[A Contented Skull by Chiho Aoshima]

Today a colleague told me that I’m one of the smartest people she knows.

To which I responded dryly, “Thanks, but you probably need to get out more.”

I was just teasing, because I was very, very flattered and yet oddly shy about the compliment.

Honestly, it kind of made my day.

The thing is, some of my friends in undergraduate college weren’t just smart; they were brilliant. By the time I graduated in 1999, I was quite humbled and felt that certain areas—especially in the realms of science and technology—weren’t worth pursuing, because I would never be one of the best and therefore, to my way of thinking, wouldn’t have anything to contribute. I opted out of those areas and focused my attention to detail on the literary/editing side of things, because I love words and I understand them and feel relatively secure in that knowledge.

The idea of exploring a master’s degree in Information Studies (the twenty-first-century version of librarian school) is exciting to me because I could work with new technology emerging in the field and hopefully implement these ideas in a really tangible way when I got my degree and pursued employment. Hey, I’m 30 years old . . . I was bound to stumble upon some sort of career concept eventually.

Speaking of smarts: Leslie at the Weighting Game recently posed this would-you-rather question: If you had to pick, would you choose (A) to be 40 pounds overweight and smart or (B) thin but unintelligent? (She stipulated that if you picked A, you couldn’t then also add that you’d be smart enough to hire a personal trainer and lose the weight.)

You know which one you’re supposed to pick, right?

Well, I was in a particularly surly mood on the day I answered the question and picked B. Because as I’ve mentioned before, there’s apparently a positive correlation between intelligence and unhappiness. And as a medium-brainy person, I also happen to have come face to face with the big black pit time and time again. Maybe if I dropped a few IQ points, I could mellow the hell out. Who knows?

I’m not condoning ignorance; not by a long shot. But ignorance is something mutable, something that can be changed, whereas your baseline level of intelligence doesn’t change dramatically in a lifetime. Unless there’s a study I missed?

It seems to me like it’s all relative, and it all depends what you want out of life. If you want to find the cure for cancer, intelligence is necessary. If you want to be happy . . . well, I think sometimes intelligence, despite its capacity to broaden and liberate your mind, can also serve as a source of endless “what-if” misery. The acquisitive, constantly searching intellect inspires new inventions . . . and causes torments of despair.

It is what it is. Would-you-rather games can be fun, but I’m bad with them because issues like our bodies and brains are full of shades of gray.

Today, for example, I felt happy to be smart. I’m glad I’m not God, if God exists. Because I would change my mind every day and no one would ever know which way was up!