Water was I Thinking?!

The LAST day of my water challenge.

I made it! What did I learn? I need soft water.

It wasn’t a fair experiment. When you do an experiment like this, you can only change 1 thing or the variables muddy up the results.

I started drinking water as my only beverage, but I didn’t take into account that I was teaching less and there was less physical activity as well. I didn’t take into account the meals I was fixing as opposed to catching food when I could in between lessons and meetings. I didn’t take into account all these rainy days curtailing my gardening. I forgot a whole bunch about the healthy eating habits I had acquired over the years.

There were just too many variables to show any results. However, I’m not going back to little or no water and just milk, tea, coffee, pop.

BLM

How many of you have black friends? How many of you are black? This is why I love blogs. You have no idea what color the person is by their writing. Unless they include a picture on their profile page it doesn’t really matter does it! Here, we’re all equal. All of our thoughts and words matter.

I have black friends, so I’m not a racist. I meet every one of my friends, regardless of color with smiles and hugs or a hardy handshake. I’m happy to see them and interact with them. I don’t care what color they are.

We’ve all felt like this. We’ve all heard people say this.

Here’s the thing: my friends that are black I have met in a controlled environment. I was in school with them. I go to church with them. I work with them. They’re clients of mine or students of mine. I control the environment. I get to know them on a personal one-on-one basis. I don’t see my black friends as representatives of a whole race. I see them as individuals that I know and like. They do everything they can to keep things easy between us. I never thought they were having to compromise to keep our friendship. I assumed they acted the same way with their other friends. I had an occasion to see them with their friends at church. They act completely differently! I was surprised.

What compromises do they make? What kind of adjustments do they have to employ to make me feel comfortable? They make an effort to speak in a way that I don’t have to translate. Let me give you an example.

My friend Jon was a Math major taking Music Appreciation classes. I was a music major taking Calculus and we were in the same class. When the teacher got carried away and I couldn’t keep up, I’d raise my hand and say, “Music Major!  Translate please!” Jon thought it was funny and approached me and asked for my help in his Music Appreciation class. We would meet in the music library and listen to and analyze the music for his assignment. While we were talking, we had no problem communicating. One day, his friends saw us in the library and came in to visit. He switched his language to something that sounded like it came from an alien planet! He slurred his words and used terms and some vocabulary I had never heard before. He changed pitch, he changed the rate of speed, he changed his references and his gestures. When his friends left, he switched back to my language. I was flabbergasted! He was, in a sense, bilingual.

I grew up in a college town. Kids came up from Kansas City to this school, and though they were in the minority, they were music majors they were in the band my dad directed. I got to know them when I hung out after concerts and football games. So when I found myself on a floor at Illinois State where the black women’s sorority met, it felt weird that they were using some of the same words my Kansas City acquaintances used, and sounded like white people using them. I had to open my door to check to see if they really were black. Picture Maggie Smith saying, “You go girl.” Picture Helen Mirren, her hands on her hips and head tilted, yelling, “Say What?” It was comical. They were from Chicago! Now I think, after talking to a couple of them that if any of the slang they used was spoken by the Kansas City kids I knew, they’d sound equally bizarre.

Why do we have to have separate languages? Every culture has its “tells.”

In no other culture did people refer to their slaves as anything other than servants. They were still people. In the US, they were considered machinery. They weren’t even endowed with sentience. If they developed sentience and asked to be treated well, or tried to escape, they were captured and “fixed!” If a person wanted to survive this situation, they had to stay subservient and “insentient.” They were to remain uneducated to protect themselves from abuse. No one would treat an animal like these people were treated.

Then they were given freedom! and the VOTE!!! Why would you give rights to machinery? By now this approach to these former slaves was ingrained. This whole race was considered living machinery. They weren’t real people! To survive, they had to adopt unthreatening language and behaviors. Don’t speak intelligent English because that makes white people nervous. The machines might get angry and retaliate for abuses.

