, ESPECIALLY a standard one that has books written SPECIFICALLY for it, can't determine intelligence.

HECK, scripps even has methods to win the spelling bee! GRANTED, it doesn't seem to be the same thing, but you can spell a LOT of words with information that the judges are REQUIRED to give you. You just need other information scripps gives you. And HEY, scripps may be harder because of all the variants and the fact you don't know which words they might ask. Some SAT courses have been attacked for being too close to the real thing.

I know there are plenty of people out there who are less intelligent than I am. But I often feel unintelligent compared to a lot of people I went to college with, and also to a lot of other aspies I've encountered. Maybe it's just that a lot of these people are more well-spoken, have more sophisticated interests, or are more confident and motivated than I am.

For me, the occurence of interest of intelligence began at the age of 9. I had a severe hearing problem due to small ear canals; prior to surgery where tubes were placed in the ears my measured IQ was 101; afterward it rose to 128. However the story, "Flowers for Algernon" re-awakened my curiousity and obsession with the manner of importance of one's intellect in the world. Unfortunately, I have mistaken the meaning of that story to reveal that it is one's morals and kindness in the world that matters instead of mere intelligence. I thought that the smarter one was, the more important he was to society (a load of bull - which is not necessarily true). Upon this recognition, I have not focused my curiousity of intellect as much as I used to. I know now that IQ tests for those with aspergers syndrome are invalid, as they take the mere average of one's abilities and represent it by a number. So, my measured IQ of 120 (as of now) is and can never be accurate. I suggest never to worry of your intellect, and worry about what good to the world and to yourself you can do with it.

2ukenkerl, with enough practice anyone can get better at solving SAT math problems. The problem is with the verbal section of the SATs. You might be able to memorize the meaning of new words and learn to write a slightly better, but you won't get better at reading comprehension. When it comes to reading comprehension, there is no amount of practice that will make you better at it.

i am definitely obsessed with intelligence; mine and other peoples'.

Yes, you're quite right, haha. However, the only real contact we have with MIT is frat parties (they have awesome ones, apparently) which I am not interested in. I haven't met anyone from Harvard yet. It makes me wish I'd gotten better grades in high school (all A+s instead of A's and a few B's), and took standardized tests more often to get my SAT and ACT scores from great to outstanding. I feel like I was capable of more, and had a shot at maybe getting into an Ivy league, but I'm glad wasn't miserable in high school pursuing that goal. And I don't think I'd be totally happy be surrounded by geniuses - I'd feel inferior.

I'm highly knowledgeable about what I'm interested in.

I'm more interested in kindness, than I am in intelligence.

not everyone who goes to Ivy League schools is a genius; there are also moderately intelligent students who got accepted to those schools by virtue of participating in key extracurricular activities, doing reasonably well in the SATs, getting help with their essays, and working their tails off at school; or maybe they are legacies or have rich parents.

Wellesley is actually ranked number 4 liberal arts college in the nation; if I were you, I would have gone there.

Last edited by Mw99 on 20 Oct 2007, 9:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am like cockney rebel, intelagense, (dont even want to spell check it) boors me....Kindness, gentleness & humility is what does it for me