We are NOT as Intelligent as We Think We are, and That is a Good Thing!

We are NOT as Intelligent as We Think We are, and That is a Good Thing!

"Uy ang talino mo naman!"

I feel uneasy every time someone gives me that remark just because of what I wrote. Why? Because I know enough about various kinds of intelligence and have met a lot of people who have shown me first-hand what intelligence means: that it is NOT limited to the 3 Rs.

I may be good at words, but once upon a time I saw how my cousin routinely beat me at math in grade school. Our Grade 3 teacher, Mrs. Evangeline Tagulao, had this habit of staging a mini-contest using cards where two pupils guessed the answer to basic math operations. In those contests, it was humiliating for me to realize that I wasn't good in math, not at all. Although 1+1 and 2+2 were basic for me, if my teacher asked a combination higher than those, I would have to relax myself, sit down, and think hard to get the answer right without using a calculator. (No joke, no joke.)

I don't know how I survived school subjects like geometry, chemistry, algebra, physics, statistics, and calculus. It must have been because of how good my teachers were, like Mrs. Cuchapin and Mrs. Saygo.

I may be good at writing essays, but you won't believe how much I admire another cousin who could play the guitar and read notes and chords on this little song book called "Song Hits." As for me, I tried playing "Yellow Bird" one time on the ukelele, of all things, and from thereon accepted that I wasn't born to be a musician. Maybe a critic, but not an actual player.

I know my intelligence is limited whenever I am with someone in a strange place, like a city with streets winding this way and that, and the person has no problem getting lost in it. ...Because left to my own devices, I am pretty sure I would end up panicking like this fool pleading for help inside a labyrinth or deep within the jungle after I ventured a little off the hiking trail.

I admire people who know how to cook well by instinct (even without going to culinary school for it), because I am kind of bad in this department.

Even as a writer, I am envious of people who can write poems, fiction, and especially novels, for which I have no energy doing.

I know my so-called intellect is no match to the innate talent of athletes, so I can't afford to brag about it in the face of their skill.

I may have a way with words, but you can't expect me to be like McGyver around the house, with my knowledge of carpentry and electrical wiring close to nil.

I admire people who can be the life of the party, an event host -- things like that. Because I can't do that even if my life depended on it. Or will only do it at gunpoint.

I am excellent at being a recluse, though. I am fond of ruminating, of navel-gazing, of stargazing. But not to the point of making a career out of it, or coming up with a profound philosophical treatise. Maybe by being the client or patient of the psychiatrist, yes.

They say interest in the natural world is called naturalistic intelligence, and I think I have it in spades, and that is why I took up BS Biology in college. So maybe there is at least one other type of intelligence that I can say I possess. But it only resulted in cultivating succulents that refuse to bloom. I discovered that most plants die on you if you give too little or too much of sun, water, nutrients...

Some people may be secretly envious of me for what I have, or what I have developed (though sheer passion and hard work), but I am, in fact, envious of people who can do anything I am not as good at. Especially singing and dancing.

I am probably the most unbalanced person you know. This thought keeps me humble. My saving grace, I think, is that my interest will strike most people as incredibly wide. As a writer, this enables me to treat most subjects as though they are the most interesting thing in the world.

Anyway, I am glad that no person has a monopoly of intelligence. I don't think I have met anyone who has ticked off all the boxes by Howard Gardner. A few exceptionally gifted people like Jose Rizal may be polymaths, but they, too, have weaknesses. God, in his goodness and generosity, must have distributed intelligence in different ways to different people.

What a wonderful world it is, if that is so, because it means we were born to collaborate with our multiple intelligences, with our own unique giftedness.