Originality & creativity

Most IQ tests measure how many factoids someone knows or at best, some reasoning skills, such as manipulating 3D objects, solving an abstract puzzle, etc. and then, normalizing those results with the overall general population. IQ tests measure skills that serve some useful purposes in life, and many of them are essential for doing well in schools. IQ tests don't really test for the comprehensive intelligence that we all imagine, but rather, they provide some predictive values in how well someone would do in schools.

I, personally, value people who have mastery over facts AND also have the ability to use those facts to apply, to reason, and to create something new. In almost every field I have stumbled into, people tend to just regurgitate the same old bullshit. One, they don't see how to apply the bullshit. Two, they don't even test if that long held dogma is true. Three, assuming that dogma is true, how else and where else can we apply that and just perhaps, expand it. Finally, using our existing knowledge, what can we come up with that's new, it might be evolutionary (similar to previous point) or revolutionary.

This seems to occur mostly in groups of ignorant egotistical people. Someone first dishes out some bullshit, everyone else chimes in and conflates it with other irrelevant bullshit; thus, muddying the issue and making it more difficult for everyone else to understand. An intelligent person with a good grasp of the knowledge base tends to simplify all that is complex and difficult to understand into a clear and concise concept.

I see knowledge workers are no different than professional athletes. Most toil in silence and obscurity and 99% of them never succeed. Of the few that made it out, had their breakthroughs, I am willing to bet that they have created something new. They have mastered not only the existing corpus of knowledge but also have made insights that resolve difficulties that confounded the rest of the 99% of people who attempted.

The positive humanist in me would like to think that we all are creative and can contribute our original thoughts in one form or another. But the realist in me, that is tempered by experience, has learned to accept that most people are like rats in a cage, they keep spinning the wheel and rarely make anything of themselves, despite what they want, wish, claim, declare, and resolve to achieve. It's easy to blame that they are lazy, afraid to try because of fear of failure or success. But the sad truth is that they all lack that something to distinguish themselves among their peers: intelligence for creativity & originality.

Instead of keep fighting, keep beating one's head against the wall, I think people would be much happier if they just accept the world for what it is. They do their best to live within their means and limitations. Not everyone is meant to grow up to dunk that basketball, be that pro-surfer, make millions using his/her blog, have 3somes with midgets, even engage in anal sex, or manage multiple relationships that so many talk about but haven't a clue what that entails. If people would just be who they are, then they will achieve that inner peace, that mindful awakening to who they are and what they are capable of, that's when creativity will come about and hopefully, something original. But probably not!