Random Thoughts While Traveling

While traveling if I see someone who is especially interesting to me, I will find a way to start a conversation. Sometimes. Sometimes the other will initiate a conversation with me. I think this is a case of human intuition: one intelligence being in tune with another with no words necessarily spoken.

Speaking of intelligence today was a good example of this. I started a conversation with a delightful person. It began when she asked me to watch her bags. We were in line waiting to board a plane, from Las Vegas to Los Angeles.

She went on an errand for a moment then returned.

She thanked me for watching her stuff. I took the opportunity to compliment her for her beautiful hair and particularly the way she fixed it. She sparkled with appreciation. "Is it naturally that curly?" I asked. She volunteered that "Yes, ever since I was child it was this way. I always wanted straight hair, but now I am glad it's curly." She beamed.

Interesting, isn't it, how people are ready to respond to gentle attention with stuff from their lives that they wouldn't otherwise think of offering? People, all people, really do want to share and ventilate (that's what spontaneous talking is, you know) when they feel validated and supported.

I then added "I heard you on your cell phone a few moments ago. You sound very intelligent."

She blushed and self deprecatingly said "I'm not intelligent. That's why I read a lot, so I can learn more things."

I replied, "Knowing things, having knowledge, is not intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to evaluate things. You should reverse that and never put yourself down."

Her eyes lit up as if she just discovered something she had always known. A great smile followed as she confessed, "I really only meant that half way."

"Well, then you have only half to reverse," I said. A small ringing laugh radiated out of her vocal chords. "IQ testing has long been debunked as a test of smartness" I added.

"Yes", she said, "a lot of people can't take tests, they get nervous. I get nervous; I'm terrible at taking tests," another chance to share personal material. I did not pursue that. Had we been in a more appropriate setting with greater time, or in a counseling session, I certainly would have encouraged to talk more about "nervousness" and testing. (That statement ties up with her earlier statement about not being intelligent. Someone, something made her feel inadequate during the critically developmental (very young) period of her life - that's when that sort of damage gets done).

"Well, there you have it," I said.

Then we grew silent as we each withdrew into our individual activities, reading, fussing with the luggage and such. (I'm thinking as I'm writing this that I could have given her the option of sharing more about that "nervousness" simply by asking if she'd like to talk about that)

We boarded the plane and as I passed her while she settled into a seat, filling up that row, I smiled and said goodbye. She did the same. I proceeded to a seat several rows past hers.

As the plane took to the skies I began to think about that brief conversation. I began to think about "intelligence." I realized that I had described "intelligence" just partially, quite inadequately to tell the truth.

Alright, I thought, "so what is it?"

A component of intelligence is indeed the ability to evaluate phenomena. More than that, it is the ability to process evaluation towards accuracy. Alright then, who is to judge accuracy? One person's "accuracy" may be another person's "bunk."

There must be a standard of accuracy that anyone and everyone can rely on. It then came to me that that standard must be that which relates to the force that moves things progressively forwards to a better quality of existence and experience for all things known to us in the universe. It means that all things must have equal opportunity for successful existence, each in its own way.

In other words, a reliable standard of accuracy must relate to that which makes everything work better for all things known, including ourselves, our perceptions as well as the relations between all things.

Any sense of accuracy that works for some and not for others, that gives advantage to some but not to others, that profit some but cost others cannot be accurate. It can only be a skewed or a warped assessment.

Is it accurate to say, for example, that the wolf should kill as many caribou as it can, in order for it and its pups to survive? No, because for the "wolf to deplete the herd is absurd, for the wolf itself will not survive" (this is a line from my show "Our Lives" found in the Creativity forum).

Naturalist and biosphere studies have long shown that when the herd of caribou is large, so is the population of wolves. When the population of the first is diminished, so is the population of the latter. This is a reflection of the accuracy of the natural ecology and symbiosis in the universe. All things profit from this natural and accurate state.

This leads to another component of intelligence. With respect to the function of humans, care and respect of all things and in our relations to one another, must exist unconditionally in our perspective and in our actions. When we care and respect all things the existence and experience of all things, including our own state of affairs, attains the highest level of survival and success.

When humans function in this manner everything gets better and safer for everyone and all things. This is intelligent. Care and respect is a pillar of intelligence.

To act in any other way, that is to care conditionally or marginally or not at all is to present threat and destruction to the balance and well being of humans and all other things as well. This is not intelligent, this is stupidity.

I can thus state that intelligence must consist of at least these two components: accurate evaluation and unconditional care.