See? This is mental abuse. There’s this woman in this crime show who is continually belittled because her house isn’t clean, the food she cooks is awful, and she’s clearly stupid. Her children even say that. They’re mad that she doesn’t attend their events. When asked, the woman says she couldn’t come because she might inadvertently embarrass them. She kills her husband. Admits to it. Cleans up the blood on the floor so that there wouldn’t be a mess when the police came to arrest her. She knows her house is a mess. One of the hangars in her husband’s closet is 1/4″ too close to the next hangar and it throws the rest of the closet off. There’s too much pepper on the macaroni and cheese. It’s a wonder her family doesn’t starve. She knows she’s stupid. She knows that she’s ugly, and wears old, patched clothes because you don’t dress up a pig. And yet, she kills her husband.

Now imagine that on a large scale. You’re treated like a machine. You aren’t allowed a good education. You aren’t allowed to socialize with anyone who’s not on the property. You develop survival behaviors to avoid the abuse and the compensating behaviors that keep you sane and ward off punishment. It becomes ingrained in your behavior.

On the other side, you know these black people ARE people. You’ve never had slaves. They speak like uneducated poor people. You Know you are superior to them because you don’t have a poor-person culture like they do. (All of them.) They tend to act out against getting treated like poor uneducated people, which makes no sense since they are poor uneducated people. Except for Bill Cosby and Diahann Carroll, no black people can think or act in a civilized manner. You don’t socialize with them, you don’t want them in your business, and you couldn’t imagine them in your church or neighborhood. Smart, well-educated black people tend to make you nervous. Everyone fears sentient machinery. That’s one reason why when Azimov created robots in his stories, he had the 3 laws:

• A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
• A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
• A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws

He was allowing people to be comfortable with the machinery that served them. It gave them the inability to harm their masters. You could be as abusive as you wanted–mentally or physically. It would allow you to do this as long as the abuse didn’t threaten its existence. But it is still the attitude of white people that black people are essentially sentient machinery–flesh and blood robots. In other words, they are Robots without The 3 laws.

You see this in the comments on some of the events. “Do what the cops tell you! Don’t resist! Don’t reach for your cell or your wallet. Don’t talk back if you don’t want to get dropped!” See? “It’s YOUR fault that if you are black they will shoot you if you do the wrong thing. Don’t you dare protest your treatment! You’re probably guilty of something so be compliant!” They don’t shoot white punks that insult police and fight them and struggle and resist arrest. But if you’re black, they will restrain you with a knee to the neck because you’re inherently an evil machine that has broken the first and second laws. And if you defend yourself they won’t recognize the third law–you do NOT have the right to protect yourself.

So see? If you’re white, you can have black friends and still be racist. Your black friends are the exception rather than the rule. If you’re black, you can have white friends and still be racist. If you have to change your language and behavior so drastically to maintain the relationship, you are making your white friends the exception.

Differences Exist! You cannot look at a person who’s a different color than you and not see the color. But here’s the most important thing: You must not assume certain characteristics based on the color of a person’s skin. Skin color doesn’t give you any information other than the place of origin for ancestors long past memory. It tells you nothing of the character or the education level or the ambitions or the dreams of anyone.

We CANNOT get to the point of saying “All Lives Matter” until we stop associating skin color with a whole set of behaviors. You have to see people as people before you can treat them equally. No adjectives. No white people, black people, brown people, yellow people, red people, tall people, short people, slim people, fat people. Just PEOPLE. So we start with Black Lives Matter until they do.

ADHD or Autistic

Isn’t it strange that every little kid in elementary school is on drugs to BECOME autistic? No, the teachers don’t want to teach autistic kids. That would be really hard! But if the 5-year-old can’t sit at his desk and quietly do his school work for 6 hours a day, he needs drugs. If your kid is daydreaming, we need to get him on drugs. If he’s laser-focused and suddenly starts rocking back and forth and jumps when someone touches him, he needs drugs.

