What's a tell-tale sign you're in front of a very intelligent person?
He or she is breathing.
If the person to whom you are speaking is breathing, you can be well assured that you are in the presence of a very intelligent person: a person in possession of the most intricate structure in the known Universe. Or, as Bill Bryson, author of “The Body: a Guide for Occupants” wrote:
"Just sitting quietly, doing nothing at all, your brain churns through more information in thirty seconds than the Hubble Space Telescope has processed in thirty years. A morsel of cortex one cubic millimeter in size -about the size of a grain of sand- could hold two thousand terabytes of information, enough to store all the movies ever made, trailers included, or about 1.2 billion copies of this book. Altogether, the human brain is estimated to hold something on the order of two hundred exabytes of information, roughly equal to "the entire digital content of today's world," according to Nature Neuroscience. If that is not the most extraordinary thing in the universe, then we certainly have some wonders to find."
Has everybody cultivated their innate intelligence? Does everybody believe in the sophistication of his/her own mind? Certainly not. Most of us are not conditioned to believe in it. Instead, we are conditioned to play a role in society based on our respective positions within it. Moreover, we are subjected to IQ tests and are told that we fit somewhere in here:
[Complex human minds being forcibly compressed into a rough Gaussian distribution.]
Consequently, the pygmalion effect, the psychological phenomenon which causes us to conform to the expectations of those around us, becomes predominant. It dictates our behavior and is the basis of our self-perception. Many people might not come across as highly intelligent because they truly don’t believe they are and are acting accordingly. Also, the notion that intellectualism is the sole reserve of the elite will make many people avoid any intellectual pursuits. Because they secretly believe themselves incapable of cerebral activity, many people will avoid such acitivity and become disdainful of it. [We all tend to develop an aversion to that which makes us feel diminished.]
And, yet:
On average, each person generates 50,000 - 70,000 thoughts per day.
How many of these thoughts could be described as “profound?” Oh, precious
few, I suspect. For instance, 35,000 of my most recent thoughts within the last
day have been “Brazil lost to Croatia?!” “Brazil lost to Croatia?!” “Brazil
lost to….”
We’re thinking about mundane matters and, unfortunately, almost all of us are
also plagued with an onslaught of negative, self-diminishing thoughts. These
thoughts tend to act on our minds like rock-eroding rain droplets. More’s the
pity….50,000 - 70,000 thoughts: intangible, miraculous thoughts arising out of
an unfathomably intricate structure containing as many neurons as there are
stars in a small galaxy. All too often we’re using this power to deteriorate
ourselves.
Does everybody write like Shakespeare, compose like Mozart, contemplate like Neitzsche, or compute like Newton? Of course, not. These afore-mentioned figures and many like them are outliers in a specific area.
All the same, everybody possesses something remarkable.
When students come to apply for a position on the planetarium staff, the application I give them is a long, blank sheet of paper. Most look flummoxed initially until I say, “Show me who you are. Express the best of yourself in whatever way you choose.” The submissions have been staggeringly impressive. I’ve received all manner of origami models, drawings, written works and other astonishingly creative submission. When an applicant is not required to write an essay or answer questions, but are instead allowed to choose their own medium, they tap into that part of themselves that often remains hidden.
Or, as John Taylor Gatto wrote in “Weapons of Mass Instruction,”
“Genius is as common as dirt.”
So, when I go to the laundromat and talk to the attendant who has recently arranged a veritable city of ceramic Christmas houses along all tops of all the dryers or when the supermarket cashier tells me about her recent embroidery projects, or when one of the University custodians who is a recent emigree from Burundi speaks about the challenges he confronted during his travels to the US, I know I am in the presence of a very intelligent person.
In fact, I hope I will always remember that I am in front of a very intelligent person every time I converse with someone.