- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German physicist, philosopher
I am many things. Fat. Aging. Crabby. The antithesis of handsome with a periodic flatulent gas problem that could make a skunk swoon.
But I do consider myself to be smart. According to some experts, I am a genius. Now, while others would relish that label, I find it to be both downright embarrassing and a royal pain in the ass.
My first I.Q./personality test took place in grade school. It was supposed to be an evaluation of my knowledge in various academic arenas (history, mathematics, literature, etc.) but the sneaky bastards who created it also slipped in questions that assessed the testee's personality. The students were not informed of that tidbit of information until after the test so we couldn't cheat. Cheat? How does one cheat on one's own personality?
The test's four personality rankings were on a scale of 01 (as the lowest score) to 99 (as the highest), with 50 being average. You guessed it. No 50's for me.
- Creative Personality - 83
I am bordering on a Picasso, a Michelangelo and a Shakespeare combined. In other words, I could have had a career as a starving artist who wouldn't be appreciated or understood until decades after my death. If I had scored an 85 or better, I would have been immediately eligible for funding from The National Endowment For The Arts... who would then censor all my works for being antisocial, revolutionary and/or pornographic for violating their American Standards of the Arts restrictions. I have never colored within the lines, especially in a book created by pre-Nixon era bureaucrats.
- Intelligence - 78
Considering that genius level was 75 or higher, that score really screwed me. That idiotic test's results went into my permanent school records. After that, teachers wrote in my report cards, "Mark is capable of comprehending and doing this work yet he isn't living up to his potential." Uh, yea. Students are more than an I.Q. number. If the kid is that bright but not learning, maybe it's the teacher that's incompetent.
- Social Skills - 10
Just one point higher of being a hermit. I not only have trouble with large groups of people, I avoid small groups as well. I do my best work alone. Completely alone. As in, no one in the same room with me, ever. Voluntary solitary confinement, just me and my art supplies, my computer... and my TV set. That trait about me hasn't changed.
- Achiever Personality - 03
I was told that I not only ranked the lowest in the school on that ability, I might be the lowest in the entire history of the test. A rock was ranked 01. A two-toed sloth was a 02. Cool. Targets to shoot for. This means that if I had a detonating atomic bomb for an enema, I might be motivated enough to get off my butt and do something... but don't bet on it. (How did I strive to write and create this WebSite? More about my ghostly Muse at another time.)I went along, pretty much untested until I took a pre-SAT in high school. (Hey, I can't help it if I'm a dinosaur that predated those exams. Either that, or those tests weren't available to us yokels in the Ozarks way back then.) All I remember about them was that I did pretty good... but not great... and that I should go on to college... but not Harvard or Yale. They didn't tell me my particular numbers and, frankly, I didn't care. So I went to the brand-new Missouri Southern College (MSC)... which is now known as Missouri Southern State College (MSSC). Apparently, some were foggy on the concept that Missouri is a state in the United States so the MSC... ahem, MSSC Board of Regents & Other Simians sought out accreditation and clarification. Considering the way the American educational system has been sliding downhill over the last century, you'd think they'd seek accreditation with a university that turned out winners instead of losers, like Oxford. (Yea, like Oxford would acknowledge MSC's existence.)
This is this same cloudy thinking that made MSC officials pick the African lion as the symbol of an American midwestern college. Not exactly an indigenous species to Missouri, is it? Plus, the lion had already been used to death by countless dinky colleges, high schools and junior high/middle schools across this creatively challenged country or ours.
Personally, I like the sound of the Missouri Southern Vampires, unstoppable supernatural beings not satisfied with merely defeating their opponents but merrily ripping their throats out as well. It has a bloody, unmerciful ring to it which could chill the oppositions' blood while offending Southern Baptist in general. Plus, knowing past and current MSSC student bodies, they already contained... and still contain... a number of vampiric souls.
Then again, knowing that some football jocks played Saturday afternoon's games with hangovers because they got drunk on the previous Friday nights (I was the graveyard convenience food store clerk next to MSSC for 3½ years), perhaps naming them the Missouri Southern Cowpies would be more apropos.
During my third year at MSC, everyone was going to get another I.Q. test. The faculty explained that those tests had no bearing on our grades or how instructors would view us... but we college students had been lied to by administrative flunkies before. (The year was also 1969, which historically exacerbated matters.) Jefferson City educators would then review the test results to determine the intellectual levels of different state regions. Trouble, big time. Joplin, Missouri is in the Ozarks and we MSC students were about to come off as the road company of Deliverance. So, to prevent from being qualified only as garbagemen, we studied... OK. Everyone who wasn't an intoxicated jock studied. Somebody has to pick up the trash.
This time, they told us our scores.
Average intelligence was 100.
Genius level started at 125.
I scored a 137!
I then made the mistake of comparing my results with the rest of the gang I hung out with.
Sisters Penny and Jeannie got 142 and 145 respectively.
My sister, Gail, got a 152.
Tim got a 155.
Paul earned a 189, the highest in the college.That's right, folks. I was a bona fides genius and the stupidest one in my group. When my application to Mensa arrived in the mail, I folded it into a paper airplane and sailed it into the nearest wastepaper basket. I would have used it as toilet paper but the watermarked stationery was too coarse and scratchy.
I eventually learned that I.Q. tests are more like puzzles than a true measurement of your knowledge. Once you learn what they are looking for, you can easily raise your scores 10 to 20 points. Doing one crossword puzzle a week, even if you have to fudge using a crossword puzzle dictionary to complete it, will help your vocabulary skills immensely.
