Liveded and Learneded
One the greater frustrations I have dealt with over the last five years has been a harsh dissonance I feel between myself and the wide majority of others. Very specifically, I find myself to be very cerebral, academic, and curious and it feels like many around me are exactly not that. Beyond actually, I often feel like a lot of people are actively anti-“intellectual”; they put distance between us or shut down my lines of conversation because I’m overly verbose, or I’m asking questions that are “too deep.” It’s frustrating to be met so frequently with, “Oh, that’s way over my head,” without any attempt to facilitate conversation. I appreciate the candor, but after a litany of occasions like this it begins to feel like the stance of “I don’t understand,” becomes one of “I can’t understand; you need to cater to me.”
I recognize that part of this is always going to be preference. When I demand a certain level of discourse, I am going to exclude those who can not or will not operate at that level. I get twisted when it feels like I am most frequently unmet in my expectations (or even just hopes).
For myself, I can begin to break down the frustration so that I might find components I can control, and let lie those I can not. This a crucial part of my mindfulness practice, because when I frustrate against things I cannot control, I am needlessly yielding my energy and time.
I am very academic and may well be among a very small percentage of the population. Finding others to meet me there might actually be a difficult — or at least tedious — task. I consider the notion of a normal distribution. IQ doesn’t seem like a pertinent measure; specifically I know IQ to be inherently flawed in terms of both formulation and evaluation. That said, IQ is also readily available as a well-known metric for this point, and comes with a built-in standard for this exact comparison.
With IQ, an individual’s score is measured with some test. The score considers both accuracy and speed, and often heavily favors the individual’s ability to answer questions quickly rather than exactly correctly. The score is calculated in relation to the individual’s age and the standard is such that an IQ of 100 correlates to the idea that your “intelligence” matches the expected intelligence for your age. An IQ above 100 would indicate that your “intelligence” exceeds your age, and a score below would thus reveal that your “intelligence” more closely meets the expectations of a younger person.
Assuming a normal distribution (which is almost assuredly a safe assumption given the size of the population and the ambiguity of the IQ statistic), I can expect that the average of a population is around 100. That’s the point — most people are as smart as they could expect to be for their age. Furthermore, the tests for IQ are developed to have an average of 100. From statistics, I also know that 68% of the population will fit within one standard deviation away from this average; the standard deviation for IQ is also designed into the formulation to be exactly 15. That means, 68% of the population has an IQ somewhere between 85 and 115. 95% of the population has an IQ within two standard deviations, anywhere from 70 to 130.
I have not taken a formal IQ test since I was a child; it’s genuinely not interesting to me, because I’ve definitely learned the limitations of the metric over the years. For the purpose of this analogy though, when I was last tested (again, as a child) my IQ was around 140. Which puts me in a “genius” category.
Cool. Great.
What’s actually integral here is that I am also human and fall prey to a very specific bias that is leading me to disappointment and frustration. I am ALWAYS myself, operating at that particular intellectual level.
As such, my idea of what is “average” is necessarily biased and flawed, because I’m considering the behavior I know and observe — most of which is me.
If I am far from average (for IQ or any statistic) I have a harder time grasping the reality of the average. The ramifications are such that my ability to interpret someone with 100 IQ as average and reasonable is not great. My sense and expectation of average is likely somewhere above 100, maybe even above 115 so encountering someone who is ACTUALLY average, I immediately mentally place them as “below average.”
This is something I can work on, though it is difficult. I already appreciate that IQ is not a particularly relevant metric and accept that people express intelligence along a number of different axes. The work here for me has more to do with allowing people to express their intelligence in the way they feel most comfortable and to interpret it for myself with minimal judgment. Similarly, I can practice recognizing the distance between myself and another (even for something silly like IQ) and holding space for that distance without judgment too.
Secondly, a lot of people didn’t like school. That puts it rather lightly, and the reality of the situation — at least in my opinion — is a lot more dire. School wasn’t just a chore for some; school evokes memories of failure, tedium, isolation, and vitriol for a lot of people. Certainly, many have fond memories of their childhood friends from school, but those memories don’t seem to be coupled to the idea of scholastic endeavors. There’s a separation of the social experience from the academic one.
I can see how that happens. For myself, I recall school very fondly — hopefully, I mean I was “in school” for almost twenty years. I did well in most of my coursework, which reinforced a love of learning I had. That love was fostered at home from an early age, which speaks to my privilege and opportunity as a child. I also definitely do remember the pieces of school I didn’t like — objectively taught humanities, social friction between myself and others, gym class. I can use my academic experience to begin to see how someone might have very strong feelings against school and the principles of a scholastic mindset. I can see how, if school was awful that in turn, learning was also miserable and as an adult it should be avoided at all costs.
