What's Painful
 

Ya know what's painful, I mean REALLY painful? Knowing that you are not a brilliant person
**. Oh, and spare me, all you superior Cellar noids, if you THINK you're brilliant it's only because you haven't MET the RIGHT people yet. I have been reading and reading and writing and writing and Baked Alaska'd in other people's essence of brilliance-ness and I have to tell you: I am in awe of them and I wish I was like them, but I'm not and I never, ever will be and laydees and gentlemen--THAT is painful.

On the OTHER hand, I have met people who have been only one swing out of the tree. So. I ask you. Is it all perception and education, or is it really true that some are more equal than others?

**caveat--i never thought I was brilliant, but, i thought I was middling good. And, I'm not.

I would prefer someone like you who can come up with witty onliners. Many times I admire your quotes more than any other user.

:lol2: @ one swing out of the tree

No, some are more knowledgeable than others. Some are knowlegeable in areas they, or we, don't discuss. Some have some knowledge in many areas. Some have deep knowledge in a few areas. Some are good at guessing or reasoning...or both.

None are more equal than others. ;)

Twins are more equal than others.

nobody--NOBody--takes my concerns seriously.

What's really painful is getting a needle in the roof of your mouth, or jumping out a window and catching your eye on a nail. Don't confuse intelligence with education. I know doctors and lawyers who have lots of education, but can't think themselves out of a paper bag. They know all about doctoring and lawyering, but can't figure out how to fold a tarp, know what I mean? Coming across a new problem and being able to solve it is much more important (IMHO) than studying and regurgitating facts. And most of them don't come across nearly as sexy as you do. ;)

And don't confuse either with knowledge. ;)

After posting that I looked down at the cookie;
"I never let my schooling get in the way of my education." --Mark Twain

The latter, I think. There are a couple of people that unfailingly make me feel dumb by comparison. I'm encouraged by the fact that there seem to be only a few of them. They're educated, but I think they just took more advantage of the education than others; I also know PhDs who are genuine dimbulbs.

And one of those people who makes me feel dumb is my boss. That's a unique challenge. :-)

In my experience, being brilliant, along with $1.50, will get you a large coffee at Wawa.

Just call me Salieri.

http://images.despair.com/products/d.../potential.jpg

Nobody cares how smart you are, they care what you can do for them.

People don't like smart people. They are intimidated by them and ignore them, even when making important decisions.

I think the answer depends on who you surround yourself with.

Hang out with people at a university, and you're likely to feel dumb once in a while. Hang out at a prison, and you will feel a bit smarter.

I've felt both smart and dumb at various times.

I think the key is to surround yourself with people a little smarter than yourself so you feel chanllanged to be the best you can be, but not with people who are so smart you get discouraged.

Somehow, I've managed to surround myself with smartasses. :smack: :nuts:

Dear Bri,

Please don't waste your time wishing and wanting. I hope you get what you want but in the off chance it's not comming just accept it that it may not come. Some people don't get what they want. I hope you do.

I have recently learned that nobodys problems are more important than their own and you can ask for understanding and a warm compassionate arm but nobody can ever really understand. That is pain. I know.

Can I join this pity party ?because I really need one too.

My short story. I have spent most of most of my adult life caring for others who cannot take care of themselves.I have waisted time loving people I never should have and found myself alone for no other reason that to have spent it on others that is not pain. I never begrudged that. yet...

BUT when I fell ill and having to still take care of people, get up go to work in order to pay the bills feeling like a walking, hurting zombie. To smile and say hi, how ya doing and all the while to know that if I died in my sleep there isn't a soul in the world who would care except for those who still cannot take care of themselves. That wasn't really the painful part either but it's getting close.

The painful part comes when you lay your head on your pillow at night starring into that dark abyss of ' nobody really gives a shit' That is pain. The hard facts. I decided Life for some is a bit'ch then you die . Get over it.

*hug* sorry

The whole crux of the thing. Determines Who's going to die alone and who is not. Or at least have enough fricken money to buy cake at your funeral so alot of people show up and pretend to have cared.



(thought)
[ I really only wanted to respond with a simple 'BINGO' but who says that anymore?]

I think that's too often true in business.

In relationships smart people seek out other smart people, because they find stupid people dreary to be around.

