6mile’s … many more to go

How many people out there believe intelligence is purely genetic ?

I met my Irish mom today ( i feel like calling her that, i dont know if i should though ) , she told me how Native Indian guys would hang out , outside her all girls school, in the 60’s. She dated one,who asked her out.Anyways,we kept talking, and she had a hint of regret, of the fact that only one of her three kids went to college. She thought that I had good genes. I was like No Way ! My grandfather was a postman and my grandma an elementary school teacher. Hardly the best gene pool, I tried my best to convince her, but she dint seem convinced.

I remembered a George Bernard Shaw incident, where the American dancer Isadora Duncan, said to him “Will you marry me? The child born to us would have your intelligence and my beauty’.

~Bernard Shaw politely declined the proposal saying “I am afraid I cant marry you because if it is the other way around it would be a disaster”.

I’ve kind of noticed a trend among people out here, they are either brought up to think they are smart or they’re dumb. My work mostly involves fixing problems for undergrads who come in,and they happen to think that me and all the Indian masters students are so very, intelligent. When I try to convince them otherwise, it somehow does not gel to them. I work with a University employee called john and he said to me, you think all of us are smart because you see all smart kids at school,if you go out, you will run into dumb people, there are plenty of dumb people.

When I was growing up as a kid, my parents always told me I could do anything in the world, I just needed to want it bad enough. When I grew older, I realized that life is not as rosy at it seems. But, in a dog eat dog world I needed to work hard enough to get, what I wanted.Else, I would be left behind. My dad has a new mantra for me,he tells me to divide my work into little chunks I can eat, and build on it one at a time

I’m not the smartest tool in the bag,I spend many an hour in the library, struggling into the wee hours of the morning. Sometimes, I feel dejected, like today, when I have a submission deadline I could not meet, even after struggling for the last few days. But when you push your self that one wee bit, to go farther than you thought possible. Nothing really beats that feeling of deja vu.

Yeah, I do believe some of us are more gifted than others. Most, of us though fall around the median. Some maybe a little lower, but good enough to get through.

The funny thing about gene’s is nature gets to mix and match, the smartest people don’t have the smartest kids, just as the most beautiful people don’t have best looking ones. Its just that tease kids get exposed to they’re parents profession and ideas. Its a nature thing, having nothing to do with race at all.

I don’t think the perfect man is the best gene pool. I rather think the person who is more willing to adapt is, who knows his genes might adapt better to changes in nature or even mutate to form better resistance against diseases.

One of my favorite sci-fi flicks is Gattaca , where a genetically inferior man assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel. There Is No Gene For The Human Spirit.

PS: Flicked the last two lines off IMDB . [ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ ]