Tag Archives: Intellect

Questions

What Price Would You Pay?

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Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?

Would you be willing to reduce your life expectancy by 10 years to become extremely attractive or famous?
10 years for fame or beauty

by Jonathan Hilton  Day 51

There is no way I would forfeit one day of my life to become extremely attractive or famous because I simply think that both things are subjective and are they really worth it?

Now there are some things that I might seriously consider this proposition but for being attractive or famous I don’t think it would be worth it.

Being Attractive is definitely not worth it

First of all there is the attractive part.  This assumes that being attractive is a purely physical thing, and if I am going to be judged purely on the physical then what about my thoughts, my

attractive not worth it
Beauty is on the inside

creativity and all of the other things which I think are pretty good about me, that make me, me?

Besides I think that many of the problems our society stems from our obsession with physical beauty. Which to one person is different than to another.

When you look at your life and your development as a human being, would you give back the knowledge, understanding and wisdom that you have collected over the years?

Looks are fleeting, but your character lasts forever.  In the end, isn’t a higher intellect and human understanding much more attractive to the right kind of people anyway?

Beauty is subjective and changes, and those who value the aesthetic over the substance of a person tend to be shallow.  Why would you care what they think of how you looked? Those who you would care about would see your value and beauty no matter what your looks were.

I have known very attractive people on the outside who are really unattractive on the inside, and every one seems to be unhappy.

Fame Is Fleeting

When it comes to fame, I think that living ten years of life would be more valuable than

fame is costly and fleeting
What Price For Fame?

whatever fame could bring to you.  I think that being famous is a double edged sword, because everything that you do is thrown wide open for the world to see.

There seems to be very little that famous people keep to themselves, and that might be difficult.

I would never deny a certain human desire to have your thoughts and talents appreciated by others, and that fame might lead to some validation of what you have thought or done.

However, there is another side that will inevitably come with that, of judgment of your entire life.

Everything that you ever did, or anyone that you have ever known would have a piece of you that could be distributed for cash reward.  Real friends are hard to find in any case, I think with fame you would never know who your friends were or what the real intentions of people were.

So I think fame might be interesting, but not worth ten years of my life. Think of all of the experiences you can have in ten years.  There will be beautiful days, great relationships, love, gratitude, anything that you can imagine that you could experience in a ten year period would not be worth giving up for fame.

What Would I Give Ten Years For?

Thinking about this I had to try to think of something that I would give up ten years from my life expectancy for and I came up with a few.  First, I think I would do it for the perfect

young forever
We are our experiences, it is all a valuable part of the process.

relationship, but then I think that the perfect relationship exists for everyone so I could have that without giving up ten years of my life, so I would keep the ten years and enjoy the relationship for that time.

I would be tempted to give up ten years on the end of my life to be able to be young again and know then what I know now, because I wouldn’t waste so much time doing things that are so stupid.

Then you realize that all of those experiences were vital in making you who you are. Even though the experiences of your 20’s were often self destructive, self indulgent and downright idiotic, they were a necessary stop on the journey of your life.

True wisdom can never be gained unless you learn the lessons that life has to offer you.  Knowing what it is like to be excessively drunk, lets you know that your decision to not drink at all is smart.

Having meaningless relationships gives you the capacity to appreciate deeper connections with people today. Acting foolish and not valuing your thoughts, allows you the capacity today to appreciate the wisdom that you have attained and the depth that your thoughts take today.

So the short answer would be that I guess there is nothing that I would give up ten years of my life expectancy for, every second is precious, and needs to be cherished and lived to its fullest potential.

When I first heard this song, I was in my thirties, today in my mid forties, I wonder if I have lived my life to it’s fullest. I can only hope that every day I do.

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Questions

Worst Question Yet

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 Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?

by Jonathan Hilton  Day 40

37When I read this question I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. My answer is neither  but not because I have anything against genius or even anything against a simpleton, (whatever that means).

 I assume the question is designed to make you feel like genius comes with worry and if you are a simpler person you will experience joy. I reject the question as biased and borderline offensive.  Here are my thoughts.

Worry is a Choice

First lets look at the word worried. This is always a choice, you don’t have to do this.  This question seems to assume that only intelligent people worry and only people with no 923246_642439195781583_1059462715_nintellect are happy. This if offensive to me as a human being who strives to find a way to be happy, am I merely a simpleton looking for my natural state or am I a genius doomed to failure?

Worry has never made anyone more successful in anything.  No matter how much you work something over in your mind, dread it or want to avoid it, you still can’t stop it from occurring.

