I would think that living where you want to live, where your happy, is the first thing a smart person gets. Doesn't matter where it is, but if your going to be happiest being a surfer, you're a moron if you continue to live in Kansas, just as much as if you want to be a cowboy, LA ain't exactly the town for you. Nether is New York.
Along those lines, even idiots know you have to make choices in life. Is what you want to do more important that what you want to be? Is your lifestyle more important than your life? Do you want to be a big fish in a small pond, or a small fish in a big pond? Want to be an actor? Try NYC or LA, or be content to do dinner theater and off-off Broadway (but not on the actual off Broadway) in Des Moines and find peace in that.
And remember, life is change - that's how your different from a rock. What is critical to us at 25 might well seem trivial at 36 or 58, and vice-versa. But what is timeless, has ever been thus. Beginnings and endings, life and death, happy or unhappy - some we have choice over, others not, accepting what is, and what can never be, that's smart to me.
Comes a time, when you realize that perhaps more sunsets have happened in your life then your going to have from here on out. That you can't ski the double black diamonds forever, and these runs, this year, they might be the last time you can kick it like that. That bank accounts and college degrees are cool, but showing up for work for a job you love, in a place you revere, and having people who are just as happy to see you there as you are to see them, might well be priceless. I've found that if not priceless, its certainly rare enough to be treasured. Being smart is realizing that before it makes a difference, rather than ex post facto.
And all that may not even be intelligent, but it is smart, and smart and intelligent are not the same thing, in the way that as Frank said: Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is the best...
We each have to determine what is the 'best' for us, and go with that - all the rest, is just the rest. Its not the other thing, it may not even be a part of it, most of the really 'intelligent' people I've ever met are fools, because with all that stuff, they can't figure out how to be happy, something even a lot of idiots get. And if you can't get there, what's it worth?
What makes smart people smart, is not intelligence tests, or grades in school, or degrees, or bank accounts, but the real tests that everyone faces everyday, and how they choose their outcome in those things. The person with worry etched on their face who will die early from being a Type A person, are they really smarter than the surfer who is 60 and has spent over 45 years of their life on the beach?
Somehow I doubt it. I do know darn well who looks better, who feels better and who does, and does not, need a little blue pill to still get it up.
I live my life to amuse myself. And I'm pretty damn amused by it. That's good enough for me. I was smart enough to figure that out and be happy in it, and that's as smart as I'll ever need to be. Given all I have, all I have had, knowing the beginnings and endings to the circle of life and coming to understand the joy of Beethoven's 9th and the immense sorrow of Robert Johnson's Hellhounds on My Trail, has been pretty powerful stuff, both in terms of knowing myself, but also in knowing other people on a real and profound level, and not just as accessories and accouterments to a faux life. The people who have taught me the most, were not the one like me, or the ones who liked me, but those who were just real, despite how I felt about it.
And I was smart enough to listen, even when I didn't much like what they were saying.
"I don't care whether I'm remembered. As a matter of fact, there's a lot of people who would like to forget about me as soon as possible, and I'm on their side! You know? Just ... hurry up and get it over with. I do what I do because I like doing it, I do it for my amusement first, if it amuses you ... that's fine. I'm happy that you'll participate in it. But, uh, after I am dead and gone, there is no need to deal with any of this stuff, because it is not written for future generations, it is not performed for future generations. It is performed for now. Get it while it's hot, you know? That's it."
Frank Zappa from "There Is No Need"
Oh I see! I bow to your wisdom, knowledge!
Is playing the fool supposed to be a tribute to your personality or just your wardrobe? Med School is 3 years, plus a one year residency, or in some a 2/2, with half being classroom and half clinical work - either way, about 4 years after the undergrad degree. A PhD is a Masters Degree, plus 2 more years of graduate credits, and a dissertation, so about 7 years vs. 4 years, after the undergrad degree. 7 is more than 4. OK?
