I was making a delivery to Chicagoland two weeks ago, and whilst waiting to talk to the lady in the shipping department, I became entangled in a playfully contentious conversation with the factory workers that went something like this:
"Hello. How are we supposed to figure out where to properly park?
"Don't come in here asking a bunch of questions, now. Everytime we answer a question, you have to pay us fifty bucks!
"Don't ask you no questions, you'll tell me no lies, eh?
(Moments later, I am asked a teasing question by one of the men)
With no expression, I look up and say to him, "You asked me a question, now you have to pay me fifty bucks"
"Hoho! That's some quick shit there. (To the others) You sure this guys a truck driver??"
Later that week. . . At my final drop-off in South Carolina, I was talking with the workers who were unloading a heavy metal coil from the truck, using such words as "priority," and "transportation". I received a curious question from one of the guys and once I answered, he replied, unable to grasp the reality of the situation, "You are from South Carolina?!" and another one chimes in, "Everytime this guy opens his mouth, a big word comes out!"
Does anybody wonder now that I avoid introductions that, in the listener's mind, sums up to say "I'm a trucker from South Carolina" ?
I wonder about the idea of intelligence. At these memories, I think "Is intelligence not all too common? And isn't the commonest tale that of men of wasted potential?" and how I realized when I was 18 years old that blazing intelligence is found in all classes of men, from the wretched bum to the philanthropic millionaire. Sometimes, upon men learning of my background, I think of what was said of Christ, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
Intelligence is common, but what I think is rare is wisdom. I like to mention to people that twelve types of intelligence have been theorized (including a specific type for athletic types, as well as music-lovers), only two of which are measured by an IQ test. And, since we like to measure the stature or intelligence of a man by his bank account, it should also be noted that there are eight kinds of capital, financial capital being only one of these. I think the highest use of intelligence is to take the gifts, talents, and eccentricities one has, and use them to the bettering of their fellows, despite all harangue, calumny, and peanut-gallery commentary. It is said that intelligence often divides one at first from their peers, feeling that others cannot or will not understand what they easily do. Later it yields the peaceful fruit of godliness, the man or woman accomplishing that which one's soul yearns for: To make his or her society all the sweeter for their having passed through it -- For is not that what we are here on earth to learn: to love one another? Though the intelligence given them may win nought but criticism and often violent persecution -- For which political or cultural leaders in their respective days would have given honor to William Tyndale, Hugh Lattimer, Joseph Smith, or John Muir?? -- few will dispute the results of their lives' works in the generations that follow. For instance, how many people who have been touched by the Bible, Book of Mormon, or the wilderness scripture of the Yosemite, Grand Canyon, or Mt. Ranier National Parks feel any disdain for these men? Though their going be hard in the beginning, congratulation awaits them at the finish, the feast at the Lord's table. So it is with us. A break from societal and economic norms is just what this community, this society, this world needs, if we are to continue on the upward ascension to the zenith of our potential. I close with words spoken by one of the wisest men I've heard:
"Hello. How are we supposed to figure out where to properly park?
"Don't come in here asking a bunch of questions, now. Everytime we answer a question, you have to pay us fifty bucks!
"Don't ask you no questions, you'll tell me no lies, eh?
(Moments later, I am asked a teasing question by one of the men)
With no expression, I look up and say to him, "You asked me a question, now you have to pay me fifty bucks"
"Hoho! That's some quick shit there. (To the others) You sure this guys a truck driver??"
Later that week. . . At my final drop-off in South Carolina, I was talking with the workers who were unloading a heavy metal coil from the truck, using such words as "priority," and "transportation". I received a curious question from one of the guys and once I answered, he replied, unable to grasp the reality of the situation, "You are from South Carolina?!" and another one chimes in, "Everytime this guy opens his mouth, a big word comes out!"
Does anybody wonder now that I avoid introductions that, in the listener's mind, sums up to say "I'm a trucker from South Carolina" ?
I wonder about the idea of intelligence. At these memories, I think "Is intelligence not all too common? And isn't the commonest tale that of men of wasted potential?" and how I realized when I was 18 years old that blazing intelligence is found in all classes of men, from the wretched bum to the philanthropic millionaire. Sometimes, upon men learning of my background, I think of what was said of Christ, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
Intelligence is common, but what I think is rare is wisdom. I like to mention to people that twelve types of intelligence have been theorized (including a specific type for athletic types, as well as music-lovers), only two of which are measured by an IQ test. And, since we like to measure the stature or intelligence of a man by his bank account, it should also be noted that there are eight kinds of capital, financial capital being only one of these. I think the highest use of intelligence is to take the gifts, talents, and eccentricities one has, and use them to the bettering of their fellows, despite all harangue, calumny, and peanut-gallery commentary. It is said that intelligence often divides one at first from their peers, feeling that others cannot or will not understand what they easily do. Later it yields the peaceful fruit of godliness, the man or woman accomplishing that which one's soul yearns for: To make his or her society all the sweeter for their having passed through it -- For is not that what we are here on earth to learn: to love one another? Though the intelligence given them may win nought but criticism and often violent persecution -- For which political or cultural leaders in their respective days would have given honor to William Tyndale, Hugh Lattimer, Joseph Smith, or John Muir?? -- few will dispute the results of their lives' works in the generations that follow. For instance, how many people who have been touched by the Bible, Book of Mormon, or the wilderness scripture of the Yosemite, Grand Canyon, or Mt. Ranier National Parks feel any disdain for these men? Though their going be hard in the beginning, congratulation awaits them at the finish, the feast at the Lord's table. So it is with us. A break from societal and economic norms is just what this community, this society, this world needs, if we are to continue on the upward ascension to the zenith of our potential. I close with words spoken by one of the wisest men I've heard:
I have seen a little of [this gold]. I know it is very malleable, but not as malleable as wit. A small grain may guild a great surface, but not as much as a grain of wisdom. Having read [Howitt's account of the Australian gold diggings], and partly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my own unsatisfactory life, doing as others do; and with that vision of the diggings still before me, I asked myself why I might not be washing some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles, — why I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. Is not our native soil auriforous? Does not a stream from the golden mountains flow through our native valley? and has not this for more than geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles and forming the nuggets for us? Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most successful.
- from Life Without Principle
