Do you think you’re intelligent? Why or why not?

@kimmy159 I think intelligence is often confused with knowledge. In childhood you're sent to a school where facts, often of little use to anybody, are indoctrinated into you - often by fear : if you cannot complete that sonnet by Shakespeare, "God" help you.. I've always seen it more like the ability to think for oneself even when it's at loggerheads with others' thinking.

@alan20 Very true! I hated going to school most of my life because it doesn’t give you any real choices. You just sit there and study what they throw at you being forced to spend time with people you might not even like.
I liked my life much more when I was freed of all that 😁

@kimmy159 Same here and in fact I was fed information that at best was useless. e.g. encouraged by people who should have known better to believe I had a great future in music; whereas if I didn't have a great backing in money I might as well be tone deaf. All those hours spent sitting at a piano would have been much better spent in the company of a girl I cared for. And like you, I detested school!

@alan20 Well I get what you mean. My school and parents never encouraged me in anything. I had good grades without needing to spend hours studying. Although it gave my parents the impression I was just average because my grades were average. What they didn’t understand is that I read through a book and did the exam without other effort. Because it didn’t interest me.

My mom once forced me to take a year of Spanish lessons because she wanted to study it. She spent days learning the handbook, I just read through it and had the same exam results as she did 🙈 before we had the exam, she was so angry by my lack of effort for something I never wanted to do, and then she was even more angry that I got good results anyway 😂

She allowed me to study for a bachelor degree but only 1 year. I had 7 unsufficient grades out of 24 (imo it was because I never was taught to actually study so I wasn’t used to the effort and needed more time to adapt), but she saw it as you failed and you will go to work, which I did.

Now I’m already a director of finance in the small company I work for even though I never studied finance. I know everything from gathering my own knowledge and watching webinars, learning because I watch others and ask others how they would deal with this or that 🙈 knowing where to find info is more important than knowing all the info yourself 😁 turning to others is smart cause you share knowledge and experience and learn much faster than figuring it out on your own.
I always offer people the same kind of help or service in return because that’s what makes the world spin 😁

Idk what goes as “intelligence” there really are a lot of different interpretations 😁

@kimmy159 I'd include empathy under the umbrella of intelligence. On a different note my son actually works as finance director in a company that organises music events.

@alan20 I also consider empathy as a sign of intelligence, but not “general empathy”. Being too empathic can work against you too if you can’t draw any lines 😁
A music events company sounds fun to work for 😁 I work for a marketing company 🙈 it’s very stressful with constant deadlines for impossible clients for the consultants. Also constantly stressing if the client will renew contracts and have their budgets or not

@kimmy159 My son used tell me that the late Pavarotti was his most stressful client - constantly changing his schedule.