Saturday, May 16, 2009

Why Be Smart?


I was thinking today, as I often do, and I thought to myself: “Why do I learn new things? Why do I study? Why does anyone strive to be smart? What does it mean to be smart?” I have come to several conclusions. People expand their knowledge base for many reasons, myself included. For example, I went to school to learn specific material related to the career field I wished to pursue: learning for profit. I desired higher rewards and therefore acquired the skills needed to obtain a job that required the skills I had learned. Experience lends itself to higher intelligence, yet work experience is merely an extension of learning for profit. As we all know, schooling and experience does not equate to higher intelligence. Intelligence refers to a specific type of smartness. I have known many highly intelligent people who were ostentatious jerks, and, in my opinion, very stupid. So, although schooling is all fine and good, it does not produce smarter people, it produces higher skilled people who make more money. If you went to college, and did it right, you should know what I’m talking about: it wasn’t all about the books. Which leads me to ponder how self-discovery and the ability to relate to others blends into the multifaceted subject of intelligence. Once again, I’ve known many people who related wonderfully to the world around them, and most of them were not very bright. Humans can be gullible and predictable. People who merely relate well are sometimes nothing more than clever manipulators. A person who learns certain facts and figures simply to impress others is not smart in my opinion, even if they know a given subject inside and out. A good example of this can be found with religious cults. Cult leaders often know the Bible cover to cover, but what do they actually know about the Bible? Not much. Many “smart people” seem to be missing the point these days: the obnoxious Christian, the holier-than-thou Doctor, the above-the-law lawyer, the hypocritical parent. An important aspect of true intelligence is using what you know for the purposes it was intended. A past coworker of mine once questioned why I was memorizing soliloquies from Hamlet. “Because I’m super-smart,” I replied, sarcastically. “Memorizing stuff doesn’t make you smarter,” he remarked and walked away. Do you see his mistake? I believe truly smart people continue to seek out knowledge because we thirst for truth, and truth can only be ascertained after radical contemplation of massive amounts of information, hence the need for knowledge. Settling for anything less would be stupid.