“The level of intelligence of a person is inversely proportional to the enjoyment of one’s life. This happens until enlightenment is achieved, one then realizes there is very little to be enjoyed in complete understanding and allows the mysteries of nature to unfold him” – Tom Pearson - June 22nd, 2002.
I have been very fortunate to have known many intelligent people in my life. Working at Intel Corporation has allowed me to meet and connect with intellectuals from all parts of the world that have different views of religion, marriage, cultures, lifestyles, and outlook on life. I find it fascinating to discuss these different views with them as their answers are enlightening to my questions, ideas, and conclusions. I sometimes talk with them at lunch about an idea so I could hear their prospective. At times some would grow tired of the discussion. Was it because I asked too many questions, or they felt I talked too much? Running ideas back and forth with other people I find energizing, however to them it may have felt exhausting at times. My questions could have been too simplistic or maybe I was just what they didn’t like the most, I was part of the problem as I simply couldn’t understand. Their thoughts and contributions are in this book I am writing, as no idea has truly a lone author.
As a child, I would ask questions of why for many things I saw. I remember working with my father in the warm summers of Indiana in the 1970s helping him on his plumbing jobs. I started off mostly as a “gofer” or tool grabber however over the years he taught me much of his plumbing business that I know today. Working with my father provided me with an “eat outside the house breakfast” and some welcomed pocket money for a child. The restaurants we went to were local dinners in small towns like the one we frequented in Fountain City, Indiana. The french toast and omelets were a welcome change from the frosted flakes cereal that I would have most mornings before school.
Fountain City, Indiana is a small town with less than 1,000 people however large enough to have a grocery store, a bank, a grain store, fire department and a family restaurant. Hundreds of these types of towns are spotted across Indiana and the Midwest as they provided necessary supplies and services for local farmers and a sit-down restaurant where they could drink unlimited coffee, talk about the weather, share gossip, and laugh at the same jokes told many times before. My dad and I never sat with the farmers as their conversations were a little ruff and generally children were not welcomed. We sat at our own booth close enough I could hear some of their louder conversations if I wanted to.
Blue Skies
Summers can seem so long as a child. I remember asking my father questions about everything and him answering them the best he knew how. In those summers I felt very close to him. He was not only my father but my confidant, my teacher and my best friend as I learned many things about him and myself during those summers. In those days with my father’s bustling business, it would have been easier for him to overlook me, but thankfully he chose to spend it with me.
We lived in a rural farming area where most homes received their water from drilled wells as water is pumped from underground into the house on demand. My father grew a successful business for 40 years servicing these types of water systems. I would work with him on his jobs in the summer when school was out for several years until my late teens.
I was about 11 years old riding shotgun in my father’s plumbing truck on Williamsburg Pike, a narrow-paved country road near Fountain City, Indiana, to do a water pump job. It rained the night before and the morning was a crisp beautiful new clear day. The cold front and rain that came through washed away the humidity and nagging bugs that can haunt a July day in Indiana. We just ate breakfast at the local diner in Fountain City and I was in a happy mood. My Dad and I were having our usual discussions about why the sky is blue or why the clouds are white. As I was riding in my Dad’s truck, we passed a yellow diamond shaped road sign that read “Stop Ahead” and I saw scratched on the sign a word I have never read before.
I didn’t know how to pronounce it, so I asked, “Dad, what does F**K mean?” My father must have noticed the same scratched sign as he didn’t question me where I saw this word. I looked innocently at him as he paused for a few moments to think about how he would answer this question from a child who had no idea what he had just spelled. After a long pause he said “Son, I hope this is a word that you will never use”. I looked at him puzzled however accepted the answer that this was a bad word and left it at that. I am not sure when however later, I learned the meaning of the word from my friends at school and was embarrassed that I even asked the question of my father.
Why?
This was the start of my quest to find out why and surround myself with people that could help answer that question. When I went on to college, I realized that answers needed to be deeper to really understand them. Asking why once scratched the surface of a problem or idea however many more whys and logical reasoning are needed to understand it further. It can be difficult to clearly see several steps down the path of the simple question “why”. With each “why” there are many potential paths generated and I can get confused or distracted after the 3rd or 4th why as there may be many branches that deserve exploring and validating. At times, I did have some foggy views of what the answer might be however couldn’t quite put all the possibilities into a clear view to articulate them or even put them into an idiom. The intellectual people I made friends with could help me understand the world and predict future consequences.
IQ tests are largely around pattern recognition and sequence. Understanding patterns and what happens next is the key to discovering new ideas and problem solving, which is just what I needed from the people that I was talking to.
I found many times the question why led to answer that would come up short to completely explaining the event or the behavior of people. It is frustrating to see a fact and find out others don’t view it as a fact even with the best evidence. It’s easy to discard these as stupid people, however many of them are also intelligent. They came to different conclusions because they think differently about the problem and the solution to it. This confounds me and can lead me into despair and most of all can affect one’s enjoyment of life by constantly thinking of problems and solutions instead of living in the moment and accepting what is here now.
Seeking Knowledge
In my thirties, when I worked at Intel, I went on a business trip to Alor Setar, Malaysia with a coworker to help set up new computer manufacturing lines. This gave me a longer chance to talk with my highly intelligent colleague. As we got into discussions, I noticed frustration he had with why people behave the way they do. I believe his frustrations were so severe that he chose to withdrawal himself from people and surround himself with books and computers. People with their small minds could not satisfy his needs, however books would help him explore his thoughts. But neither provided him with the relief he was searching for. The more he explored the more he found out he really didn’t understand. This became a cycle that was punctuated by restless sleep. It is a miserable way of living. Seeking knowledge was the enjoyment of his life until a point. That point is when he realized that all his knowledge is for nothing as it didn’t change people at all. And it didn’t make his life any happier. In fact, it made it disjointed with anxiety. I find this often with many highly intelligent people I meet. In fact, when I spend too much time with them, I start to feel the anxiety they have through their own processing of information and reasoning.
Living in the Day
Many intelligent people are frustrated with the way the world is today. “Why can’t people just understand and change their way." they may say to themselves. It is so clear to them the problem and the solution. On the other hand, I have also been around people that are mentally challenged, and they seem to be the happiest people I know because they don’t worry about tomorrow or why something happens, or how to change other people. They live in the day. They don’t try to change people as they live with them and find opportunities it provides for enjoyment.
High intelligence in some ways can be a curse to happiness. Yes, wisdom and intelligence will allow one to make good decisions and not to repeat mistakes, however when one applies this wisdom to others and what they should do, it usually disappoints and causes anxiety.
One must realize that the drive to complete understanding does not necessarily bring happiness. However, what brings true happiness is the acceptance of the knowledge you have now and living each minute with love, grace and gratitude for the people around you... then let the mysteries of nature unfold you.
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