Oct 03 2007
The smarty pants jean
Many people believe that intelligence is an inherited trait. IQ tests aren’t a black and white indication of ones intelligence because intelligence has a wider spectrum of applications than algebra, language and geometry, but it’s our best objective guide to date. After I took my first professional IQ test and scored 125, without any collage education, my parents instantly became proud of me. To them it was obvious that they had a huge part in fostering my above average score. I think my father believes he simply scared the brains into me and that some form of intelligence osmosis occurred from being around his Green Beret circuit friendly endeavors. My mother, on the other hand, mentioned that she believes my grandfather could do large mathematical equations in his head, though the calculations always ended in the hundredth of cent.
I love my parents and they provided many wonderful gatherings and celebrations but I can’t remember them stimulating me intellectually. At best, my dad would play chess with me during the commercials of M.A.S.H. We played a few hundred games and I lost every time. I don’t know how I didn’t get discouraged or why my dad didn’t help me out. Twenty years later my opening game is extremely strong against people who don’t have the openings memorized but my end game is still a child’s play. My mom is a nurse and was pleased to label me a doctor and give me the visible man; what’s cooler than a plastic miniature nude man with removable parts? My guess is that the most beneficial thing they did was to have an extremely dysfunctional relationship which caused me to become “more objective” in my judgments of them and therefore myself. Their relationship also sent me through constant changes, moving back and forth, from school to school, which forced me to adjust to a wide variety of situations, become proficient in making new friends and adapt to new social norms (probably one of the most complicated things in the universe). I laugh to myself when I hear my parents blame me for me switching from parent to parent because “I liked the rules of the other parent better.” The truth is that I felt the need to spend time with both of my parents and my moving conveniently coincided during the times they were going to ship me to military school or rewrite their TOUGHLOVE® contract. The downside of my parents beneficial dysfunctional relationship is that I don’t even have one memory of my mother and father having a conversation. I recently asked them why they don’t talk and they both said, “what do we have in common?”
The reason I don’t think intelligence is inherited has little to do with my parents. I think it’s quite possible that I wouldn’t score so well on IQ tests if I had parents that guided me into intellectualism. What I learned from both of my parents was the value of dedication and blind persistence. The one thing they did teach me they’ve been disappointed with in me because our values are so foreign to each other. I value new experience, adventure and art; they value repetition, stability and god. I wonder if my mother ever curses herself when she remembers saying, “I don’t care what you do, as long as you do your best at it.” That was fine when I was 12 and I spoke of being an astronaut or a doctor. It was even fine when I was in chef school, but when she found out my goal was to be a cook, she felt disappointed.
Intelligence, in and of itself, is a strange term. It’s not aptitude, which my have a genetic element, even if it’s on the roulette table of sperm and egg combos. It’s not knowledge in the strict sense of the word, although knowledge aids intelligence and is also a byproduct of it. Paradoxally, I almost believe that emotion has the largest role in excelling in intelligence.
The brain, and therefore the mind, work in tandem throughout life. When the mind hits on things it decides are good, fun and valuable, the brain releases some pleasure chemicals. This can wreak havoc when the mind fails to perceive the big picture with drugs, smoking and extreme sports but typically the function works for the benefit of the self: Fix something beautiful, dopamine release; Save the day, adrenaline release; Produce a nipple suck, Oxycotton blast. The intelligence junky is a strange one. Although there is a fair amount of reward in the brain for simply storming, absolute new discoveries are fairly rare. No, the lover of intelligence is the person who gets their kicks off of realizing their false assumptions. When most people discover they were wrong they become upset and suffer from CJS (Cortisol juicing syndrome). Therefore most people ovoid putting themselves in the situation of being wrong, exactly the place where intelligence is fostered. Dumb-Dumb will sometimes even lie to themselves and ignore new information, when it is counter to something they’ve assumed as infallible. The brainiac gets their rocks off, “I was wrong, Hallelujah!”
Your post takes a bit of thought.
I really feel that family does make you more, not intelligent, but driven by them to succeed and to be more knowledgeable and educated. You were encouraged by professionals; a nurse and a military man to do something worthy. Worthy is not what they had in mind, even though those may have been the words. The mind set is money over any other pursuit, because ultimately that will set you secure, happy and “worthy”.
