That’s me.
And, as in numerous prior Lamentations, it ain’t Easy.
I don’t intend this as a Lament, however.
There’s a place , here in the Texas Hill Country, Pedernales Falls,
State Park.(1)
I haven’t been there in 30 years, but I remember it…or, rather, I remember a
certain feature…
The trails that run all over the Falls, proper…going along them, there are all
these holes in the ground, and in these holes, is the River…the Falls…like
miniature Cenotes. Most of the Falls are above ground..but there’s a lot of it
that is under…
This is analogous to how I view the world.
An example, from last night:
I’ve been in the XFiles, again…combination of Pain and
Boredom and
Bad Eyes(hard to read)…and
last night,
this episode had a character
from Mexico…an Indio from a Tribe I’d
never heard of…so I looked it up. Turns out that Mexico, in the second Article
of it’s Constitution, recognizes it’s Indigenous People…not Racially, like we
do; but Culturally, and Linguistically….so, there are , in effect, 63 “Official
Languages” in Mexico.(“Pluricultural”)
A neat Distinction.
So I end up wandering in Wiki…(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Mexico)
,=>(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guarijio_language)
,=> (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative)
=> and away we go!
But it doesn’t stop there. Linguistics=>
Anthropology…which often leads into one of my well-worn burrows, Mythology.
Another…
I’m currently involved in a sort of Film Festival.
(Netflix!) Turns out that I really Dig Italian Neorealism.
I’ve always been a Fellini fan…but Netflix has allowed me to broaden and deepen
my exposure to foreign films(we call them films, instead of movies, when we’re
being all sophisticated, lol)
So I’m 2/3 of the way through Roberto Rossellini’s wonderful
trilogy….Roma;Citta Aperta, and Paisa….the next is Germania Anno Zero….(I
recommend them all)
Due to my lifelong, if accidental, relationship with
Latin(Dinosaurs!), I have accidentally come to understand, mostly, Italian….and,
watching these films, I noticed that, during the dialog, a word would open up a
hole….like Pedernales
Falls…through which I can
see Universes, lol.
(see: Finnegan’s Wake…which is deliberately structured in this fashion)
Some random word, opens up a branching cosmos, each branch, branching, itself, a la
Mandelbrot…(2)
Of course, I cannot chase each and all of these branches…most, I let slide,
being satisfied with a mere passing glimpse….(otherwise, I’d never finish
anything!).
Wife says that this is why folks get upset with me…I come
across as a “Know-It-All”, “Lording” my brain over mere mortals.
Of course, that is not my intention…
(neither is Clarirty,(snort))
When I think about this,(Metacognition) I run into a brick
wall.
Is this Learned Behaviour?(perhaps from the Ency.
Brittannica? qed,etc)
Are there Physiological Differences in my Brain?
Without millions of dollars and a fMRI, these questions are
likely to remain unanswered.
In real life(Meatspace), it appears that hardly anyone wants
to talk about such things.
One learns to hide one’s Light…not necessarily out of Fear, but out of
exhaustion.
Shit.
I’m reluctant to put this little meander on my blog…so deep has the Prohibition
on Smart penetrated.(3)
If this is, indeed, Learned Behaviour, then there is
Potential for the Enlightenment to continue….
and this thought leads me into another Hole…why do we not
encourage the learning of this Habit of Mind?
Is it a function of where I’ve lived (as in Huntsville
was the wrong College
Town)?
Is it a Rural Thing? A Texan Thing? A peculiarly American Thing?
Perhaps it’s a Socio-Economic Thing…a Product of our hectic
struggling(which IS a Peculiarly American Thing!)
Is it Engineered, somehow…and to some Degree?
Unknown.
It is likely that it’s due to simple statistical
distributions, (6…IQ of above around 140 is actually Maladaptive in most of our
systems and institutions. Something that shocked me.), as well as the Taboos associated with
Intelligence.(if you don’t toot yer horn, who will?)
Polymaths.
We need more of them,
arguably.(4,5,6)
Notes
“
1. Do you have
many interests?
2. Do you have
many talents?
3. Has having so
many interests and talents made it difficult to achieve many of the stereotypical
hallmarks of success?
4. Does the
question “what do you do” make you squirm?
5. Do some people
tend to view you as an underachiever?
6. Do most of the
rest of the folks see you as an overachiever?
7. Do you have
“issues” with people or activities that seem to waste time?
8. Do you suffer
fools badly and have a real aversion to conflict? (See #7!)
9. Do you tend to
be compassionate, understanding, and communicative…. when not dealing with #7
or 8?
10. Are you
uncomfortable in some social situations? Are you sometimes lacking in skills to
tactfully extract yourself from those situations?
11. Are you so
comfortable in other social situations that you are sometimes unaware of when
it is time to go?
12. Do people
sometimes feel you are quiet, un-talkative and uninterested in them?
13. Do the rest
of the people feel you are very talkative, energetic and interested in what
they have to say?
14. Does the idea
of being bored seem completely irresponsible to you?
15. Do many
people see you as an “expert” in a particular area? Are there almost as many of
these “areas” as there are people who think you are an expert. Is the truth
more along the lines that although you are more capable than 90% of people at
whatever you pursue, you suspect you will never be part of that top 10% and
hence a true expert in any one area. This is because people who are the best at
what they do, do what they do all the time and that is the opposite of the
Universal Man.”
6.
http://polymathica.com/Prelim/ThePolymath.htm FTA:”
As the IQ of a child
increases, the probability that he or she has already learned something by the
time the educational system teaches it increases. The more frequently this
happens, the more inclined the child is to satisfy his or her curiosity outside
of the curriculum. At the same time, as IQ increases, the ability to learn
autonomously also increases. Depending upon the child’s disposition, somewhere
in the 140’s, these two factors converge and the child becomes stubbornly
autodidactic. This usually results in poor school performance which ultimately
excludes them from participation in the various elite professions.”
I didn’t know it, till much later, but this
describes me, to a T. It is also one of my greatest Fears for my boys…how to
head off the numerous mistakes I made, in dealing with the
Lowest-Common-Denominator Problem, and, at the same time encouraging their
Natural Curiosity.(Dammit! Word keeps wanting to put all of this in “bullets”.I
abhor Automatica.)
7.(see: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underserved.htm)
FTA:” The majority of the extremely gifted young
people in my study state frankly that for substantial periods in their school
careers they have deliberately concealed their abilities or significantly
moderate their scholastic achievement in an attempt to reduce their classmates'
and teachers' resentment of them. In almost every case, the parents of children
retained in the regular classroom with age peers report that the drive to
achieve, the delight in intellectual exploration, and the joyful seeking after
new knowledge, which characterized their children in the early years, has
seriously diminished or disappeared completely. These children display
disturbingly low levels of motivation and social self-esteem. They are also
more likely to report social rejection by their classmates and state that they
frequently underachieve in attempts to gain acceptance by age peers and teachers.
Unfortunately, rather than investigating the cause of this, the schools
attended by these children have tended to view their decreased motivation, with
the attendant drop in academic attainment, as indicators that the child has
"leveled out" and is no longer gifted (Gross, 1993).”)
(Ha. Thank you, Mrs Doris….and, fuck you.)