All the genius detectives out there are slightly autistic or OCD or Sociopaths. If there are as many genius villains out there, YOU WILL NEVER CATCH THEM! They’re all smarter than you are! And yet…since we don’t want ADHD kids or Autistic kids in school, we try to drug the ADHD kids to focus more and the Autistic kids to focus less. They’re the anomalies. But remember how I once said that there is no normal? Where do you draw the line? Well, in the Normal Curve, 68.27% of people should be considered normal, about 14% are above normal and below normal, and the tiniest sliver (2%) are genius-level and way below normal. Kids are expected to act autistic and not be autistic, and Autistic kids have to learn to act ADHD to keep from being ostracized by “normal” people.

According to APA (American Psychiatric Association) the number of kids who are ADHD is in the 5% range, but the CDC puts it at 11%. The number of geniuses is about 1-2%, but they don’t know for sure because geniuses are ostracized and bullied and ignored by teachers because nobody knows what to do with them. There should be about 6 million geniuses in the US. How many do we know about?

I have had to work with a variety of students…from painfully shy and withdrawn to bouncing off the walls, from IQs of 60 to IQs of 140, from painfully dull to technicolor imaginations. Everyone learns differently, and yet, I haven’t run into a single person that couldn’t be taught.

I’m teaching 2 brothers. One is 8 and has been taking lessons for 4 years, and his little brother is almost 5 and just starting. The older one has a laser focus but only for a short time. But he didn’t use to be able to finish a song during his lessons. He would stop in the middle and ask me if all the planets were round. He’d stop on the next to the last note of the song and have to tell me what he learned in his history lesson. He plays Beethoven now. The younger one believes that any note that he plays with his thumb is a C. Each note in his book has a weird-looking alien that represents it. The green alien is C, the Blue is B, the Red is F. He remembers all their names but not the names of the notes on the page. He doesn’t focus on position, he focuses on color and facial expressions. Do I teach him using the alien method? No, but he will remember the aliens long after I’ve finished teaching him in 20 years. He will learn auditorially faster than visually. His ability to focus will get better and he will be able to focus for longer periods of time.

I have another student that will sit down to practice 15 min every day, and find that 2 hours have gone by. He’s always surprised that he’s lost time. See? I am glad I have these students on a one on one basis rather than sitting like little dolls on boxes. We don’t want to teach them to be JUST LIKE EVERY OTHER LITTLE KID. Because there is no “normal” type of behavior. We don’t want them medicated to act like “normal” kids because that is impossible. Enjoy them just the way they are. Why? Because that kid you bully may be the next serial killer, and he’s coming after you first.

Water you up to?

May 20, 2020

20 days into my water-only beverage challenge.

I got to May 15 and broke down because we had pizza. I order from Pizza Hut because I like their crusts and the fact that the toppings are well distributed and plenteous. SO, I’m in the rewards club and can get 1 pizza free with every single pizza I order until my points run out. Why do I mention this? Because Pizza hut will not deliver an order that is less than $12. In order to get them to deliver, I cannot order just pizza. Which means…dat dat Daaaaaaah…I have to order soda pop. And THAT means that I have to drink some because I’m not going to order a 2-liter bottle of Mountain Dew and not get some of it! 2 pizzas without the reward points is $40+ (that’s $11 per pizza and a delivery fee and a tip) and 2 pizzas with the reward points AND 2 2-liter bottles of soda pop is $21. Doing my math…that means that the soda pop costs about $6. But then I confuse myself and think I’m still saving money and do it anyway.

But! (And this is an important but.) I do not have pizza for every meal, so I have water with those non-pizza meals and sip on water throughout the day. Therefore, when I have my left-over pizza, I drink whatever soda pop is available.

NO, I am NOT making my own pizza. I make rolls and bread. My homemade chicken salad tastes amazing on homemade bread. I made kolaches last week, and this week, my son made banana chocolate chip bread. And his GF made CHOCOLATE BREAD. It feels weird to have chocolate for breakfast, but adjustments must be made in the spirit of self-quarantine. But if I want pizza, I’m going to order it. So there.

I’m not craving sugar like I was before, but my dark chocolate urges are higher. 11 more days of water-only beverage (except on pizza days) should not be a problem.

