By 
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
-Not Actually Albert Einstein Despite How It’s Often Attributed, But It’s a Decent Quote Nonetheless, So Feel Free to Attribute it That Way If It Lends the Quote More Credibility For You
This quote is like, mostly accurate. There are some exceptions. In some cases, people are just full on fucking idiots that have no strengths. And of course, there are some over all geniuses who immediately pick up, understand, and function with all areas of life. We know these people exist because we tend to hate them.
But in both cases, that’s not most of us. Most of us are sometimes brilliant, and sometimes dipshits. Most of us can maybe pick up math formulas, but have no idea what the hell art is, or we can talk about the big issues of the world, but we routinely forget where our keys are, or we have a good sense of humor, and a bad sense of what we should be putting our dick in.
The point is there are a million different types of intelligence. Saying someone is smart or dumb is almost always extremely reductive to the point of being a totally useless thing to say.
Saying someone is simply “smart” is like saying that the world is, “good,” when in fact the world is not simply good. The world is good, and bad, and gross, and awe-inspiring, and purple, and orange, and hateful, and loving, and hilarious, and sometimes smells like fish. It can be accurately described in every way you can imagine, and the opposite of all of the things you just imagined, because well, there are well over 7 billion humans alone, and combined, we have about 6 quadrillion thoughts a day.
So, you know, there’s room for variation.
Your brain is similarly complicated. There are 100 trillion connections happening in your brain right now. You couldn’t encapsulate that with a doctoral thesis, never mind trying to quantify someone’s brain as being “smart” or “dumb.”
Developmental psychologists have categorized about 9 different forms of intelligence:
- Naturalist (nature smart)
- Musical (sound smart)
- Logical-mathematical (number/reasoning smart)
- Existential (life smart)
- Interpersonal (people smart)
- Bodily-kinesthetic (body smart)
- Linguistic (word smart)
- Intra-personal (self smart)
- Spatial (picture smart)
But even this is incredibly oversimplified and reductive. There are a million different broad contexts and specific situations in which all of these forms of intelligence combine, and branch off into more specific forms of intelligence.
Some people have great spatial intelligence for putting a room together, but they’d get their shit ruined trying to read the Patriots’ defense. Some people have great rhythmic intelligence, but sound like a dying giraffe when they try to sing. Some people have great interpersonal intelligence for getting what they want out of people, unless the thing they want is friendship.
The point is that everything you do features different combinations of very specific parts of your brain. All of this is endlessly complicated and impossible to quantify. The only way forward, therefore, is to exorcise these catch-alls from our vocabulary. It’s to stop viewing intelligence as a black and white thing, to stop seeing people as smarter or dumber, and instead see them as merely different–as endless mysteries yet to be unsolved; as widely diverse brilliant morons.
We’re Equals By Default
So here’s the cool result of all of that: When you remove that internal dumb-smart hierarchy, you have no choice but to default to seeing us all as equals.
Like not literally, because my ability to memorize NBA role players from the 90s arguably doesn’t get me as far in life as someone else’s ability to understand rocket science.
But the bigger idea remains relevant: we all have strengths and weaknesses. We’re all idiots and geniuses. We all can bring something to the table. Just about everyone has some valuable stuff to contribute, so it’s generally worth valuing everyone and finding out what that is.
When you see others this way, it frees you up to be less judgmental, more understanding, and when you realize just how complicated even the biggest (seeming) dipshit actually is, you respect them more, and you work harder to get to know them. It brings you closer to humanity.
More importantly, you can see yourself through this lens of complicated intelligence. This gives you a couple of important abilities.
Believe in Yourself! You’re a Genius!
First, you can never get all that down on yourself–at least not about how naturally smart you are. Every time you feel like a complete fucking idiot, you don’t have to deny that’s true. It is true. You are an idiot.
But you can still appreciate the areas where you’re a genius too. Sure you can hate yourself for a second for forgetting to put the baby’s diaper on as you clean that yellowish brown death out of his crib, but before you delve into too deep of a hole there, you can appreciate yourself. You can appreciate how personable you are, or how insightful your analysis of Game of Thrones is, or how you know the perfect rug to tie a room together. Those things are also parts of you, and they’re awesome, and if you focus on it, you can use those abilities to contribute a lot to the world.
Calm Down. You’re an Idiot.
The second ability is that you can catch yourself every time you start to feel smarter than others, and say to yourself, “Whoa, let’s pump the brakes–for as we know, I am in fact a total moron.”
Realizing that intelligence is an infinitely complex spectrum immediately allows you to never feel smarter than anyone else because you know someone’s intelligence is total bullshit. It’s not a quantifiable thing in any kind of relevant way, so get off your high horse just because you knew a fact about clouds, Jerry. Your brainpower also led you to think that straw fedora looks good, so maybe calm the hell down.
(Here’s a good side note: Knowing a thing doesn’t make you smart. It literally just means you read a thing. Hey look. Boysenberries were invented by an immigrant named Rudolph Boysen during the depression. Wow, I guess now I’m better than you because I just Googled that. Stupid.)
So every time you out-argue someone, or explain a concept to them, you can immediately remember, “Yeah, but I sucked dick at sociology in college.” You can humble yourself, and remember the crucial reality that we all-too-often forget: that you’re just another fucking person.
Know Yourself
Beyond all of this, if you view things this way, you can see yourself more precisely and accurately. You can become more aware of your video game stats in life, and use those to find your best path forward.
When you have this view, you can estimate, “Okay, well I’ve got an 88 in critical thinking when left alone, a 42 in social skills with strangers, a 57 in advanced algebra, a 71 in fear management, and 4 in dealing with loud noises. Maybe I’ll stick with my office job, and not go on a country-wide rave tour, like my friend wants.”
This knowledge can help you with just about every type of decision in your life, from, “Is grad school right for me?” to “How should I deal with my asshole boss?” to “If I hook up with this guy, how much will I want to die in the morning?”
The best way to gain this knowledge is through endless trial and error. Never stop trying stuff, and learning more about yourself. If you hone in on your ratings every single day, you can use them to make the least stupid decisions moving forward.
But it’s only when you understand people in these more specific terms that you can understand yourself in these terms. Coming to terms with the endlessly complex creatures that we actually are is the only way to discover and utilize your own complexity.
You can do a lot with that brain you’ve got, but there will be plenty of things you suck at. We’re all in that same boat. Averaging all of those strengths and weaknesses out and calling it an IQ doesn’t help you. Knowing what you can and can’t do well, and living with that in focus is the key.
It’s only when you understand that basically everyone is both a genius and an idiot that you can see people for who they actually are. It’s only when you accept both your genius and your idiocy that you can truly thrive.