I just find deary people stupid to be around.


People just seek out like minds to be around. I mean dumb people seek out dumb people too ya know ;)

Sorry, nobody who pops up with a metaphor that vivid is going to convince me she's a dummy. :-)

There is intellect and then there is common sense, common sense being the ability to apply one's intellect to resolve a practical situation. Some people have both, some have more of one than the other, and some people have neither. Even those with neither may have family and friends who can largely make up the difference and assure them a meaningful quality of life. Count your blessings.

What's painful to me is when folks consistently underrate themselves.

Brianna, will you please get over it, once and for all? You always manage to feel sorry for yourself, no matter what the subject, you are forever looking for a way to UNFAVORABLY compare yourself and so you can say you never "measure up". Stop it, would you? We all have to play with what we are dealt. The truth is in the details. It's what we do with what we have that makes or breaks us, and that has nothing whatsoever to do with a competition between you and everybody else. If you are never confronted with somebody so much more intelligent and accomplished than you are, or with a situation beyond your abilities, how do you expect to LEARN anything? Humility is one thing, being determined to feel inferior is something else. You were on the way to somewhere better, weren't you? Then get on with it!

I didn't mean to come across as feeling sorry for myself, but in retrospect I guess I did sound whiney. Gads, that IS annoying. I guess I was pondering why some people are so freaking smart and others-the majority?-are not and why is that? Why are some people so blazingly brilliant? Genetics? That can't be it because a lot of these smarties come from very humble stock. Education? No, that's not it either. Have they been 'touched by an angel'? (and don't say 'well, if they HAVE been touched by an angel they need to lawyer up') That's what I'm wondering. Sorry for the pity-party mentality. I really don't come across that way IRL. :blush:

...you know what Doctor Phil would say: when you got a racoon at the front door and a possum at the back . . . no, wait, that's not it . . . ummm . . . okay: if you take a rattle snake on a roller coaster . . . you . . . ummm . . . okay, I got nothin'

My observation is that it is the parents who are mostly responsible. I guess there's a certain minimum level of genetic or biological "equipment" necessary, but it's Mom and Dad who instill the value of "thinking" into their children, who, by example, show that "thinking" can be fun and interesting, who cultivate curiosity and creativity in their children, reward excellent behavior and results, provide the tools necessary to learn, and create an environment favorable to "thinking".

All right! The Cookie AI is back up!!

Right now what's painful is my feet, because I managed to forget to apply sunscreen to them when I went outside for two days in a row.

My lesson, it seems, is that a high IQ does not save yourself from your own stupidity.

Right now, bri, you are surrounded by kids. They think they are smarter than you, and project that ... but it's all show. Just because someone is well versed in being pretentious does not actually make them smart.

wolf, once again you have managed to say just what I needed to hear. The Angst should quiet down now--I've got the summer off and won't feel like a Retard Dinosaur again till Sept. :)

The retarded dinosaurs survived along with the small, clever mammals when the comet crashed into the earth. All the smart dinosaurs had gotten too big for their own good and died.

Try Ocean Lotion. It's like thin jello made of aloe and lanacaine. It really helps sunburn. Really.

I've been alternative between Bag Balm and Aveeno contact anesthetic, both of which are already in the house. Getting this Ocean Lotion stuff, which sounds very, very nice, would require the ability to put on shoes and go to the Walgreens.

My ex- (at the time a pharmaceutical chemist; this was before the nurse practitioner stage) bought a tin of Bag Balm once...and then refused to use it after reading the ingredients; as I recall there was something nasty in it: (phenol, perhaps?)

What's in Bag Balm these days?

Wolf: Speaking of Amazon.com recommenders, when I looked up Bag Balm they recommended Anti-Monkey Butt Powder Anti-Friction Plus Sweat Absorber
Actually, they need another hyphen. Apparently they're not anti-monkey.
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B0...CLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

8-Hydroxyquinoline sulfate 0.3% in a petrolatum lanolin base.

Oy.
Now I know why the ex- wouldn't use it. Also why it's not labelled for use on humans. In fact it's a phenol deriviative.

Nice tin though.

There's a man named Gardiner who came up with a theory about different kinds of intelligence. According to him, there's 7 or possibly 8 different kinds of intelligence.

