> I also received an IQ test result which was strange to see, and I actually would have preferred not to see it.
Why is that?
Why is that?
I had aspirations I didn’t pursue because I thought I wasn’t capable, for example. Lacked confidence because I believed I wasn’t competent. Suddenly I was faced with the notion that I wasn’t failed by genetics or something I couldn’t control, but rather, I’d simply lived for decades apparently completely unaware of myself and wasting my potential. What a strange thought.
My score wasn’t exceptional. I expected it to be much lower, though.
I’m still not sure how I feel. I wonder if I should do more with myself or not, if any of it even matters, that sort of thing. I suspect never knowing actually could have been better; it’s unlikely at this point that I could ever realize potential that I was previously unaware of. I don’t think it serves me at all. In a strange way I guess I liked assuming I wasn’t intelligent. I genuinely don’t feel intelligent.
For what it's worth, I don't actually think IQ is a canonical measure of intelligence, and the narrative people have of "being stupid" is often driven by society valuing certain kinds of intelligence more than others. But the kind of intelligence it takes to do software dev is more widely considered the "legitimate" kind of intelligence (by people who tend to view intelligence in more reductive, "black-and-white" terms).
Not only IQ is correlated with every positive prosocial behavior we, in general, value but every seemingly disparate form of intelligence is correlated to the others so we can, in fact, talk about a single form of intelligence that manifest in different form (generally named "g factor"). This is just the inherent unfairness of life. I wish it wasn't true and only your hard-work would matter, but it doesn't.
After some consideration I was left with the sense that I’d squandered something because I was too busy mired in egoism, navel gazing, insecurity, and helplessness driven by the sense that I’m less fortunate. And yet I’ve had a lot of good fortune which clearly stemmed from mental characteristics I believed I didn’t have.
I suppose I always felt like such an imposter. As though I was only ever hours or days away from being found out, then being relegated to a life more suited to someone as incompetent as I was.
Now I try to be less self absorbed and think more about what I can do for other people — people who can’t thrive in a technology-driven world due to innate disabilities, for example. Statistically it’s known that this is a staggering portion of our population, and these people deserve to get as much out of life as anyone. Living in poverty because you can’t understand how to apply for a job online, perform many basic jobs, navigate state or provincial websites to obtain disability assistance, or manage personal finances and so on is such an egregious offence to humanity in my mind.
In summary, I should have spent less time feeling sorry for myself and more time helping people with real problems.
I suspect I will never manage to meaningfully help people more than I would have when I thought I was stupid. I believed in pro social behaviour before the test. For that reason I’m not sure it helped me to see the IQ score.
I got into software because it was the single thing I cared about that could earn me money. I really had no idea what I was doing and constantly went from frying pans into fires, learning what I needed in a frantic race to avoid being “found out”, so to speak. The last 7 or 8 years has been a lot better now that my foundations are better and I have a bit more confidence. My career would definitely benefit from more confidence.
> the kind of intelligence it takes to do software dev
This is true, but I suppose at the time I didn’t believe I was actually doing it. I’d endlessly compare myself to genius-level developers, or simply others with skills I didn’t have. If someone at work could do something better than I could, well, it was obviously because I’m incompetent. How could I be 10 years in and this person who’s 5 years in understands debugging and testing so comprehensively? Man, everyone’s going to realize I’m a fraud soon. I better cram in testing and debugging research this week.
The IQ definitely did come as a surprise in spite of that. I can mechanically shovel software knowledge into my brain, but I don’t do anything novel or interesting with it. I write okay software, but it’s largely just a feat of mimicking the work of intelligent people. I can make the thing that makes the company money, but I can’t make a thing that others would mimic as I do.
As I mentioned in another comment though, a lot of this was me being insecure, indulging that to excess, and being quite neurotic about it to the point that I was clearly overlooking significant advantages I had over others who truly did and still do experience disadvantages due to lower intelligence. That was a well deserved blow to my ego, to realize I was so self absorbed as to ignore values I believed were important to me. I didn’t think I was like that, but in fact I was — extremely so — for decades.
If I can live comfortably with a job in software, why am I spending time feeling sorry for myself while other people, some I know personally, live with less because society values their minds less?
I suppose though that the reason I didn’t want to see the IQ score is because I suspect it was too late in life for me to respond in a meaningful way that would be aligned with my values. I have the sense that I squandered something. Rather than feel sorry for myself about it, I’ll do my best to turn things around.