What exactly is IQ? Human intelligence quotient. One of the things my autism doctor did in all my testing was an IQ test. I've always known I had an average IQ, I know I'm not a genius. But this test that he gave me, one section had words and I was to choose the picture that best went with that word. But the last 5 or so words, I had never heard those words before in my life. Does that really measure my intelligence? I had no problem with patterns and sequences which involves thinking. The last section had to do with descriptions. He would give 3 descriptions and I would say what it was. The first one was kind of funny. He said "This melts, it burns and made with wax". My first response was chocolate. It does melt and burns if you cook it too long and it contains wax (or paraffin) . But I immediate said, "Oh, wait, you're looking for candle." Candle was the correct answer. But had I stuck with my original correct answer, it would have lowered my IQ? And because of the millions of words in existence and that I have not heard ALL the words, does that really lower my IQ? I wonder if he knows what paraffin is. He didn't know that chocolate had wax in it. So really?
This has always puzzled me. I'm not considered as smart as my sister (the attorney) who was considered genius according to her IQ test scores in school but she can't understand why someone might be mad at her after she has made fun of them. Seriously, she hasn't a clue. There have been times when she and I and my brother have been together and my brother would start talking about something from the Bible and we would get into a discussion. She would respond, "Where are you guys getting this stuff?" or "How do you know that?" She doesn't seem to understand that we're getting the information by reading it and studying it. She was the driver when we went to Utah together. She's climbing up a hill that's straight and the sign at the top says to slow down to 35 mph and has curved lines below the speed limit. She's going about 60 mph and not even thinking about slowing down and I'm telling her to slow down and that the sign is saying 35. She said, "Oh, they don't mean that. It doesn't mean anything." I said, "No, it means that on the other side of the hill you're going to be going down the side of a mountain with curvy roads and you better slow down to 35 or you're going to go off the edge." She did finally slow down when we got to the top and she seen that we were about to go down a curvy road down the side of a mountain. She actually slowed down pretty fast upon realizing this. Does genius get in the way of common sense? It gets in the way of safety.
I had another attorney friend. He could spout off law numbers like it was the alphabet and was so impressive when it come to these old this person vs that person cases and ordinance numbers and so on. It seemed like he had the entire law library memorized. But he and his wife would call me to come and help them when neither of them knew how to hang a curtain rod. I was over there once and they were both frazzled because it was almost Christmas, they had company coming and their new couch that was delivered yesterday had a spot on the cushion and there wasn't time for the store to replace it. They didn't want their guests to see the spot and they just didn't know what they were going to do. I suggested that, for now, they turn the cushion over so the spot wouldn't show. What a life saver I was to them that day, they would have never figured that one out.
I just don't understand what actually measures a person's intelligence. I may not know what the definition of buliga is (however, I would if I looked it up), but I know what side effects a medication might have by knowing what the medication is for. I know what the heart is doing during the Q R S T waves on a heart monitor. Why does knowing this certain word make you a genius but knowing that word does not? I know I can figure things out. I can do anything I set my mind to doing. That doesn't mean I will, just that I could. Just like we had so many trees in our yard in Georgia but my husband wouldn't cut any of them down and cut up the wood for firewood. Instead he bought those expensive firelogs. I'd try to explain that the purpose of the wood stove was to save money on the electric, but using those store bought man made logs cost way more than what the electric would cost. So one day I decided to go to Home Depot and buy a small chainsaw and I would cut some firewood. I could have done it, but I chickened out when I was reading the instruction manual and it started talking about kick backs. So I took the saw back to the store to return it. The lady asked if something was wrong with it and I told her, I didn't even take it out of the box, that I was reading the instruction manual and it scared me. She laughed and said if the manual scared me the saw was really going to scare me. She gave me my money back. So I'm not saying I WILL do anything, because if it scares me I won't. But I can figure out how to do things. My kids CD player was broke and I took it apart. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I figured I couldn't mess it up any worse by trying to fix it. I fixed it. I will get something in my mind that I want in my home, like I wanted to make a hanging shower curtain to go all the way around a tub. I told the man at Home Depot what I was wanting to do and he told me it was impossible. I found what I thought would work, went home and put it together and it was exactly what I wanted.
