Beyond Smart
Being even a little clever—and that&#x27;s the best I can claim—is living life on easy mode. It&#x27;s so great. Once I realized that the other people in the room weren&#x27;t not-saying the obvious thing because they&#x27;d already dismissed it for some reason I couldn&#x27;t see, but because it <i>wasn&#x27;t obvious</i> to them, it was like I unlocked a superpower. God, it&#x27;s so wonderful. I half-ass my way through everything and get well-rewarded for it. Praise, money, recommendations. There is <i>no</i> chance I could do that without this (again, quite mild, I cannot emphasize enough that I&#x27;m <i>not even all that smart</i>) gift, the credit for which mostly goes to sheer chance and lucky circumstances.<p>&gt; I grew up thinking that being smart was the thing most to be desired. Perhaps you did too. But I bet it&#x27;s not what you really want. Imagine you had a choice between being really smart but discovering nothing new, and being less smart but discovering lots of new ideas. Surely you&#x27;d take the latter.<p>Shit no, because the whole rest of the time I&#x27;m not coming up with those handful of new ideas, I&#x27;m less-smart. Reading is harder. Math is harder. Learning anything new is harder. Following complex conversations is harder. Picking out subtext, allusions, et c., in all media, is harder. Keeping up with, let alone constructively challenging, my smarter-than-me kids is harder. I&#x27;d hesitate to take that deal <i>even if</i> the ideas themselves made me rich enough I wouldn&#x27;t need to work again. I might take it, but I&#x27;d have to give it a good think. It&#x27;d radically change the entire way I relate to the world.