When I first learned what the word intelligence meant, my high school teacher framed it around me taking an IQ test. 70 was extremely low intellect; 145 and up was considered superior, genius, highly gifted.
I took the test; to this day, I can’t tell you which number comes after 36: 4, 9, 16, 25, 36. I’d like to tell you my IQ was 125, but I have no idea.
Does it matter?
Now we come to Imaginative intelligence, that name Allegra and I have given that mysterious functioning that no test can measure, nor should it.
Am I more imaginatively intelligent than you? Are you more imaginatively intelligent than I am? No, no, no, we are equal in the infinity of our unknowing.
I’m walking in some voodoo dream, layer upon layer, out in cosmic void where black spaces the stars, so far away they do not exist.
Why would anyone measure such black emptiness?
Could it be that what we call our imaginative intelligence contains the same range as that black endless everything "above the dingle stars"? I suspect it does.
“To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, / You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know / You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. / In order to possess what you do not possess / You must go by the way of dispossession. / In order to arrive at what you are not / You must go through the way in which you are not. / And what you do not know is the only thing you know / And what you own is what you do not own / And where you are is where you are not.”
I get my best ideas for my Substack articles during my morning dog walks (me too, Alice!!). The story, the words, the flow. I now use my phone's recorder to save snippets and thoughts...too cumbersome to stop and write in my notebook while juggling the leash! xo
Great advice! I’ve gotten unstuck on lots of things by sounding them out with my dog on walks. By sounding them out I mean talking to her out loud, which is also a fantastic tool you and Navé teach. It sounds like your son went on a creative walkabout. Cool!
When I first learned what the word intelligence meant, my high school teacher framed it around me taking an IQ test. 70 was extremely low intellect; 145 and up was considered superior, genius, highly gifted.
I took the test; to this day, I can’t tell you which number comes after 36: 4, 9, 16, 25, 36. I’d like to tell you my IQ was 125, but I have no idea.
Does it matter?
Now we come to Imaginative intelligence, that name Allegra and I have given that mysterious functioning that no test can measure, nor should it.
Am I more imaginatively intelligent than you? Are you more imaginatively intelligent than I am? No, no, no, we are equal in the infinity of our unknowing.
I’m walking in some voodoo dream, layer upon layer, out in cosmic void where black spaces the stars, so far away they do not exist.
Why would anyone measure such black emptiness?
Could it be that what we call our imaginative intelligence contains the same range as that black endless everything "above the dingle stars"? I suspect it does.
“To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, / You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know / You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance. / In order to possess what you do not possess / You must go by the way of dispossession. / In order to arrive at what you are not / You must go through the way in which you are not. / And what you do not know is the only thing you know / And what you own is what you do not own / And where you are is where you are not.”
T.S. Eliot
Wow, there's a quote after our own hearts!
I get my best ideas for my Substack articles during my morning dog walks (me too, Alice!!). The story, the words, the flow. I now use my phone's recorder to save snippets and thoughts...too cumbersome to stop and write in my notebook while juggling the leash! xo
That's what I did with the TEDx talk. Paced and spoke, then recorded it on my phone once I'd got a bit that hung together.
Great advice! I’ve gotten unstuck on lots of things by sounding them out with my dog on walks. By sounding them out I mean talking to her out loud, which is also a fantastic tool you and Navé teach. It sounds like your son went on a creative walkabout. Cool!
I talk to my cat. She's also very helpful.
And before Augustine there was Aristotle and his Peripatetic school of philosophy. So it's not always butt in the chair!!!