Any random, run of the mill genius should realize this, so if you are spending your life as a worried genius then you are, in my opinion only half right.  There are choices every day that people of all intellectual levels have to make which directly reflect on the experience they will have.  Just like kindness is a choice and what thoughts about life you pay attention to are choices as well.  I do not know much but I do know that  an intelligent person would be able to choose a better recourse than to waste their time worrying.

Why Judge?

There is a judgment in this question that should be ignored and pointed out. Who am I to differentiate between a genius and a simpleton. Suppose I am a member of the latter

I like these guys. Am I a simpleton? Or just a fan of comedic genius?
I like these guys. Am I a simpleton? Or just a fan of comedic genius?

group, I assume I would lack the skills to understand the question.

If I were in the former I suppose I would be too worried to function and display my genius appropriately.  I guess I don’t know why anyone would ask such a question.  These distinctions are all relative anyway to the intellect of others.

 I may be a genius to some and a simpleton to others, that distinction has absolutely nothing to do with what type of person I am, or how much I worry or am happy.  Not one bit.  We spend too much time in life labeling others and placing them in categories to feign some sort of understanding.

 I may be a simpleton which means I would be a little slow on the uptake but I know that we are all connected and the more time we spend dividing us the unhappier we are going to be in the end, no matter if we think mighty thoughts or nothing more significant than the batting average of a baseball player.

I have been fortunate to know many great people in my time, and intellectual ability has never been a factor in how I felt about them.  It was the kindness, the giving,  and the value they provided.  I have enjoyed conversations with people all of my life there is no intellectual entrance level of intellect.

The Worst Question in The World

Just reading this question I think makes the world just a little more of a difficult place.  I

I can't bear to listen.
I can’t bear to listen.

apologize to anyone reading it, because I feel like just considering the labels of genius or simpleton makes us all a bit more narrow-minded.

 I hope to embrace all of my fellow human beings, not just some endowed with high levels of intellectual capacity, but all of them.  The phrase joyful simpleton is along the lines of ignorance is bliss.

 They are designed to demean portions of the population. Who are these simpletons? Where do they live? All of us have parts that are intellectual and others that enjoy the simpler things in life.  There is no reason to intellectually slander anyone for this.

Accept all people regardless of their intellectual capabilities,  if you think yourself a genius then start hanging around with smarter people.

Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?

We Are All Awesome!

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What I Know

Books Are Beacons of Possibility

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Reading books
If you read, you make yourself better!

This is the second article about the things that I know for certain after a few years of trying to answer the questions of life.  The access to and the willingness to read and learn is the great equalizer of all people.  

Books and Reading Changed My Life

I have always been a reader, but not a learner.  The books that I read for much of my life were designed to entertain and tell a story but not to teach me anything in particular.  I am almost ashamed to say that I lived more than forty years before I truly discovered the power of books.  This is what I have learned to be true.  Not everyone is born with great athletic ability, or supportive parents, or money, but once you learn the skill of reading you able to build your intellect to any level that you desire.

You Can Do Anything

If you have access to books, you have the ability to learn from the greatest thinkers that mankind has ever produced.  What you want to learn, you can learn all you want to about. This means that all of the world, science, math, literature, or physics are all there for you to

Reading allows you to do anything
Reading Provides Magic

delve into as deeply as you could possibly want to.

This is what happened to me, once I started to realize that books possess a whole lot of power, I had trouble reading anything for fun.  I didn’t want to waste any of my reading time with something that didn’t make me think or to gain a better understanding of the world around me.  I am certainly no intellectual giant, but I do realize the miles that I have crossed, and the distance I still need to navigate.  What a trip.

Once You Start…….

 

Much like a rock rolling down a hill, once knowledge is gained, and you feel like true understanding has started to peek through the haze of your mind, you want to learn more and more as fast as you can.  The great part about this is that once you stretch your brain out,  to accept these new ways of thinking, and thoughts that you have aquired, it will never shrink back again.  There is no turning the light of knowledge off.

This power of gaining knowledge and understanding is the factor that levels the playing field for all people.  you can feel sorry for yourself because of the circumstances that you were born into, or your experiences of life, but there is absolutely nothing stopping you from learning all that you want to from the many books of the world.  All of which can be accessed free of charge at your local library.

You Can Do Anything By Reading

You have the opportunity to learn about business from Andrew Carnegie, or philosophy from Nietzsche. There are no limits to what level of expertise you want to acquire.  The only limit is in the amount of time and thought that you want to invest in a particular project.

If you can read, you can do anything at all and that is a fact that I know to be true.

 

 

 

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