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pseydtonneAh, the follow-on post! I was about to make a long comment involving this string from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dilletante which came from a post by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
quinnclub that was tangentially involved. I said a line that I really like: "It's part of our design to use what we have instead of just having it."
I get embarrassed about my test scores when people want to talk about them. I worry people stop seeing me and see this number instead. It came up at work recently and three people said to me "what are you doing here, then?" Making much more than I did as a tech writer.
Sometimes I think I should've applied to an Ivy League school instead of taking early decision on SUNY-B -- a tougher challenge. Instead, the school kept me plenty busy and I had a good time in a cheap town with an amazing radio station. My scores said "you're a shoo-in at that school"; my upbringing said "not WASP enough for schools your grandfather built"; my bank account eventually said "bachelor's degree: $300." I got scholarships and didn't tell most of my fellow students because I didn't want them to think I was some prima donna. After all, I wanted to learn, not necessarily be top of the class.
I've been working out a lot of these issues over the years. Some of you that went to Ivy League schools have explained to me that the League isn't so amazing. Fair enough. Then the MIT grads make feel seriously inadequate because I spent so much time delving into the tale of Tiresias. (Y'all don't mean to, but it happens.)
Shrewdness isn't something you can teach, I've come to learn. You can say to someone over and over "buy low, sell high" but what do you buy and what do you leave for others? When do you realize you've been so worried about straddling the fence that you got off the fence too early?
My parents never told me my IQ scores or such because they knew too many people that never did anything with themselves because they assumed having this high number obviated any other effort in life. "Well, I'm smart. This digit says so." I think my parents made a good choice.
Meanwhile, I got obsessed with proving my brains were useful. One thing that scared me as a kid was everything I'd studied about China and its inclination to kill its intellectuals every so often (the Cultural Revolution of 1966, for example). The red-book-clasping youths would I got good at fixing things because... uhhh... idle hands?
The real question is: when does being smart fuck you up? Can you be so smart that you can't be savvy? Shouldn't your goal be to round yourself for a full functionality? I may be smart, but there are smart folks that get so lost in their heads that they don't bathe and can't function in public. I may not be particularly cool, but I can sniff out bullshit, the hip from the schlock, the marrow from the dip. I may not be rich, but I have some taste. The Epicureans were onto something -- then again, the Bacchists were on something and that can be more fun.
Do I use my brain well enough? I can't always tell. I feel like I do when I write stuff like this -- the stuff gnarled up in there gets plastered onto a canvas so I can stare at it. My fingers fly as I justify my existence to myself. Oh wait, that's narcissism wrapped in self-deprecation, isn't it?
Perhaps it's better that I studied the Canon and the Anti-Canon before I got too heavy into electronics. This has given me historical perspective on anything I accomplish. It's also meant I wailed on my pedantic parts before I let them destroy me. Then again, I wound up very lost in my head for a couple years after college in an attempt to integrate my studies without doing anything.
I think what I'm saying is that I'd still rather write 2000 words than take out the garbage, but the 2000 words may actually be the garbage. I'm also out of garbage bags in the real world whereas I can post as many of these journal entires as I like.
Blah blah teleblah. Blabbitty bloo. Skimmerickity. Chi-changoo.
dilletante which came from a post by quinnclub that was tangentially involved. I said a line that I really like: "It's part of our design to use what we have instead of just having it."I get embarrassed about my test scores when people want to talk about them. I worry people stop seeing me and see this number instead. It came up at work recently and three people said to me "what are you doing here, then?" Making much more than I did as a tech writer.
Sometimes I think I should've applied to an Ivy League school instead of taking early decision on SUNY-B -- a tougher challenge. Instead, the school kept me plenty busy and I had a good time in a cheap town with an amazing radio station. My scores said "you're a shoo-in at that school"; my upbringing said "not WASP enough for schools your grandfather built"; my bank account eventually said "bachelor's degree: $300." I got scholarships and didn't tell most of my fellow students because I didn't want them to think I was some prima donna. After all, I wanted to learn, not necessarily be top of the class.
I've been working out a lot of these issues over the years. Some of you that went to Ivy League schools have explained to me that the League isn't so amazing. Fair enough. Then the MIT grads make feel seriously inadequate because I spent so much time delving into the tale of Tiresias. (Y'all don't mean to, but it happens.)
Shrewdness isn't something you can teach, I've come to learn. You can say to someone over and over "buy low, sell high" but what do you buy and what do you leave for others? When do you realize you've been so worried about straddling the fence that you got off the fence too early?
My parents never told me my IQ scores or such because they knew too many people that never did anything with themselves because they assumed having this high number obviated any other effort in life. "Well, I'm smart. This digit says so." I think my parents made a good choice.
Meanwhile, I got obsessed with proving my brains were useful. One thing that scared me as a kid was everything I'd studied about China and its inclination to kill its intellectuals every so often (the Cultural Revolution of 1966, for example). The red-book-clasping youths would I got good at fixing things because... uhhh... idle hands?
The real question is: when does being smart fuck you up? Can you be so smart that you can't be savvy? Shouldn't your goal be to round yourself for a full functionality? I may be smart, but there are smart folks that get so lost in their heads that they don't bathe and can't function in public. I may not be particularly cool, but I can sniff out bullshit, the hip from the schlock, the marrow from the dip. I may not be rich, but I have some taste. The Epicureans were onto something -- then again, the Bacchists were on something and that can be more fun.
Do I use my brain well enough? I can't always tell. I feel like I do when I write stuff like this -- the stuff gnarled up in there gets plastered onto a canvas so I can stare at it. My fingers fly as I justify my existence to myself. Oh wait, that's narcissism wrapped in self-deprecation, isn't it?
Perhaps it's better that I studied the Canon and the Anti-Canon before I got too heavy into electronics. This has given me historical perspective on anything I accomplish. It's also meant I wailed on my pedantic parts before I let them destroy me. Then again, I wound up very lost in my head for a couple years after college in an attempt to integrate my studies without doing anything.
I think what I'm saying is that I'd still rather write 2000 words than take out the garbage, but the 2000 words may actually be the garbage. I'm also out of garbage bags in the real world whereas I can post as many of these journal entires as I like.
Blah blah teleblah. Blabbitty bloo. Skimmerickity. Chi-changoo.
