on intelligence, being "the smart kid" and the future
i grew up as a gifted kid, not the kind that is so good at maths or can calculate anything in their head. i grew up as the kid correcting the teachers, in english and german and anywhere else it mattered to me, which was anywhere someone was wrong.
and yet, i don't feel smart, and when people tell me that I'm 'a smart girl' and that i should make something of myself, go into psychology or science or law, i can't help but think that they are getting something wrong about me.
I love learning, I love school. I've always loved knowing but i loved not knowing more because it meant that there was more out there i had yet to see.
when i think about what i want to do in the future, about any job I could have, something about everything makes me think i'll hate it. clinical psychology is too much to do with people, and too personal and too heavy on my psyche, I'd never be able to do that. law doesn't interest me enough and it's not something i ever consider until someone else brings it up as the prime example of something you become when you make something of yourself.
everybody has something to say about my future, whether it's "you'll do something really great one day" or "you should do this" or "i can't see you doing this".
they ask about my plans too, sure. but i never seem to be able to come up with an answer i can actually justify to myself, one that will last in this world, one that will keep me financially stable, but most importantly one that will make me want to get up and go to work. not every day, maybe not even most days. but i need to want to do it, and do it well.
one of my biggest hobbies is being a writer, which to me currently is about 50% daydreaming, 25% actual writing and 25% planning and sketching and doing all the kinds of things that make people ask me whether I'm working on a school assignment before i sheepishly explain to them that actually, my twenty notebooks and full google drive and hundreds of pages written full are just for fun.
when I think about what I want in life, i don't think of a job. I think of money, maybe, but mainly love, and people to be around, and maybe a cat or two or three. I think of my life as i want it, not what I'll be doing to live it.
i think i figured out why I don't think of myself as intelligent. to me, my mind, my thoughts, my way of thinking and doing is the baseline. I am the average of my own experience. i consider whether i sometimes just feel so much more above average because i go to school with lots of people who don't have chances or motivation or capacity to do what i do. but maybe intelligence isn't about what you have the capacity or possibility to do but rather the ease with which you do it.
i realise that that is a stupid thing to say because people without capacity or possibility will have to work harder for it and therefore do it with less ease.
i digress. intelligence, to me, is walking around the world with open eyes and open hands and knowing when to close them.
