Why are you willing to say how intelligent you are?

This question is, obviously, only for those who are willing to declare their intelligence.

I find myself amazed that people are willing to make such declarations in a social space. I guess I think that determination is for others to decide. I certainly would never claim it for myself. If people want to say that to me, fine, but that’s on them. I never made any boast.

But I did kind of compound what might perhaps be considered an error. I started arguing with people when they said I was intelligent. I’m not sure why, other than because I was mentally ill. But there has always been a part of me, whether I’m ill or not, that has been quite uncomfortable in accepting that description.

So when other people are perfectly willing to trumpet to the world how smart they are, it kind of blows my cerebellum. How can they be so confident? Well, if they are, then they must be really really smart. And yet…. they haven’t shown me much that I would consider brilliant.

In any case, this would make me feel bad, because… I don’t know. I didn’t like the idea of discriminating between people based on IQ tests? I didn’t have any idea how I scored on such tests, and assumed it wouldn’e be very high? I don’t know.

So you. If you do this. Why are you willing to say how intelligent you are?