Faking the smarts
It's time for me to admit something that I have always kept secret. I don't really know why; maybe I'm maturing. Maybe my mind is disintegrating under the weight of all the doubts about my career. Maybe I'm so bored I'd say anything. Maybe I want to practice my one-handed typing (I'm getting pretty fast).
Whatever the reason, projecting an altered image of myself is becoming less and less important to me. I'm ceasing to care whether I appear likeable, fun or in any way normal. A symptom of that is that I am choosing to come clean about something:
I'm not really all that smart.
I think the reason I've been faking it for all this time is that, for a long time, I thought I was unusually intelligent. I attended a small primary school and a smaller secondary school and in both I had no trouble in rising to the top (or near it) of the class. My self-image was 'smart but socially awkward', and it was a cosy (albeit one-dimensional) place to be.
When I went away to university and discovered that I was actually about average in terms of brain power, I didn't know how to construct a new persona out of that and I didn't really want to try. So I developed a work ethic, and learnt to really work hard (you guys wouldn't believe how little work I did for my GCSEs and A-levels). That allowed me to cling to my illusions a little longer.
Now, though, I've decided it just isn't important whether anyone thinks I'm brainy. I admit that I'm not totally sure of the definitions of some of the words I use. I'm done getting insecure and jealous if someone calls a mutual friend 'clever'. Also, I'm not too proud to admit that this post arose because I was going to write something else and I experienced a twinge of doubt over whether 'corollary' meant what I thought it did (turns out it doesn't). See how even my inspiration for writing a post about being less smart than I pretend is a bit dumb? I never admitted it in a public forum before, but I only got a first by a couple of marks and of my year, 6 out of 8 students got firsts.
In other news, they've changed the bbc news website. I don't like it. That could just be reactionarynessism, though.
Whatever the reason, projecting an altered image of myself is becoming less and less important to me. I'm ceasing to care whether I appear likeable, fun or in any way normal. A symptom of that is that I am choosing to come clean about something:
I'm not really all that smart.
I think the reason I've been faking it for all this time is that, for a long time, I thought I was unusually intelligent. I attended a small primary school and a smaller secondary school and in both I had no trouble in rising to the top (or near it) of the class. My self-image was 'smart but socially awkward', and it was a cosy (albeit one-dimensional) place to be.
When I went away to university and discovered that I was actually about average in terms of brain power, I didn't know how to construct a new persona out of that and I didn't really want to try. So I developed a work ethic, and learnt to really work hard (you guys wouldn't believe how little work I did for my GCSEs and A-levels). That allowed me to cling to my illusions a little longer.
Now, though, I've decided it just isn't important whether anyone thinks I'm brainy. I admit that I'm not totally sure of the definitions of some of the words I use. I'm done getting insecure and jealous if someone calls a mutual friend 'clever'. Also, I'm not too proud to admit that this post arose because I was going to write something else and I experienced a twinge of doubt over whether 'corollary' meant what I thought it did (turns out it doesn't). See how even my inspiration for writing a post about being less smart than I pretend is a bit dumb? I never admitted it in a public forum before, but I only got a first by a couple of marks and of my year, 6 out of 8 students got firsts.
In other news, they've changed the bbc news website. I don't like it. That could just be reactionarynessism, though.