I fully understand that in my quest for healthy eating, having 1 slice of pizza and a soda pop completely nullifies all the good eating I have been doing for a month. So 2 slices will take me back 2 months and 3 slices will put me back 3 months. If I’ve done my calculations correctly, I have regressed to 1873. If my scale is right, and I’m afraid it’s low, I have gained about 10 pounds.

 

There’s always a Bloody Ghost

The new Christopher Moore book came out…Shakespeare for Squirrels. There is a character, Fool, that he uses in the Shakespearian stories he writes and the plots are basically perversions of the plays. One was King Lear, and the other was Merchant of Venice although he incorporated some of the other plays and characters. When you’re doing a play, especially without a public address system, you can’t really do voice-overs to tell the audience what the character is thinking or feeling. In that case, Shakespeare employed a ghost to express the thought process, to further the plot, to show the emotional and mental state of the character. In Moore’s books, the protagonist often has arguments with the ghost, and the ghost has an agenda as well. It leads to some very silly dialog.

So Shakespeare would write–

Ghost: Murder most foul, as in the best it is. But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

You could expect this from Moore:

Ghost: Murder most fowl, as in the best it is, especially on Sundays when the cook visits the hen house. But this most fowl, strange and unnatural that the victim’s neck was throttled and all his clothes ripped off and the victim deep-fried past crispiness.

It got me thinking. What if the ghosts were just consciences personified? And random?

Scrooge:  Are you the ghost of Christmas Future?

GoCF: … ( he never talks in the play, he just points)

Scrooge: I fear thee most…

Ghost of DeNiro Future: You talkin’ to ME? I don’t see anybody…oh Sorry George, I’ll just wait for you to say your lines.

GoCF: …Looks menacingly at Ghost of DeNiro…though it’s difficult to tell since you can’t see under the hood.

Scrooge: His name’s George?

GoCF: …Returns his gaze to Scrooge

Ghost of DeNiro Future: *whispers off stage, “lines?”* Loud whisper from stage Left, “He doesn’t have lines, he just points.”

GoCF: *Smacks forehead. Forgets he’s carrying a scythe.* Ow!

Scrooge: He speaks!

Both Ghosts: Shut up!

What if random ghosts just showed up during the performances? 

Hamlet: Alas, poor Yoric.

Yorik’s ghost: WHAT!  I was just getting to sleep

George’s ghost: Wait until you see Dicken’s ghosts!

Hamlet: I knew him!

Yorik’s ghost: *Trying to scowl without his head*…You knew me?! Where were you when they yelled duck?

George’s ghost: Didn’t you duck?

Yorik’s ghost: I thought they were asking me to do an impression, so I quacked

Hamlet: I wasn’t there when he died. But here’s his head. Where’s the rest of him?

Gravedigger: He couldn’t afford a casket…

George’s ghost: Cheap bugger.

Yorik’s Ghost: Is that Dickens guy the one that’s looking for a fool? Auditions maybe?

George’s ghost: A Fool’s Ghost, or a Ghost for a Fool?

Hamlet: Dickens for the first and Christopher Moore for the second?

Horatio: WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING TO?!

Though it would be cool to have the ghosts in the courtroom telling everyone what the witnesses are thinking during their testimony.

Perry Mason: Isn’t it true that you went to the house with the intention of confronting your ex-wife?

Mr. Hughes: I knew for a fact that her Tai Chi group met from 2:00-3:00 on Thursdays and I just needed some stuff from my home office.

Mrs. Hughes’ ghost: Yes, truly he speaks because every time I went for Tai Chi, he would ask me where I was going. Every. single. time. And every time He said, “How long have you been going at 2:00?” And I would say, “You forgot to change the clocks from daylight savings time, it’s 3:00!”

Perry Mason: Let the records show Mr. Hughes arrived at his house at precisely 2:47 PM.

MHG: He never does anything precisely…

Perry Mason: Mr. Hughes, how did you get into the house?

Mr. Hughes: I walked in.

Perry Mason: There were no impediments to your entry?

Mr. Hughes: There was a mop near the stairs.

MHG: “See? I was paying attention! I’m not the jerk you make me out to be to your girlfriends!” Did you have to walk around the bucket?