I think a huge factor here is that up until maybe just this last decade, schools in the US were dominated by teachers that espoused objectivist pedagogy. That’s to say, in the classroom the expectation was that students would “learn from the expert” and “arrive at the correct answer.” With a little distance from the K-12 school system — that’s absurd, and it feels obviously harmful to the human psyche. In life, there is often not a clean-cut “right answer,” and as I’m sure many can attest, the knowledge we accrue in K-12 classrooms ends up mostly being dated trivia that serves us little to no good as adults. Really though, the damage that’s done is that by holding our students to an objectivist standard for so long seems to made it so we are largely averse to learning at all.
Learning, in any capacity comes with the mentality that we will be wrong and will fail and be ashamed.
Thankfully, I can see this veil starting to lift. Both from my own time in the classroom and even through media like Nailed It!, I see the world becoming kinder in regards to failure and growth. I can only intervene so much here, I cannot choose for someone else as to whether or not they’re ready or interested in learning and growing (which will necessarily involve some failure). I can however, appreciate the process and accept that others can learn if they choose. I can nudge at the possibility and accept when it’s not received. For me, for right now — that’s my action. I can push for learning and growth; if the other isn’t open to that, we don’t have a lot to talk about. I think there’s kindness in accepting that and parting ways.
Finally, another facet related to the divide between school and “real life,” is that upon entering the “real world,” graduates are quickly saddled with a number of burdens often far greater than they are accustomed. There’s definitely privilege wrapped up in there, but that’s a nuance for a slightly different discussion; the point is rather that as adults we all have complicated lives. We have dreams and desires we seek to fulfill, and duties to meet whether or not we like it. It’s unkind to myself and others to begrudge them for not wanting to engage academically when they’ve simply got other priorities. Even more so, it’s outright narcissistic of me to expect that others would share my priorities and pursue the “intelligence” that I value.
Flatly, the platitude here is “it takes all kinds.” I want to believe that the world could use more academicians — I cannot know if I’m right about that. It’s just something I want, probably because I do often feel rather alone in my “ivory tower.” The platitude stands though; the world DOES need people pursuing all sorts of dreams for us to progress. We need people who love and pursue raising children, and people who love and pursue entertainment, politics, engineering. Humanity has a very diverse set of needs, and so it also requires a set of people with diverse interests and goals.
The autonomy I can claim here is that I have taken the time to question my values and pursuits. I know my loves fairly well, and work toward them with the large majority of my energy. I bemoan feeling like I have to participate in the pursuits that others prioritize; I hate feeling like I have to “play the game” when it comes to dating, finding a job, or being politically informed.
The truth is that I don’t have to participate, it is a choice I make and energy I give of my own free will.
Furthermore, the best thing I can do for myself is participate in the games I don’t like as my most August self. It doesn’t always “work” to be academic while flirting, or job-hunting; I am met with a lot of confusion and rejection. As I said though, I know why I do what I do and why I love what I love. I can practice affirming my passions, and accepting that just because my passion doesn’t meet the needs of someone else, it doesn’t make either party a “failure” in the interaction. By affirming myself and my passions and accepting others doing the same, I can more peacefully coexist with them while also more clearly signaling myself for others that seek the same pursuits as me.
To be clear, I am cerebral and single — bring it on boys.
There is always a choice I can make. Even against frustrating truths, I can choose to participate or part ways. Looking around, I can only hope that adults begin to recognize their own capacity to learn and grow despite our collective experience in American schools. I can only offer a hand, I can’t force others to take it.
As much as I can’t do, I can leave crumbs in further hope that I can facilitate some epiphany for others. We are not in school anymore, and we do not all have the same priorities. That said, if you feel like you hated learning and delight in “being done with school,” I think you are unhealthily denying the natural growth that comes with age. We’re so used to referring to the idea of “with age comes wisdom;” that’s learning. You’re still going to learn, whether or not you do it intentionally. It’s a little absurd in my opinion to demand that you’re a fully cooked human when you’ve left school.
The universe is very big. The Earth is very big.
Even you, with all your stories. You are very big.
You will learn yourself. You will learn others. Even if you hated learning, it will happen.
I don’t hate learning — I actually love it. I am here if you want to talk love and learning. I would love to learn you as much as I can.
I am here, being me. What I’ve seen over the past few years is that:
- I seem to operate more academically or cerebrally than most. I can consider that distance without judgment to appreciate others even as they operate differently than myself.
- I value learning and growth explicitly, and don’t owe anyone a denial of that. I can choose not to participate with those who are in denial of their own growth.
- I don’t have to play any “games,” or even play by the “rules” when I do. I can always choose to be my most August self and let the chips lie as they will.
That’s all I can do.
Sincerely Not Cool,
August
