Being smart has never helped me.
From sitting at home doing mostly nothing but reading for several years, I've begun trying to get out and doing stuff. I started volonteering for an organization that helps the homeless in Gothenburg, and I've come to some insights about myself.
I have a kind of social phobia. But I'm not scared of strangers, like sociophobes generally are. And I've just come to the conclusion that it has to do with my childhood.
In the village where I lived, I was bullied in school. Everybody knew who I was. But if I travelled to the world outside, people didn't know I was stupid and ugly and that they were supposed to beat the crap out of me. Strangers didn't know me, and so they could be friendly. It was the people I knew I had to look out for.
I could read and write when I started school and most things were too easy for me. Exept math, but later in life I found out I have dyscalculia.
I'm sure I was the smartest kid in school. I get high scores on all IQ-tests, had a psych evaluation once and was told I have an "exeptionally high intelligence." Yeah, the word "exeptionally" was used.
But that has never helped me.
People I meet when I'm out with the soup kitchen, homeless and volonteers alike, ask what I do, what my job is. I've never had a regular job. In all honesty, I haven't. I have helped people for many years, online and in real life, I've sat with friends who found out their childrens dads are on drugs, helped people with clothes, food ... What did I gain from it? Life experience, that's what.
In a way, I have a richer life. I'm dirt poor, chronically depressed, and never had a job. I'm intelligent, and I have a few friends that I know like me. I have a very good vocabulary in two languages, and so-so in a third, plus the couple of languages I can read and understand most of.
I believe that if you don't know me that well, only talk to me for a while, you might think that I have a high education. I say things, use words, that some, "normal", people don't even understand. But no, I dropped out of school to have a kid.
I think the happiest people are the ones just below normal intelligence. The ones who don't know and don't care about stuff outside of their reach. I envy them sometimes, 'cos being smart has never helped me.
I have a kind of social phobia. But I'm not scared of strangers, like sociophobes generally are. And I've just come to the conclusion that it has to do with my childhood.
In the village where I lived, I was bullied in school. Everybody knew who I was. But if I travelled to the world outside, people didn't know I was stupid and ugly and that they were supposed to beat the crap out of me. Strangers didn't know me, and so they could be friendly. It was the people I knew I had to look out for.
I could read and write when I started school and most things were too easy for me. Exept math, but later in life I found out I have dyscalculia.
I'm sure I was the smartest kid in school. I get high scores on all IQ-tests, had a psych evaluation once and was told I have an "exeptionally high intelligence." Yeah, the word "exeptionally" was used.
But that has never helped me.
People I meet when I'm out with the soup kitchen, homeless and volonteers alike, ask what I do, what my job is. I've never had a regular job. In all honesty, I haven't. I have helped people for many years, online and in real life, I've sat with friends who found out their childrens dads are on drugs, helped people with clothes, food ... What did I gain from it? Life experience, that's what.
In a way, I have a richer life. I'm dirt poor, chronically depressed, and never had a job. I'm intelligent, and I have a few friends that I know like me. I have a very good vocabulary in two languages, and so-so in a third, plus the couple of languages I can read and understand most of.
I believe that if you don't know me that well, only talk to me for a while, you might think that I have a high education. I say things, use words, that some, "normal", people don't even understand. But no, I dropped out of school to have a kid.
I think the happiest people are the ones just below normal intelligence. The ones who don't know and don't care about stuff outside of their reach. I envy them sometimes, 'cos being smart has never helped me.
Kommentarer
Postat av: Joe
Guess that's how we relate on some level. I was among the top students up through around 7th grade. Got bullied a bit, though probably not as much.
(Of course, around 7th grade my depression started kicking in from having to spend most of my time hiding in my room away from my father. I was still smart, but that made it impossible to study or do schoolwork... lost the focus then. The intelligence remained, just lost the ability to use it.)
Being smart hasn't helped here either. The sociophobia, depression, and anxiety saw to that.
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