You were born with a wonderful mind, a mind with potential, with something wonderful -- an intelligence.
Intelligence opens doors where none were before visible. Like the Red Sea parting when Moses stepped into it, chaotic experience suddenly has a path and a pattern. Intelligence can read, interpret, solve and apply. It helps to get things done, but not by itself. It is dangerous when misused with power, if it marries a rigid morality, and become ruthless if living isolated, capable of opening mega can of cruel whupass just for fun. It travels with attitude and consciousness. The work intelligence does depends, in part, on the company it keeps.
Some call intelligence talent or capacity or genetics. Some got more than others they say and that’s just the way it is, part of God’s master plan. That’s not to say it only comes in one variety. Intelligence can be the word as much as the dance or the empathy. But not all are valued equally. The ones that maintain existing power relations get more air time, bigger pieces of the pie. It may be physical, but it’s also political.
Intelligence can be lost, abused, underdeveloped and exploited. It’s a fragile, ephemeral resource – mercurial, fleeting. Too many of the wrong kinds of drugs can demolish the strongest of minds. Too little love can turn it into a monster.
The greatest houses of intelligence crumble eventually into dementia, distortion, madness, before the light finally flickers out. So water your intelligence and be careful to whom it listens. Give it problems to solve; give it good food; take it along as you learn to dance using new steps; stretch it by speaking a new language. It will repay you if you treat it well and leave you if you neglect it. Within it lies the capacity for great work as well as the arrogance of a petty tyrant. Who shows up as a product of your intelligence depends as much on how much you care as on the wiring you inherited.
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