High Cognitive Minds

I've been having a problem with this blog that's all too similar to the problem I used to have with people. Before I learned about intelligence and intellectual giftedness I wondered why most of the people around me seemed so stupid, why they didn't see things that were obvious, why they couldn't figure things out for themselves, why they were completely uninterested in learning anything that was a challenge, that would be useful to them, that would make their lives more interesting. Why was their thinking so limited, in so many ways? Eventually, as I learned more about them, I expected less from them, but that still left me thinking that if I could just find people with my kind of mind, the problem of intellectual companionship would cease to exist.

That didn't happen. Starting with MENSA and similar organizations, I found that high IQ didn't guarantee a commitment to learning, to the search for facts, for clarity, and understanding. It didn't guarantee a sensitivity to the world's complexity or an awareness of the patterns and cycles that dominate human life. Too often, I found myself asking the same question about those with high IQs that I had asked about the general run of people I met: Why are they so stupid?

You can probably see where this is going. Throughout the months of posting to this blog, the question has popped into my head over and over again: why can't they figure all this out for themselves? Why am I bothering to explain things about giftedness that should be perfectly obvious to the gifted? But that's mostly on the days when I wonder if being gifted even really matters, for most of us.

But it does matter, and it would matter more if we had more knowledge about our minds. And that's the problem: not knowing. I didn't know until I was in my forties that I was gifted. And even then, reading all the books I could find about giftedness, I didn't know much more. School gives you the academics; the experts on giftedness give you the theories. But nobody gives you the basic knowledge you need to understand and use your mind. That's something you have to find out for yourself, and it can take years. For those whose paths are already set, whose lives and energy are spoken for, that long search may not even be an option.

What I discovered, over the years, can be roughly divided into two areas. 1. Cognitive traits and abilities. Linda Silverman's theory of visual-spatial/auditory-sequential learning and thinking styles is a start, but only a small part of the picture. 2. Weaknesses and disabilities that interfere with the actual use of one's abilities. These are often invisible, or overlooked, condemning the individual to a lifetime of frustration and self-blame for lack of accomplishment, for the failure to meet one's goals. The finest craftsmen are helpless without tools. The knowledge that most intelligent people do manage to make something of their lives shouldn't lead us to believe that they couldn't have done better with the proper tools.