Disclaimer: This post deals with me picking apart my intelligence. This post may come across as me being arrogant. Please reframe this as me being brave, as not talking about intellect has had a negative impact on my mental wellbeing. By talking about it, I hope to heal myself and maybe help those with similar minds discover knowledge that they needed and didn't have.
Something that has been happening a lot recently, especially when meeting new doctors, psychiatrists, and counsellors, is at some point in the conversation, the health professional saying, "you are extremely intelligent." This always stops my train of thought on whatever we were talking about and immediately changes it to "what did I say that made them think that?" In my mind, I don't feel more intelligent than those around me; I just feel like I am more observant than most people around me. I always want to stop the conversation that prompted this statement and get the person to give me a detailed list of reasons for why what I was saying, doing, etc., prompted them to tell me I am extremely intelligent. I've always been of the belief that no matter how good you are at something, there is always someone out there better than you and that when speaking to people, assume competence unless proven otherwise. I desperately want to know what I am doing that prompts people to think I have above-average intelligence. I don't see it in myself. I'm not sure I ever have.
I do have a thirst for knowledge and the need to know why about everything I don't understand, that I can't quite comprehend others not having. It baffles me that people, when presented with things they don't understand, actually choose not to learn more about how it functions. That being said, I'm constantly learning, but at the same time, I am not retaining the information in a rote manner. The way that my mind works is that I sift through information, learn how something functions, and don't necessarily care to remember or even ever learn the "proper" names for things. As a visual person, if I can see how it works in my mind, I am not entirely sure why people feel the need to be stuck on the "correct" term for things. This might stem from the fact that language is so fluid, there are so many of them, and I understand that the names of things change depending on time, language, and culture. Therefore, learning the proper Latin names or proper English names of things just seems like irrelevant knowledge to me. From this functioning of my mind, I have come to the conclusion that if a person cannot explain something in simple terms that a layman could understand, they don't actually understand the topic well enough. This leads me to be annoyed when people obscure knowledge behind complicated words and sentence structure as a barrier to someone being interested or learning about something. To me, that doesn't make you seem intelligent, it makes you seem like a gatekeeper to knowledge. I digress.
Where was I? I don't see myself as intelligent. Here is why: I sometimes can't find the words to explain what I mean properly or teach someone how to do something properly, and I see that as a failing on my part, not the other person. This communication barrier causes me to feel inadequate and, quite frankly, like an idiot. As stated in the previous paragraph, I don't retain knowledge in the way that I know other intelligent people do, such as remembering the names of individual parts of things, proper names, etc. I retain the concept. I feel that as we have grown more reliant on technology, my brain has decided that it doesn't need to remember everything that I read, just the general area of where I found the information because, at any time, I can reference the material and thus don't need it inside my brain. I also know that memories are fallible, so I constantly second guess my knowledge of things when speaking and feel that if I can't back it up with the actual source, I am just making things up. I don't think I have an encyclopedic knowledge of my special interests that I can spout off; thus, can I really say that I am knowledgeable about them?
This feeling of inferior intelligence comes from how Hollywood has portrayed the "idiot(autistic) savant." Even to this day. I had a hyper fixation on IQ recently because of people constantly telling me I am extremely intelligent and not actually believing them. I have always considered myself average, regardless of people telling me that I am not. I can't see what they see. I feel everyone can be as competent at things as I am; they just need to have the motivation. It's hard for me to understand this as Fact: Not everyone can do what I can do, even if given the chance and motivation. Depending on the varying circumstances and differences in IQ tests (biases), my lowest IQ score is 132, and my highest is 141. According to this arbitrary scale, I am either gifted or highly gifted. But that seems ludicrous to me. What exactly am I highly gifted in? Because if there is something, it is completely beyond my comprehension to see.
Why do I consider my status as highly gifted as complete malarky? Purely because of examples from Hollywood. Here is a list of autistic characters that are portrayed at my apparent IQ level (or higher):
→Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Big Bang Theory): He has an eidetic "photographic" memory (I don't have this)
→Dr. Amy Farrah-Fowler (Big Bang Theory): Savant levels of ability in her chosen fields of science (I, too, have a level of love for psychology on par with hers, but I can't achieve her recall on any level).
→Woo Young Woo (Extraordinary Attorney Woo): She has an eidetic memory (I don't have this). She has an encyclopedic knowledge of whales (I do not have this ability).
→Raymond Babbit (Rain Main): Mathematic savant (I have B level in math skills)
→Abby (NCIS): Insanely good at forensics and computer hacking (I have good skills with my chosen field of work but not insanely good, and I understand computers but can't hack them).
→Maurice Moss (IT Crowd): Savant level computer skills (I have above average computer skills)
Compared to these portrayals of highly gifted autistics, I'm not sure how my intelligence doesn't come out as average. I can't do what they can do. Therefore, I can't possibly be in the same range of intelligence as them. I've always been drawn to these types of characters, Ender from Ender's Game, Sherlock Holmes, Entrapta from She-Ra reboot, and so on and so forth. They have that eidetic memory I have always wanted, been jealous of, that makes me feel inferior and less than. I understand things on the same level as all of them, but I don't retain the knowledge as they do. Thus, the neverending draw to highly gifted and savant characters and the constant self-torture of comparing myself to them and coming up short. Thus the constant reminder that there is always someone better at my best skill than me, and therefore the spin into low self-worth.
There is also a problem with the portrayal of intelligence. It is heavily oriented in a science or fact-retaining measure in media. Intelligence isn't measured by the understanding of the human condition, art, music, or literary fields. Those are not the first things that people think about when assuming someone is intelligent.
I think it is a function of capitalism that those who have a gifted artistic intelligence are looked over. Their skills are deemed worthless to the achievements of society, despite the fact that it's the gifted artistic people who serve to motivate and inspire others to achieve further greatness. Art in all forms is consumed by every single human being on the planet, yet there is a depiction in society that it should be freely given and it isn't worth anything. No one seems to put any monetary value into artistic intelligence, stealing it without giving it a second thought, not even regarding it as stealing or worth being punished for. It's as if people believe that artistic people should have 2 jobs, one to fund their existence on the planet, and a second that is a free gift to the rest of the world.
Maybe, that is why I can't see myself as intelligent. My intelligence is artistic. I've written 4 books that I spent 10 years trying to get published only to deem my work only worthy of giving away for free, just so that I could let people read it. My self-worthlessness makes it impossible for me to talk up my literary achievements, and I am incapable of promoting my work, as spending energy on promotion instead of creation is asinine. Not to mention, as I've stated numerous times before, there is always someone out there that is going to be better at my best skill than me, so how can I possibly stand out as worthy of reading?
There are days, however, when I read a book that is such trash, written so poorly that I can't help but exclaim, "How is it this terrible author gets to make money off what they wrote when I can't?" I find it devastating that my self-worth is solely based on whether what I create and am knowledgeable in can make money. When we live in a global system that ingrains in us that we are only worth something if we are making money, how does someone who is gifted at something that doesn't make them any money at all begin to build self-worth and the desire for continued existence?
I'm still incapable of seeing my intelligence from the view of other people who know me, which is exasperating me.
