thin king

Hello everyone,

C I S - Clever, Intelligent, Smart

These are three very desirable human qualities. They are named in
alphabetical order here to avoid preference or prejudice. This is because,
although they appear to convey the same meaning, they carry quite
different significance.

Once I asked a colleague to rank his preference for these three qualities.
He hesitated, but came up with his own interpretation of these three words
instead. It was difficult to figure out his response. Perhaps it was not easy
for him to draw a line about their differences offhand. He was such an old
wise owl.

When one searches the dictionary, one will find that two of these three
words are usually given as the meaning of the other. One can go round in
circles trying to find their exact meaning.

Nonetheless, vast significance differentiates these words when they are
used in their proper context. For a start, cleverness is a skill, intelligence
is a mental capability, and smartness is an art. While intelligence is inborn,
smartness can be taught and cleverness can be trained. A person who
possesses these three qualities will be great indeed.

So now, would it be difficult to rank the importance of these qualities?
Yes, it would still be different for different people. Different heads will
require their appropriate hats to fit. All of us cannot be in the same
profession surely! These different qualities are what become us; be we
engineers, scientists or businessmen; craftsmen, designers or lawyers;
carpenters, analysts or tour guides.

Most parents nowadays would want their children to be intelligent, first
and foremost. Children with high IQ will go high in society. To begin with,
they would have been creamed off by virtue of their high intelligence.
They would then go to prestigious schools and taught differently under
special arrangements. They would thereafter and therefore be expected
to be our future national leaders. Which parents would not want their
children to be thus classified. High IQ opens the door to great opportunities.

I remembered a very old classmate. He was always at the bottom of the
class in examination results. Yet, one day when he met the top student
who became a doctor, they were both driving Mercedes cars. When
pressed on how he prospered he said, "When you treat a patient you
charged $10; for a day with 100 patients you charged $1000, so you earned
100% ($1000/$10 = 100%). When I buy a can of abalone for $1 and sell it
for $10, I make only 10% ($10/$1 = 10%). One cannot talk Mathematics
with him. You see, he was very poor in Mathematics, but then very smart
in business.

In the story The Water Margin or All Men Are Brothers, Kao Chiu was a
loafer and a bully. But he was a very good footballer. And he knew how to
please the prince. He showed his football skill by playing with the prince
who made him an official. With further craftiness he later became the Prime
Minister. With people like him in power, heroes became criminals, and
heroic criminals fled and congregated at Mount Liangshan; and that is the
gist of this great classic Chinese novel.

High IQ may be impressive, so is being clever; but really it is the smart
ones who hold the trump card. Intelligence without being smart is but a
thinker. Cleverness without being smart is just a craftsman. Smartness
coupled with intelligence and cleverness will rule.

Have a nice day.
Ronald