When you consider that, it leaves room for everyone to find something they're good at...and when that happens, there's going to be other people who aren't so good at the particular thing you're good at. The different catagories are:

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

The biggest problem is that society values some types of intelligence above others. Fortunately, I believe the worm is turning, and that can only be good for all of us.

Mrs. dar uses the multiple intelligences thing to teach her third graders. She tries to incorporate as many of the different styles of learning into each lesson that she can.

It's a very popular teaching method these days, and one well worth while considering. Mind you, Mary Poppins was probably one of the forerunners when it comes to putting theory into practice. Didn't she have a song for every occasion...making all those little experiences just that much easier to understand?

Also - never confuse skill with knowledge or intelligence.

Only in the Disney movie, as I recall. Mary in the original book was pretty freakin' far from Julie Andrews:-)

I find this interesting. Food for thought.
 

There's a man named Gardiner who came up with a theory about different kinds of intelligence. According to him, there's 7 or possibly 8 different kinds of intelligence.
When you consider that, it leaves room for everyone to find something they're good at...and when that happens, there's going to be other people who aren't so good at the particular thing you're good at. The different catagories are:

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")
[/quote]

Couldn't there almost be a cellar poll in here somewhere? Assign a 1-10 value per category. Based only on your own unbiased self examination. Cough.

never confuse skill with knowledge or intelligence.

Thats like saying never confuse fire with wood and spark

It takes knowledge and intellingence to aquire skill , but it takes time to hone it properly .

I thought I understood intelligence when I was 22. I went to a college with a top 20 football team and became good friends with a defensive lineman that I wasn't sure belonged in college. He had a very difficult time passing his classes even though he studied very hard - I tried to help but had trouble getting even basic ideas to root.

But, start the projector and put on some game film, and he turned into Einstein. Eleven on eleven and he understood what would happen even before the coaching staff. He knew exactly what the QB was going to do even before the defensive coordinator. He went on to the NFL and had a short but successful career playing for the Seattle Seahawks. He got double teamed a lot not because he was a better athlete than his counterpart on the OL but because his football instincts were so good.

Now, had he not been 6'4" and 265 pounds and had he never gotten the chance to play HS football leading to his scholarship and a brief but prolific NFL career, would anyone have known he was smart?

Zippy - I am going to have to disagree with you here. Skill has nothing to do with intelligence (however intelligent people are usually skilled).

You will see a complicated knot tied at a crime scene, and people will want to say that the person who tied it is intelligent.
No.
They are skillful in tying that kind of knot.

A raccoon can wash off an apple better than most people - does that make the raccoon more intelligent than us?
No.
They are more skilled at washing off the apple than we are.

Sorry - not the same as spark/fire/wood. :)

Yeah, B!

In my senior year of HS I decided that I wasn't going to pass Physics because the way they taught it was ridiculous. So I took two "half classes", Computer Math and Electronics, instead. This turned out to be a glorious life-changing choice.

Anyway, the Electronics class was a "shop" class and there were only two of us there who were college and learning oriented, and we were obviously very smart and learned everything taught.

(sidebar in next post)

There was also a "dumbest" kid in that class, a kid who can't latch onto anything the teacher says. We're talking borderline retarded, to be blunt. But one day we're learning about magnetism and its relation to electricity; and the teacher mentions that sometimes a cow will eat nails; and this kid, like out of nowhere, perks up as if someone threw a switch, and explains the whole phenomenon in great detail for three minutes.

Farming was his "thing" just like football was B's friend's "thing".

(sidebar)

I already wrote this post in 2001

A few years back my now ex-wife and I were comparing notes on our high school experiences. "And I got the Physics prize, for being the best Physics student," she said. "Wow, Physics, I wouldn't have expected that," I said. "Tell me something. What's Ohm's law?"

She didn't know. The most basic law of electronics, a major part of Physics.