Perry Mason: Did you have to walk around the bucket?

Jury: Is the ghost feeding Perry his lines?

Mr. Hughes: I didn’t notice

MHG: Why didn’t you fall on your ass on the slick floor?

Perry Mason: Did the floor look freshly cleaned?

Mr. Hughes: Um

MHG: That was a witty answer… Now he’s thinking, “I could say I went to the kitchen and checked the water temp and it was cold so it had been sitting there for a while.” Wait for it. Mason’s not going to give him the chance…

Perry Mason: Mr. Hughes, isn’t it true that you tracked in dirt on the freshly cleaned floor and went directly up the stairs to your wife’s room where you saw her changing into her Tai Chi clothes?

Mr. Hughes: Um

MHG: Ya, couldn’t be bothered to mop up the footprints on the Clean Floor!

Perry Mason: And when she saw you and she screamed, isn’t it true that you rushed to her and threw her through the window and into the garden on the tomato towers?

MHG: and thinking to yourself, “Ooo! fertilizer! AND mulch!”

Mr. Hughes: Shut up!

Perry Mason: I beg your pardon!

Mr. Hughes: Not you, you blowhard, the fricken Ghost!

MHG: You said that out loud, didn’t you!

Jury: Yup he did.

Mr. Hughes: Wait…you mean you guys are hearing the ghost too?

Everyone in the courtroom: Yes.

Mr. Hughes: oh…shit.

Yes, ghosts would make an interesting addition to our world.

 

 

 

Like

Like a dog door without the flap

Like a mall without a Gap

Like a hunter without his trap

I miss you

Like Astaire without his tap

Like P. Diddy without his rap

Like a quilter without a scrap

I miss you!

Like a Toddler without a nap

Like a Granny without a lap

Like a tourist without his map

I miss you!

Like a Sapsucker without sap

Like Dapper without his dap

Like Babe Ruth without his cap

I miss you!

Like the Feds with no wiretap

Like a taser without its zap

Like a present without its wrap

I miss you!

 

Water update

This is day 5 in the Water Challenge.

Drink only water this month…no coffee, no tea, no juice, no milk, no pop (soda)–only water.

You’re supposed to drink 1 oz. for every 2 pounds you weigh. So I’m at 60 oz. I must weigh 120 pounds then! I just weighed myself. I’m not. I need to be drinking another 50 oz. so I am drinking about 1/2 what I should be.

But last night I slept like a baby for the first time in ages…You know…Wake up every 2 hours to pee.

Anyone else trying this or am I alone again?

What do we do now?

How do we go back to being civil with people?

How can we bounce back after such a crisis?

Down the road, will anything we accomplish during this quarantine be significant?

How do you handle the fear?

How do you face this new tomorrow? Where will your energy come from?

Spotlight books

Funny you should ask.

The books we’ve written are rather diverse and so are our authors. There are between nine and 13 of us at any one time. The youngest is 28, the oldest in the 70s. We are housewives, social workers, grandmas, grandpas, single, married, PHDs, Bachelor’s degrees, Black, White, Brown…You get the idea? We shouldn’t even be friends, but here we are writing books together.  Why? Because we all have these same challenges but a huge number of perspectives. Am I fearful because of uncertainty in the leadership and unforeseen circumstances over which I have no control? No, but one of the other authors is. Am I finding it hard to get off my couch after all this turmoil? Yes. But not everyone has that perspective.

• What will it take for you to get to a point where you don’t feel stressed?
• What would you read to get your head straight on your circumstances?
• Where would you look for direction?

Can you identify with at least one of the authors of the books? Probably. If you could figure out how someone like you not only survived but thrived during these interesting times, wouldn’t you at least be curious?

The books are available at the Book Worm in Omaha (the same place Warren Buffett shops) and Amazon.

Spotlight on the Art of:

• Grace
• Resilience
• Significance
• Fear
• Generating Energy

I confess: I looked into my crystal ball and KNEW 2 years ago that we’d be in a situation like we now face. Every one of those books has a nugget or 12 of insight that will help you cope.

