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aelisdeliria lent me a book, called _Welcome to the Ark_, by Stephanie S. Tolan. It's... captivating. I _must_ own this book.The reason I'm writing right now is a quote which I had to share...
"How smart do you feel?"
"Comparatively?"
"No. Just you yourself. How smart do you really feel?"
"Truth?"
"Of course, truth!"
"I've spent my whole life trying not to know how scary it was to have people call me the smartest kid in the world. Because I don't know anything."
*shiver* Yeah. Not to that degree, but yeah.
Re: *shiver*
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(well, that and then additionally being annoyed when people were surprised when i do/say something smart.)
n,
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I think that I'm actually not very smart at all - I feel dumber than "average" - yet somehow most other people are even dumber.
(My worst nightmare was where I was *significantly* more intelligent than I am while awake, in ways that I now find difficult to describe but subjectively remember. I could, for example, acquire fluency in a new language by staying up all night, and in the dream, I could tell you how I was doing this and what it felt like at every intermediate stage. I thought more quickly, more effectively, more *interestingly*, more **beautifully**. Then I woke up and was stupid again. I cried for hours. I'm still haunted by it.)
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Wow. Yeah, I can see that. I'm more tired of the awe/fear reactions, myself. I don't think I tend to interact much with people who are surprised...
this gets a bit ranty.... :/
it's as though if you hit the genetic potluck, that means you must be a bimbo. because "pretty girls are dumb" -- additionally, "pretty girls have blonde hair" which meant that in my school i wasn't considered pretty. but i was considered black, and everyone knew that the only reason i got into Yale and Harvard was because i'm black. right? except for the black kids who didn't get into Yale, but that just meant that i got in because i was lighter than them, hnot because i was smart or talented or anything like that. (that was sarcastic) and creative people aren't *smart*, science and math geeks are *smart*. artists are not *smart*. they are *artsy* and supposed to hate science.
i'm not good at math though.
even though i really, really, really like quantum mechanics. i am terrible at newtownian physics though. which is weird, to say the least.
n.
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I think, actually, it's not that 'pretty girls are dumb', but that a fair number of guys who are drooling over pretty girls want them to not be smarter than them. And they are the vocal and societally accepted guys.
The rest, I have no direct experience with, so don't really know. (and, I _wish_ I were more artsy than I have been thus far... my childhood was more strongly oriented toward scholatic achievement than aritstic. There was _some_, but...)
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Re: not very smart?
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It didn't occur to me that anyone could read that as me saying "I'm don't have an exceptionally well developed sense of my own intelligence relative to everyone else". 8->
I *do* think I'm smarter than most. Where I was going with my first comment is not that I think I'm amazingly intelligent (well, I suppose I do), but that I'm a little bit dumb in a world of staggeringly stupid people. 8->
Still : thank you.
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What I got from your first comment was that while you feel smarter than most people, you feel a bit dumb around many of the people that you hang out with. Thanks for the clarification.
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Now this reminds me exactly of a passage in Socrates' Apology... specifically
"I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know."
and
"they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom - therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was."
The full passage, which is way too long to post in a comment
begins with
"Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether - as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt - he asked the oracle to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself, but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of this story."
and ends with
"And yet I know that this plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth? - this is the occasion and reason of their slander of me, as you will find out either in this or in any future inquiry."
But I highly recommend the rest of the Apology (http://www.saliu.com/socrates.html), as well. Most edifying reading.
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(Oh nos! Now where will you get/share your same ideas?)
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Oh! And her newest book, "Flight of the Raven", sortakinda continues the story of "Welcome to the Ark".
Anyhow, the other book I was thinking of is "A Good Courage".
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*looks around in a shifty-eyed manner*
*puts the brains back in a very quick movement, hoping no one noticed*
Re: not very smart?
Tasty! *she says, as she slowly drowns in book recommendations*
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Nuuuuffin...
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So as I was saying... Socrates' view of knowledge (knowing that you are ignorant) relates strongly to the earlier quote of "I don't know anything".
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I don't tend to _have_ book 'types' that I look for, at least not that I can describe. Kinda like my musical tastes...