But I knew it - and I would never forget it - because instead of Physics, I took Electronics Shop. I would have failed Physics the way they taught it; the most important aspect of the class was good lab notes, and I was not capable of nor interested in that sort of meticulous toilet training. Instead, I took a class where I had 60 IQ points on the average kids, and learned some of the most important, lasting things ever. Because we didn't have "lab" - we just "built stuff". We wrapped our own coils, put voltage through our own circuits. We didn't take any goddamn notes; we heard and smelled the blown capacitors when somebody didn't get something quite right. We even etched our own circuit boards -- a wonderful gift to me, when I didn't even know I'd be heading into Computer Science.

Maybe some people can learn from lectures and bogus "labs" and meticulous "lab notes" and so forth. But I can't help thinking that, if I'd taken "French Shop" instead of "French", I'd still be speaking it today.

So did I. The "George W. Plummer Physical Science Award"....highest score in physics and chemistry this was. But it wasn't the class work that fed that success...it was the fact that the teachers decided I (and my buds) could be allowed to play around in the labs doing whatever we wanted to as long as when challenged we could explain what scientific principles we were exploring .

Since this was an old school, they had *good* toys in the back rooms. A scintillation counter and radiation sources. An *analog* computer (with vacuum tubes, no less; let it stabilize thermally before setting up a problem!). An extensive chemistry lab, with a decent stock room. And access to modern (well modern for 1968) digital computers. None of it part of the "official" curriculm.

I think what prepared me to take advantage of this was that when I was five or so, my daddy was an elementary school science teacher. After school every day in first grade I met up with him to take me home...and in those magic hours he would play http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watch_Mr._Wizard and just show me stuff in the lab.

Is there an empathy smart?


More kind of 'smarts' is a book I've read. It's called "The 5 love languages of children" Someone else here at the cellar mentioned the same title for adults. I think it was footfoot but I could be wrong and it was on another thread. I don't remember which one. Seems like it belongs here as well.

There's a man named Gardiner who came up with a theory about different kinds of intelligence. According to him, there's 7 or possibly 8 different kinds of intelligence.
When you consider that, it leaves room for everyone to find something they're good at...and when that happens, there's going to be other people who aren't so good at the particular thing you're good at. The different catagories are:

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart"):
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")



...I'm funny smart

That's funny so it must be true. :D

http://www.cnnsi.com/multimedia/phot...y_bosworth.jpg

THIS GUY!?

I've known a ton of highly intelligent people that could barely tie their own shoe laces. They could expound theory and principles until the cows came home, but they had no skills, whatsoever.:eyebrow:

I go thru that sort of thing a lot at different jobs. I often choose the most challenging situation. But, now I am a contractor at an all-star company full of brilliant and arrogant people that are often nasty to each other. I took this week off and I am not going back. I will write an email as such.

I interviewed at three companies this week. I had particularly good chemistry with one group and they plan to make me an offer early next week. Two of the guys worked with two guys I currently work with. In the interview we agreed not to talk about the other two at the arrogant company and that in itself was telling.

In the interview, talking at the whiteboard, we developed mutual respect. I'd like to work at a place where people are smart and demanding, but nice about it.

RS, I didn't think you were still contracting. Didn't you get fired and then hired as the new boss of the guy that fired you? :confused:

A guy? named Goleman pimped the idea of emotional intelligence with 5 areas.

Self-Awareness
Mood Management
Motivation
Empathy
Social Skills

These are the things your anti-social kids have deficits in.

I think Gardner was on to something. I know a guy who can carry grade (for drainage) never leaving the seat of the excavator. I'd be screwing around with water levels and such to get information that he just has.

Noooooooo. I went to Georgia Tech. Besides, Boz was a linebacker. Not a bad guess, tho - probably as good as an example as my buddy of the point I was making.

My story at this company is strange. While I was contracting, I was considered for an individual contributor position and a project director with managers reporting to me. At some point we agreed to drop the director position and they continued looking for a VP of Engineering. Then, the one manager fired me and another manager wanted me to work for his team, so I did a lateral move.

Now that the product is launched and has been running for six weeks, the revenue is much lower than expected. Part of the criteria for creating a new perm position for me is this revenue. I don't think it will happen. And, I think the business has certain flaws. So, I really need to move on.

Ironically, the firing manager cited early quality problems with my software, yet after it has run and monitored the company's production servers for six weeks, no issues were reported to the tracking system. My new rule is Never work for a Manager Half Your Age, Never.

That gets tougher every year. ;)

Every other year.