Its all so very relative you know. So many ways of measuring it, charting it, so many different mileposts to assess progress by that I guess you have to start out with something more than just 'intelligence' or even a difference between 'book smarts' and 'street smarts' because I don't even think those things are specific and exact enough.
One example. Often, and in here frequently, some people are dismissed as 'dumb jocks.' OK, perhaps. But on the other hand, have you ever seen an NFL playbook? They are 3 inch 3 ring binders, sometimes more than one. You have to know exactly what you are supposed to do, what the guys around you are doing, and what the general plan is for each and every play, and you're not going to get much time to think about it, it has to be perfect instant recall memory or NFL is going to stand for Not For Long. At the major sports university I worked at I did sideline stats for the football team. The last few years I was there they ran a modified West Coast Offense. That offense had over 60 different combinations of passing routes (drove me nuts). I asked once why they described it as 'modified' and Coach told me, "A real NFL West Coast Offense would have twice the number of passing route combinations." So, dumb? Perhaps not in all ways. Oh sure, its not rocket science, but when you think about it, rocket science only has two combinations, thrust and trajectory - so perhaps its harder than rocket science.
And its easy for people without formal education to denounce it as so much book stuff, but the people I worked with when I was at DoE and DoD had piles of degrees and they were very smart people, and in the case of the military usually very good 'people' persons also. DoE, well, not so much on the social skills sometimes, but the physics was whip smart. And our DoE National Energy Lab had its own chamber orchestra as just about everyone there played an instrument, and played it well. And we're not talking about 3 chords on a guitar singing Michael Row the Boat Ashore, we're talking Bach, Mozart, Haydn sheet music stuff. That and they had all read every science fiction book ever published needless to say. And two of them - the guys I worked with - had been on a team that had been nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics, so they did that pretty good too. However, the Xmas party was an exercise in tedium except when we were playing music or singing, like I said, social skills, not so much.
Actually, most of the people I worked with in grad school and at the university were very smart, and yes, they could do things too. They had written books, invented stuff and held patents, won awards and prizes and all that. Yet, a more unhappy group of people in general I never met. Never could figure out why that was - me being a bear of very little brain and all - that being so smart they never figured out how to be happy. Yet outside of the hard science types for the most part, they were very social, high functioning, excellent conversationalists as that is a huge part of getting ahead in academic life, that cocktail (now white wine and Bree) party type of socialization.
I work on a regular basis with people who get tagged with the genius label all the time. Usually means they don't sell records. Musical Genius doesn't fly off the shelves very often. Bland, mediocre crap like Maria Cary and Keith Urban sells. So who is the real genius there? The guy who's invented his own tunings, his own electronics and a style that is totally unique, but has trouble paying the bills, or the mediocre crap that gets you mansions in Los Angeles or Nashville and has you banging Nichole Kidman to boot?
Or the other side of the biz, that not so glamorous part. Queen called their ex-manager Death on Two Legs famously asking if the fin on his back was part of the deal, Heart called theirs Barracuda, and the Grateful Dead said that their ex-manager could steal your face right off of your head. And these guys, oh they can rob you blind (street smarts) and with such awesome interpersonal skills that they can often leave you breathlessly infatuated that they saw fit to steal from you. Interestingly enough, they all seem to be very happy also.
Now the main guy I work with, he barely finished high school. By the age of 20 he had sailed boats from LA to the Med, and owned his own airplane. When he's not being a theater tech, or doing his construction company (most tech directors for major theaters are C-10 level commercial contractors) he's working on his train. Not a train set in the basement, but a 1935 vista dome club car that he is in the process of restoring so when he retires he can rent it out and spend his retirement traveling around the country in his private rail car while still generating income. He's the second best welder I've ever seen (IJ is the best, he built most of the Star Wars sets, including the Millennium Falcon - both interior and exterior) awesome carpenter, ace plumber all more or less self taught. How smart is he? Oh yeah, he is almost ecstatically happy.
Am I smart because I graduated high school as the salutatorian (second place, valedictorian is first, but hell, that guy studied, I never did) while winning the religion award twice, as well as being named poet laureate. Then went to college being on the honor roll/dean's list every semester and the President's List (4.0) 6 out of 8 semesters and graduating magna cum laude, Phi Betta Kappa? Or is it because I excelled in grad school getting both my Master's and PhD (total cumulative GPA for all three degrees 3.94) graduating Phi Kappa Phi, while getting laid a lot in the process?
Or is it because my kid is currently in his masters program and has a GPA better than mine - something he never lets me forget?
Or is it because I really love what I do, it never feels like work, and I make a good living at it while pallin' around with famous people, some of whom actually do music that I like? The best part of the last gig I worked was sitting a few feet away from Tommy Iommi and Geezer Butler (the original guitarist and bass players from Black Sabbath) while they just riffed off each other. You can't buy that.
Me, I'd like to think I'm smart because I'm very happy with who I am, where I am, and what I'm doing. What's any of it worth if you're not happy?