My parents did the same thing to me, but there is an enormous difference. My parents hated TV, constantly encouraged reading and even though my siblings were older fostered a competitive process that was brutal. We were their kids, but judged not as individuals, but as little race car drivers, seeing who could win the grand prix, Oscar or score the best money making job first.
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To this day I have to go in ready for verbal battle and be prepared for any subject when having the “Visit” with my family.
In conclusion, no your family does not determine IQ, but your family does help to make you who you are. You may have rebelled and acted outside your family’s norm. I don’t know, but I bet they still love you and are confused by you in the same way you may question who they are.
It takes many things to happen to earn the respect that we all crave from our parents. You may say you do not crave said respect, but then I would have to tell you: pumping lying to yourself.
It is normal and right to want “that’s my boy, I am proud of you” from parents.
I think you are well on your well to achieving this.
IQ is what you are born with; knowledge is gained through sensitivity, learned experience and the inner strength of being brave enough to see yourself inside and out.
The most worthy thing I’ve done is stare at a blank wall, the rest are details.
Most people think I’m obsessed with pleasing my parents because I talk about them frequently. That’s not the case. I talk about them because they are puzzling individuals and I’m more familiar with them than anyone else on the planet. I tried to explain that it’s there perplexity that stimulated me to study the human condition and thus intelligence, not their occupations or expectation of me. It infuriates me when people accuse me of “rebelling” from or because of them. I rebelled against no one; I am what I am.
There needs to be more justification for believing one is born with an Intelligence Quota to support the belief. The reason most people hold that belief is because intelligent parents usually produce intelligent kids. I’m sure that transfers over to adopted children, which is justification to believe it’s not genetic.
You are pumping…
Pumping is a big time waste of gas in my new, trained opinion on “driving”.
Pump those pedals and eventually you will make your brake light turn on.
The car is a process of Manufacturing. The driver determines the skill.
Take a car made by an inferior manufacturer and place it against an inferior and see what you get?
You get an expensive “worthy” car or you get a lesser “not worthy” car, as it cost far less than the worthy one.
It does not matter that you have equal skill driving both. The illusion is based on the more expensive car as that is what makes the illusion real to outsiders.
Any metaphor, still results in pumping with regard to the parent and worthy conversation; it is what it is and if you do not want to see it; better for you. The guilt will eventually make you do something stupid – like join the military?
Be careful. If you do not really recognize what is happening, you may end up where you do not want to be; for all the right reasons, but never being able to say what those reasons are.
Take pumping lessons from one who knows all too well. - or not.
Please know that I treat everyone equal in the Blogsphere, now put on your seat belt.
“The car is a process of Manufacturing. The driver determines the skill.”
I assume you refer to the car and production as the body/brain - parents/society and the driver as the mind/self. This metaphoric argument supports my belief that intelligence is not inherited. Logic dictates that to argue against me, one can not do so by providing arguments that support my theories.
“The illusion is based on the more expensive car as that is what makes the illusion real to outsiders.”
I’m referring to Real-Intelligence®, not artificial intelligence. By metaphorically bringing up more expensive education you again support my theory that intelligence and certified knowledge are two distinct things. Intelligence isn’t concerned with illusion unless illusion is being used as a tool or art. I don’t care who your family is or what school you were manufactured at.
“The guilt will eventually make you do something stupid – like join the military?”
I was going to join the military for money. Believe it or not, those of us without college educations are automatically disqualified from most decent paying jobs, regardless of how intelligent we are.
“Be careful. If you do not really recognize what is happening, you may end up where you do not want to be; for all the right reasons, but never being able to say what those reasons are”
In case you haven’t noticed, we’re rapidly headed for a supernatural/ideological based world war. I knew damn well why making bank in the military, popping radical Islamic tops, would benefit my self. I’m a peaceful person but despise supernatural prejudiced people; I could never bring myself to kill them unless they were shooting back. Iraq would have solved that problem for me.
As far as being a cop in New Orleans: I love this city, I respect rule of law, I’m ready for money and health insurance and I’m tired of painting peoples pets.