Full of myself

This is my 100th post and the start of NaBloPoMo, National Blog Posting Month.  I'll try to post everyday this month.

Let's start with the most egotistical thing possible.  Let's talk about my IQ.

In the West, we value the rational over the intuitive, science over religion, so having a "definite" measure of how smart we are is scary to us.  As long as we don't find out, we could be the genius that we hope we are.  The moment we find out though, we know whether we are or aren't, and we probably aren't.

Well... probably.  IQs are done in percentages so depending on your percentage, you get a small range of IQs you could be.  The average is set at 100 with standard deviations of 15 points on the bell curve.

I'm... clever.  I have to throw modesty out the window to talk on this subject unfortunately or I can't be accurate.  I'm in the top 1%, which puts me at over 135 with no upper limit.

I actually avoided finding out my IQ for a long time.  I joined Mensa because I wanted to see if my self-appraisal of my intelligence was a symptom of my psychosis.  My brother and father who share my mental illness are prone to delusions of grandeur (as am I).  I could have found out my IQ then, but I didn't.  I just accepted that I was somewhere in the top 2% and clever.  I requested my scores last week, but since it was top 1%, there's no conclusive number just over 135.

Now I'm going to get really full of myself, so fair warning.

What does it mean to have an IQ of over 135?

There's a sense of "I should be doing more with my life" but really... I've been happily married a very long time.  I'm raising a brilliant son.  I'm part owner in a multi-million dollar corporation.  I live a very active, fulfilling life.  I've written four novels, been published in a bunch of magazines, and I'm in the Guinness Book of World Records.  I'm going to set all that aside and look at the relativity of social interaction.

Imagine for a second that every single person in the world (except YOU) was Forrest Gump.

Bear with me.  There's a quantifiable measure for this cross I'm claiming to bear.

My IQ: 135+
Avg IQ: 100
Gump IQ: 75

Now, Gump's fictional, but it is the most well-known example of someone around 75 and is an example of an extremely functional, extraordinary 75, so I think it makes the case even more.

When the average person talks to Gump, they're talking down 25 points.  When I talk to the average person, I'm talking down over 35 points.  That's totally quantifiable and factual.  Whether it means that me talking to an average person is similar to an average person talking to Forrest Gump is total speculation.

To take it away from fiction, imagine children.  Imagine everyone you encounter is a child.  Geez...

I put forth this idea to a friend and he brought up Idiocracy.  I'm going to have to watch it again with that in mind.  Every once in a while we take a move similar to a move made towards the society of Idiocracy and someone makes a joke "We're living in Idiocracy."

Now that he's put that in my mind, I have to wonder.

Holy shit... am I living in Idiocracy?

We now return you to our normal levels of arrogance and self-aggrandizing and leave this nonsense behind.