17 July 2004

Is there such a thing as the potential for intelligence? In other words, are some people just more capable that others? Concurrently then, is there such a concept as the fungability of intelligence? Are some people better at translating their potential into different forms (good with people, common sense, academic ability, logic puzzles, etc) or do they simply possess high levels of multiple intelligences?
I think anyone that has worked really hard for ages at something only to watch someone just glance at it and "get it" feels like they are less capable than the other. Is that really a difference in intelligence levels?
How often to we confuse extroversion intuition, and ambition with intelligence?  How do we usually measure how smart the people we meet are? I mean, we're not exaclty carrying around IQ score cards in our wallets...
I, and many will disagree, believe that people are born with certain limits; intelligence included. We don't consider it mean to say that some people are more athlectically gifted: that I will never, no matter how much I work at it, be able to play in the WNBA. Why then, are we reluctant to admit that some people, no matter how hard they work, will ever play in the MENSA league? I further believe that the fungability of intelligence is a different quality than intelligence. Some of the smartest people in the world will never translate that pure logic into gifted social interaction - their intelligence comes in limited form. On the other hand, there are people who are moderately smart at almost anything they try. They have an intelligence level of "moderately smart" and a fungability level of "high". They are in essense, less intelligent than our mathmetician example, but more adaptable. I leave it to you to decide which quality you find more desirable.
 
I've been at the job for a week and a half now and I'm actually liking it. We'll see how it is in a year though - I think I'd like to move a little front office from where I am. It's a good place to start and the people are really really wonderful. Work is pretty much sorted, so now it's a matter of creating the rest of my life. Friends, activities, things like that. I get occasional things to do with the people I meet at work, but I don't think I really know how to make friends. It tends to feel like imposing. I guess I'm going to have to get over that. I should join some kind of club or something here in NY - and there's the gym. Do people really meet at gyms?