"If you have an apple, and I have an apple and we exchange apples then we both still have one apple. If you have an idea, and I have an idea and we exchange ideas then we both have two ideas." George Bernard Shaw

Sunday, September 23, 2012

What does intelligence mean?

     I was reflecting recently on what it means to be smart or a genius.  When I was in high school my calculus teacher said to me "You're brilliant, but you waste your potential."  I came to the conclusion that brilliance really doesn't mean anything if you don't use it to do something.

     There are four groupings of a person's ability: stupid, smart, brilliant, and genius, and the differences between them are as follows:


Stupid: has little ability and doesn't work. Result: nothing
Smart: has little ability, but works hard.   Result: great things
Brilliant:         has lots of ability, but doesn't work Result: nothing
Genius: has lots of ability and works hard Result: great things.

     As you can see, in the final analysis it doesn't matter how "intelligent" a person is; the only thing that matters is what you do with what you have.  Even if you have all the ability in the world, if you don't work then you will accomplish nothing and you may as well have been born an idiot, for that is how history will remember you.  If, on the other hand, you have average ability/intelligence, work hard and accomplish great things, then history will look at you and say "Wow that person did great things.  He/she must have been a genius."

     The choice is yours.

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