You can see us at Alternative Book Club

Well that didn’t go as planned

You wake up and think, I haven’t worn that green outfit for a while. I have just the necklace and rings for it. Oh and these shoes! Yup. That’s what I’ll wear to work today.

You get to work and do your on-air make-up and the cameraman says, “Well this ought to be interesting…” The director says nothing. You review the latest data and check the monitors. You run a cursory practice on the motions for your part. The music starts. Camera 1 is showing anchor 1, Camera 2 is on anchor 2, Camera 1 picks up the Sports reporter. Camera 2 shifts to you, and you hear an involuntary snicker from the camera crew.

“It’s five minutes after the hour. In today’s weather, we can expect sunny skies and temperatures hovering around the 70-degree mark. More in our forecast later.”

“In the top of the news…” Anchor 1 describes the horror and the violence on the screen and you un-mike and go to your chair. The director motions you over.

“Ahem, you’re wearing a green dress.”

“? Nice of you to notice.”

“You’re wearing a GREEN dress…”

“? And? *beat, beat* Oh crap!”

“You have anything else?”

“Nope.”

“No scarf? a table cloth toga perhaps?”

“Let me check my purse…Nope”

“Don’t get smart with me.”

“I’m the weather girl, isn’t that impossible?”

“We will be the laughing stock because of this. What are you going to do about this?”

“Improvise…”

Anchor 2 is talking about cute puppies and school science fairs. She hates her stories. She wants to be Anchor 1. She has a journalism degree, but she’s not pretty enough to sit in the Anchor 1 chair. She hates that Anchor 1 has more hairspray in his hair than she does. She despises him because he can’t pronounce the names of the countries or their leaders without help. She shudders at his condescending smile when he finishes the hard news and passes the baton to her. She finishes her stories and Anchor 1 lets everyone know what’s coming up after the break. She looks at you and she sees what’s going to happen, and starts grinning. Anchor 1 hasn’t picked up on it yet. She motions you to come over and you do.

“You could go viral with this. You could tell the dirtiest jokes you could think of and now they’d be hilarious because you’d be invisible!”

You start to smile. You know exactly what to do.

You go to the snack table and take the fruit tray. You empty the fruit onto plates and carry it surreptitiously to your station. Anchor 2 is trying not to laugh.

“Welcome back,” says Anchor 1 showing his best side and gleaming teeth. “What do we have in store for us over the weekend, Brandy?”

You hold the tray up just under your chin. It looks like you’re a talking head on a platter. “It’s Mandy…and I thought I would give you a heads up about the storm coming in.”

Anchor 2 giggles.

Anchor 1 is confused. He’s not looking at the monitor. The sound man mutes the mikes. “What’s going on?” he says under his breath. Anchor 2 giggles again.

You float your head over to the national map. But you stoop so you seem lower. Leaving the tray in the same place, you stand up so it looks like your head is flying up into the air. “The temperatures here in the Florida region are going to soar when that low front comes in.” Your hand magically appears in the middle of the country. “But this high front will be coming in soon indicating storms and possibly some twisters.” You do a pirouette that makes your head look like it’s spinning. You move to the middle of the map facing the Pacific. “We have a big storm building up behind the Rockies” (coinciding where your boobs would be if anyone could see them) “and that could impact the Appalachian area in 3-4 days,” you say facing the Atlantic and the corresponding mountains strategically placed. The cameramen are almost crying. Anchor 1 is now staring in disbelief at the monitor. Camera 1 briefly cuts to Anchor 1 for his reaction and catches him with the dumbest look on his face. Back to Camera 2.

Your head looks down. “Meanwhile, down in the gulf…” Howls of laughter from the camera crew. The director has tears in his eyes and though he’s motioning wildly to go to commercial, no one is paying attention. “Warm, moist air is coming into the lower regions of the country bringing some possibilities of earth-shaking activity.” You close your eyes and bounce on your toes. You clear your throat and continue. “So if you hear lots of noise to your south, don’t lose your heads. Back to you!”

