RickSpace

Do not ascribe to intelligence what can be attributed to accidental innovation.

And, now that I’ve said that, I don’t really know what it means…. The reason for making this post was a revelation in the shower this morning (this is where I frequently have my revelations). I have spent most of my life seeing the people who did better, were smarter, had ‘more intellectually challenging’ jobs, etc. In high school, there were the kids who got A’s in EVERYTHING no matter what they did. In college, I stood in awe of the physics, chemistry and mathematics (I was a math minor, but still) students. That is to say, I looked at these paths of study as things I simply could not have done maybe because I’m just not smart enough. Now that I’m in the ‘real-world’ people constantly say things like “It’s not brain surgery” or “Well, it’s not rocket science.”

This is not to discredit doctors in the least because they certainly do something that I could not, but not because I’m not smart enough. Intelligence-wise, I’m fairly certain I COULD be a brain surgeon; the problem is, I can’t stand the site of flesh being cut, or the insides of the human body. Blood doesn’t make me nauseous as long as I don’t see the wound from which it is coming. Other than the abilty to handle these things, and the burning desire to help people with medical problems, all that being a doctor requires is a lot of studying, hard work and memorization. Granted, if your hand twitches constantly, you probably shouldn’t be operating on a brain, but this is still not intelligence. It takes a certain type of person to be a doctor, but that doesn’t mean it takes a ’smarter’ person.

Rocket scientists, again, not trying to put them down… but is extreme intelligence REALLY a pre-requisite? You have to go to school, study a lot, memorize physics formulas and have an interest in the physics behind propulsion. But, really, if a person of average intellectual ability buckled down, took the classes, read the books and memorized the formulas, they could be a rocket scientist I’m fairly certain (albeit an unemployed one most likely).

Is intelligence really just a measurement of your determination, willingness to study, and ability to memorize facts? If so, then forget everything I’ve said thus far, because in that case, both careers I picked upon do require intelligence on a higher level.

So, what impresses me more than memorization, determination and a will to learn? Innovation. Sure, you have to know a lot of stuff to figure out how to transplant a heart from one person to another but since it has been done and documented, you have a reference and with enough study and hard work + practice, you can do it. What about the first guy who EVER said “I bet we could take the heart from one dying person and put it in another person who has a bad heart.” What about the guy who later said “You know, we could probably take the heart from a baboon and put it in a man’s chest.” THOSE are the people I’m impressed with. The doctors and mathemeticians using various differential equations to map out the reactions of cancer in the presence of various chemicals, drugs and stimulants who will (I truly believe) eventually find a way to kill cancer before it kills us… I’m impressed with them.

Everyone and their brother is starting an internet business these days, but what about those who had computers around the world and decided they NEEDED to be able to ‘talk’ to each other. For that matter, what about the guy who had some capacitors, transisters, resistors and diodes and decided he would build what would become a computer? Building a computer, a website, a Web 2.bubble business, etc is very easy because SOMEONE ELSE thought of the idea. I am not awesome because I make a webpage. I would be awesome if I created the idea of the web.

In the end, my quiet watery introspection in the shower led to one final conclusion: Instead of feeling inferior to the great number of people who do jobs that I now realize I merely chose not to do, I should feel inferior to the exponentially fewer people who actually innovated within their fields and changed the faces of their industries into what we now know as the world.