So I'm not a genius. Thank goodness I'm not a genius. I'm one of those people that likes to do EVERYTHING myself. Besides I'm not going to ask for help. I would endanger myself before asking for help. The only thing I know I can't do is use electric saws of any kind, so I might have to ask someone to cut a board for me. I will use a handsaw if the job is small enough though. I may end up with a few cuts on my hand, which is why I won't use electric saws - I would end up losing the whole hand. I'm not the safest with tools. I once put a hole in my eyeball with a screwdriver. I may not always do the best job, but I do it and if I were a what society considers genius I probably wouldn't be able to do any of these things.
This has always puzzled me. I'm not considered as smart as my sister (the attorney) who was considered genius according to her IQ test scores in school but she can't understand why someone might be mad at her after she has made fun of them. Seriously, she hasn't a clue. There have been times when she and I and my brother have been together and my brother would start talking about something from the Bible and we would get into a discussion. She would respond, "Where are you guys getting this stuff?" or "How do you know that?" She doesn't seem to understand that we're getting the information by reading it and studying it. She was the driver when we went to Utah together. She's climbing up a hill that's straight and the sign at the top says to slow down to 35 mph and has curved lines below the speed limit. She's going about 60 mph and not even thinking about slowing down and I'm telling her to slow down and that the sign is saying 35. She said, "Oh, they don't mean that. It doesn't mean anything." I said, "No, it means that on the other side of the hill you're going to be going down the side of a mountain with curvy roads and you better slow down to 35 or you're going to go off the edge." She did finally slow down when we got to the top and she seen that we were about to go down a curvy road down the side of a mountain. She actually slowed down pretty fast upon realizing this. Does genius get in the way of common sense? It gets in the way of safety.
I had another attorney friend. He could spout off law numbers like it was the alphabet and was so impressive when it come to these old this person vs that person cases and ordinance numbers and so on. It seemed like he had the entire law library memorized. But he and his wife would call me to come and help them when neither of them knew how to hang a curtain rod. I was over there once and they were both frazzled because it was almost Christmas, they had company coming and their new couch that was delivered yesterday had a spot on the cushion and there wasn't time for the store to replace it. They didn't want their guests to see the spot and they just didn't know what they were going to do. I suggested that, for now, they turn the cushion over so the spot wouldn't show. What a life saver I was to them that day, they would have never figured that one out.
I just don't understand what actually measures a person's intelligence. I may not know what the definition of buliga is (however, I would if I looked it up), but I know what side effects a medication might have by knowing what the medication is for. I know what the heart is doing during the Q R S T waves on a heart monitor. Why does knowing this certain word make you a genius but knowing that word does not? I know I can figure things out. I can do anything I set my mind to doing. That doesn't mean I will, just that I could. Just like we had so many trees in our yard in Georgia but my husband wouldn't cut any of them down and cut up the wood for firewood. Instead he bought those expensive firelogs. I'd try to explain that the purpose of the wood stove was to save money on the electric, but using those store bought man made logs cost way more than what the electric would cost. So one day I decided to go to Home Depot and buy a small chainsaw and I would cut some firewood. I could have done it, but I chickened out when I was reading the instruction manual and it started talking about kick backs. So I took the saw back to the store to return it. The lady asked if something was wrong with it and I told her, I didn't even take it out of the box, that I was reading the instruction manual and it scared me. She laughed and said if the manual scared me the saw was really going to scare me. She gave me my money back. So I'm not saying I WILL do anything, because if it scares me I won't. But I can figure out how to do things. My kids CD player was broke and I took it apart. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I figured I couldn't mess it up any worse by trying to fix it. I fixed it. I will get something in my mind that I want in my home, like I wanted to make a hanging shower curtain to go all the way around a tub. I told the man at Home Depot what I was wanting to do and he told me it was impossible. I found what I thought would work, went home and put it together and it was exactly what I wanted.
So I'm not a genius. Thank goodness I'm not a genius. I'm one of those people that likes to do EVERYTHING myself. Besides I'm not going to ask for help. I would endanger myself before asking for help. The only thing I know I can't do is use electric saws of any kind, so I might have to ask someone to cut a board for me. I will use a handsaw if the job is small enough though. I may end up with a few cuts on my hand, which is why I won't use electric saws - I would end up losing the whole hand. I'm not the safest with tools. I once put a hole in my eyeball with a screwdriver. I may not always do the best job, but I do it and if I were a what society considers genius I probably wouldn't be able to do any of these things.
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From the genius' that I know, I've always been glad to have more common sense over a high IQ, which is more book smart.
