I was once
talking to someone. She said she wasn't all that smart, she just
worked really hard. I disagree with that statement, I think she was
very smart, but, many people who are very smart don't see themselves
that way. (Comedian Joe Rogan is like that.) I think I had the
opposite situation. I was naturally smart, but didn't push myself. I
don't know what she's done with her life, but I'm guessing she's done
better than me. I tried to find her on Linked-In, and while I can't
say for sure, it looked like someone who spells her name the same way
she did is married and is the director of a home and center for
autistic children. As I said, I can't be sure it's the same person,
but I think I can take a wild guess that her hard work paid off a lot
more than my natural abilities.
I consider rapper
Lil' Jon to be the world's smartest idiot. I say this because not
only does his lyrical content rarely stray from the well-tread
subjects of having lots of money, how attractive women's behinds are,
and the positive correlation of a man's virility to his expensive and
fast car, but the words he chooses are practically monosyllabic (a
word I doubt Lil' Jon can even pronounce, let alone spell). Yet, he's
a millionaire. He's on the cover of tons of music magazines. All by
using phrases like “Yeahh!!!” “get crunk” and
“Yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhh!” You simply cannot parody the man. He's
already at that level. T-Pain, similarly, has his distinctive robotic
auto-tune sound from the simple fact that he's a terrible singer. If
he were a better singer, he wouldn't need the auto-tune, or at least
it wouldn't be as pronounced. So, by doubling down on his lack of
talent, he worked hard, and became an international star.
How did they do
it? I haven't the slightest fucking clue.
It's easy to just
coast by on whatever you have going for you. But build a better
mousetrap, and the world won't just knock down your door and throw
bags full of money at you. When you get right down to it, talent
barely factors into it. Look at Paris Hilton, Charlie Sheen, or
George W. Bush; sure they “won the genetic lottery” by having
very successful parents, but, the difference between a Sheen and an
Estevez is self-promotion.
Sarah Palin has
this Akido technnique of turning every legitimate criticism of her
intelligence, her ability to actually govern, or her support of
abstinence education, (just to name a few) into an attack on her,
which she then deflects onto the “Lame stream media,” the same
people who made her into a household name in the first place. I have
no fucking clue how she does it, how she gets away with it, or how
she sleeps at night, but she did it, and I didn't, so who's really
fucking smart? But she became successful through sheer force of will
and self-promotion.
I've heard it said
that the ultimate knowledge is knowing how you know nothing. That may
be true, but I've found there are many dimensions of intelligence:
book smarts, street smarts, being able to read people, being able to
memorize words, knowing proper grammar and spelling, being able to
fix a computer, customer service skills, being able to multi-task or
uni-task, solving a Rubik's Cube, being able to hang on to useless
bits of trivia (Did you know that the Rubik's Cube was invented by
Enos Rubik?), puzzle solving, chess playing, I could go on for days,
but, fair or not, the intelligence in real life that matters most is
the kind they don't reward you for in school, and you'll never get a
definitive grade on it. So accept the fact that everyone is below
average at some things, above average at other things, and average at
most things. On average.
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