Well, while I might be a little happier imagining glass ceilings and mythical barriers to my success, the bitter truth may just be that I’m just a tad on the lazy side squandering my potential. Even if the low score I received on the online variation of the classic IQ test were correct (it’s a good six points lower than scores I received on standardized tests in my grad school days oh so long ago when dinosaurs walked the Earth), then according to this Definition of IQ, there should be no significant barriers to my success and that I am on the high side for the typical “eminent professor” . . . so, I must just be lazy. Okay. I buy that. Looking deep inside my soul, I know I enjoy enjoying my life and family more than some of the workaholic types I’ve met. So, there you go.

Of course, I know a few folks with far more intellectual potential than I who are now in deadend jobs or worse and I know some folks whose IQ is most definately below the 130 average of the typical university professor type who are very successful in academics. Part of the whole deal is what you do with that potential.

One interesting bit . . . that I certainly never thought about . . . and it really sinks in . . . half the folks you meet driving cars out there in the streets have an IQ below average. In fact, a number of them – one in twenty – are severly below average.

Interesting essay.

I forget the reference . . . and I’m too lazy to look it up (more squandering that potential, I guess) but you’re welcome to look it up . . . there was a study of male Nobel Laureates and Pulitzer Prize Winners and other top achievers and they found that most of them made their significant contributions to society and science before they got married and had kids. Men are compelled to achieve in part as a means of attracting potential mates . . . we do whatever we do best as a way to attract hot babes and the like . . . once we marry and settle down with kids then we have fulfilled that part of our imperative to procreate so to speak and so our priorities change from needing to succeed and be innovative and burn the midnight oil to attract mates. We change so that our priorities are to enjoy the family we’ve built. Obviously, this is not true of all successful men . . . some folks are just screwed up and have dysfunctional family relationships.

Joseph Campbell, one of my personal favorite thinkers, once said that “when the child is born, the parents become as if they are dead . . . for the rest of their lives are spent nurturing that new life.” That’s one of my favorite lines from Campbell. I know, some folks read it and think of zombie parents or undead ghouls trapped into living for their children instead of themselves but I really believe they miss the whole point of parenthood. It’s not an involuntary servitude for your child, it’s a natural transition. Since we had our child, every major decision we have made in our lives – housing, job, car, whatever – has been based upon whether or not we thought it was best for our child. Where we live is because it’s close to our daughter’s school (my work too but it was her needs that clinched the deal). We don’t begrudge our child, we live for her because we want to, we love her, it is as natural as breathing. Sure, we still have our own needs and desires – we are alive, we’re not dead lifeless blobs – but the major stuff is all tempered by our desire to ensure her well being . . . and that’s how it should be. People who continue living their own little self-interested lives after marriage or childbirth have no business having kids in the first place . . . they don’t really have a family, they have offspring and that’s about it.