Camera 1 on Anchor 1:  Stunned silence

Camera 1 switches to Anchor 2: Her head is buried in her hands as she laughs uncontrollably.

Camera 1 switches to Anchor 1: Still stunned silence

Cut to commercial.

 

 

 

Is it just me?

Monk, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Reid, Dr. Brennan. All crime show detectives. All brilliant.

Penelope Garcia, Abby Sciuto, Felicity Smoak, Skye. All FEMALE Computer hackers. All brilliant.

Now. Find something normal about them.

Do you see? You cannot be brilliant and have a normal social life. You cannot be brilliant and not be a bit autistic or OCD or borderline Schizophrenic. All these common traits in brilliant people on TV and in Movies are exaggerated in order to make normal people feel better about themselves? Whatever for?

Why are we still doing Mad Scientists?

Why can’t brilliant people be charming and suave and debonaire? Why can’t child prodigies have a normal social life?

Ever since Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein’s Monster, the mad scientist has been codified.

• Every brilliant person is quirky
• No brilliant person can make friends
• No brilliant person ever works as hard as the rest of us
• Every brilliant person is a braggart
• Every brilliant person has a huge vocabulary and no emotions
• Every brilliant person is socially awkward
• Every brilliant person knows they’re the smartest person in the room
• Every brilliant person listens to nothing but classical music

They are emotionally immature. They are not empathetic. They prefer to be alone.

Now add to that the fact that smart people are mistrusted, avoided, and ridiculed for their entire time in school. Then, to make things worse, the abuse doesn’t stop after school. They are called names, and patronized, and categorized as “other-than-normal”.

I understand why you’re more likely to find an EVIL genius than an ANGELIC genius. The tree in Eden was called the Tree of Knowledge…but it was the knowledge of good and evil and people never add that last part. Wouldn’t you, if you had been treated as an anomaly, as a freak, as some sort of alien all your life, want some sweet revenge? Use technology beyond mortal understanding! Be the master of the ultra-long con! And yet the evil geniuses that became serial killers preyed on women and girls mostly. They didn’t take over the world, did they?

Who did? CEOs, Judges, Senators (?!), Members of the House of Representatives, and the rich (read billionaires, not millionaires). The extremely smart represent 1% of the population. If the population was evenly represented, 1% of the homeless would be extremely smart, 1% of the blue-collar workers, 1% of the athletes…you see? But this is not the case. If it were, then 1% of the CEOs would be at the 130-140 level and that is a shocking 38% instead. 1% of billionaires would be brilliant, and yet 45% of them are. The Senate has 41% brilliant members, and the House–20%. How can this be? They don’t fit into the category of geniuses and brilliant people. Those types are supposed to be geeky, autistic, OCD, quirky people. How could they make friends? How could they possibly get elected? Shouldn’t the people in power be the alpha dogs? The emotionally intelligent, type A personalities with tons of charisma and 1000s of FaceBook friends? They’re not.

I was always told that “A” students work for “C” students. Not in 38% of the cases… If the brightest people only make up 1% of the population, why are there 38 times more CEOs in the 1% than there are supposed to be? We’d have to do some regression analysis, but I’d say that there’s a significant correlation between intelligence and the CEO position. It’s the same for Judges. I challenge you to find a judge or a CEO that acts like Sherlock or Monk or Reid or Brennan. 

Quit putting brilliant people into the “weird” box. Quit assuming that brilliant people have no social skills. Quit bullying them because you know what? When your case comes up in front of THAT judge, you’re going to go down. If you want the best lawyer, you’d better remember if he’s the one you stole lunch money from. When you’re having that heart attack, remember how you treated your surgeon in 6th grade. Remember that Senator or Representative you made fun of in high school may not actually represent YOU. That dorky kid in the business class may become your boss in 10 years. That computer geek may be running your portfolio for your retirement.

The rest of us? The ones with IQs of 95-105? You’re more likely to find a serial killer in the 85-95 range than one in the upper levels, although they do happen. Less than 1% of the serial killers are above 130. So if you make fun of the slow guy in the class, you may find yourself in a dark alley with Tim Curry holding a garrote.