Also, some I.Q. test questions are as ambiguous as hell. You see pictures of a cow, a pig, and a sheep. What goes with them? The snake, the chicken or the dog? It depends upon what you think they are asking. Inhabitants of rural areas think the question is, "What are farm animals you can eat?" Then the answer is the chicken. But city dwellers think the question is, "What are mammals with four legs?" Then the dog is the correct answer. As for those with Asian backgrounds, if they mistake the cow for an ox, will they think the question is, "What are symbols on the Chinese calendar?" Then the snake, dog or rooster (chicken) is applicable. Cultural perceptions cause us think differently than others, not more stupidly or smarter. Besides, creative geniuses ponder concepts common minds cannot fathom. How can anyone measure that?
The last I.Q. test I took was when I was in my forties. A psychology student needed to videotape testees in a variety of age groups. She then let it slip that that test also evaluated the testee's personality by his or her appearance and composure. Apparently, the better garbed and calmer one was, the smarter one was. What a pile of horse manure... although that is how we elect our politicians: Well-dressed and afraid to utter a peep.
To be judged on personal appearances? Obviously, the creaters of the test had never see a picture of Albert Einstein. The only people who are perfectly groomed, quiet and super intelligent are Vulcans on Star Trek... and they are fictional. The entire idea smacked of racism and the old caste system of ignorance equating to poverty.
A rational man would have passed on such a test... but you folks know me better than that, don't you? I agreed to be tested. My Achiever Personality had finally found sufficient motivation. Perhaps, at long last, I could obliterate that scarlet letter that grade school I.Q./personality test had placed upon my heart once and for all.
The circus was coming to town... and I was to be the chief clown.
I didn't shave for three days. My clothing, I wouldn't wear to cut the grass in. My shoes had so many holes in them, they could have passed for sandals. My hat, a mule pulling a plow wouldn't sport. It was my homage to Red Skelton's Freddie the Freeloader. In that ensemble, I looked like a bum who signed his name wth an X and continually talked to himself. (All right, the latter I did normally.) Perfection for my video debut.
I am proud to say I shredded that test into a million pieces. Part of it consisted of the examiner saying a word and having the subject give a definition for that word. One definition per word? Average intelligence. Two definitions? Highly intelligent. More than two definitions? Uh, the test wasn't geared for that...
"Mark, the word is period."
Out of 200 questions, I missed one. I mixed up Fahrenheit and Celsius but I did know they were temperature scales. One puzzle was a cutout of a human hand that I had to assemble in 30 seconds. I did it in 3 seconds. The test said that 5 seconds was super-human speed. Yea, sure. My Dad could have done it in under 7 seconds while drinking a beer and flipping through the TV channels with the remote control.
I wasn't the only one who chewed holes in that test. A ninety year old Black woman with no formal schooling tore it a new posterior poop chute. The woman never learned to read until she was in her sixties but, boy, did she make up for lost time. She missed 10 questions, putting her into the top 95% of the population. That thrilled her children and grandchildren more than it did her. She was a genuine genius and her only reply was a gentle smile and an, "I told you so."
She wasn't the only one to turn that test into hash but she was the most adorable. I saw some of her tape. Yes, she was that cute and spunky.
As for me, being in the top 99.5 percentile of the human race's brain pool was flattering but meaningless. I not only proved to her professor that the test's fundamental theories were wrong but was also a prime example of how a test subject can turn the tables on the researcher.
Her professor downgraded my I.Q. level to that of 169. Why not 170? He didn't want me to be the smartest man he had ever met... even though he had only seen me on video tape. I didn't take it personally. Being considered too smart prompts others to think you have all the answers. Wrong! What you do have are more complicated questions.
I didn't score any points with the girl who asked me to do the test, either. She screamed at me, "Why didn't you tell me you were a super-genius?"
My reply? "You didn't ask."
I walked away, happy with my temporary massive intellect, knowing full well that a five-minute conversation with my brighter sister, Gail, would merrily demote me down to village idiot once more.
I don't do I.Q. tests.
From the sanctity of my computer, www.Emode.com waved another I.Q. test under my nose. Since I hadn't partaken in such a cerebral travesty in over ten years, I thought I'd check to see how many of my little gray cells had rotted away.
Update - 08/06/2002
Not that many, as it turned out.
According to Emode, I am a Visionary Philosopher with an I.Q. of 136. What does that mean? I'm more like Plato than a big toe. I can visualize solutions to problems I have not yet caused. With literary wit, advanced deductive reasoning and practical ingenuity, I can screw up my life in ways that would frighten a normal person to death. Visionary philosophers also love chocolate, the only part of the evaluation I wholeheartedly agree with.
As for the 136 I.Q. points, Emode says that 95% of the human race falls into the 70 to 130 brain range. That leaves 2.5% in the "Too Stupid To Live So How Did You Become My Boss?" ratio and 2.5% in my "Smarter Than The Average Bear" percentile. A 136 knocks me up to the upper 1.5% group. What does that mean in layman's terms? Out of one hundred people, I and half of a guy caught in a gruesome chainsaw accident would be the smartest folks in the room.
And this is all I've accomplished in my life? No wonder I'm totally depressed. The only true benefits I have gained is that I know why Dennis Miller is so funny and I understand Wilson's thoughtful musings on Home Improvement.
I shouldn't do I.Q. Tests. I guess I'll never learn...