Our ability to test well on paper has no relationship to our ability to survive. I tested high long in the long ago, then re-tested higher (so mcuh for scientific "fact" on that one) a few years after. (School.) My dad flipped out and whomped me for having a higher IQ than his, laid into me daily for about five-six weeks with his verbal cutdowns and scathing indictments of my uselessness and so forth... and I didn't even *say* anything. My bloody sister knew he'd flip, showed him the results, and sat back to watch teh show.
Her IQ was lower than mine but her survival skills in that household? Waaaay better. Except for the part where she died in her 20s.
So... Correlation and causation do not exist, IMHO. SO I test well. Big deal. Put me in a room with angry men, and I'll flunk any test you hand me, from "coherent thought" to "ability to open a door".

Interesting musings, Arfie. Maybe we have high IQs b/c we survived so much so young that our brains skipped some development in favor of others. You stutter. I go mute. Here we write. Paw-bump from the puma....

When I underwent the battery of psych tests required to be a hospital chaplain, it was finally revealed later in life that I'd always had an IQ number like yours, arfie. It saddened me, really, in that it confirmed all along a factor that had set me apart in my already dysfunctional, violent family. I'd been born different in a way that my insecure dad couldn't reward, in a way that made him feel threatened, no matter how hard I tried to behave as his submissive son to gain his love.

By the time of these test results, since I was taking them for hospital chaplaincy, I was more interested in my EQ than my IQ. School was behind me, what lay before me was the emotional challenge of working in ER's and cancer wards, etc. So intellectual pride wasn't a concern, it was whether I had matured in m own PTSD recovery so as to be of help to incoming trauma patients day by day.

It turned out that I had developed an EQ for the job. That made me very proud of all of my years of PTSD recovery in therapy and support groups. The IQ wouldn't have mattered much if I couldn't handle the stress of my calling. Fortunately, reaching out to therapists and peers in support group work over the years had created the underpinning I needed to relate to others in a meaningful way for my own healing and the healing of others. And that work goes on here day by day.

My most consistently held favorite definitions of genius and idiot are:

GENIUS: You agree with me.

IDIOT: How dare you NOT agree with me!

I passed god knows how many academic exams as I was always considered 'bright' though never formally tested for my IQ though I would imagine it would be quite high not not to genius standard LOL....and yet I did some utterly idiotic dumbs things while in the grip of PTSD and my other afflictions....just seems to be part of the territory I guess....sure can relate, good buddy....especially your last comment LOL....

best

Manda xx

Sapolsky, Human Behavioral Biology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA&list=PLD7E21BF91F3F9683

growing up i was always on the outside, always odd or weird, had that high iq, but what good was it. what has always been valuable to me was the eq. although my childhood, the parts i am remembering, was filled with abandonment and a lot of pain, it was also filled with my parents bringing in other children to the house. i can't tell you how many times i have counted these brothers or sisters blessings in my life, i learned so much about understanding and compassion, more that i haven't the words for right now.
children who came from horrible places. they came bruised and battered, sometimes unable to speak. these kids i could be real to. i could give my heart to them and reach to comfort them. there wasn't anything about intelligence to it.
i love this place where we can be here for one another, how ever we find ourselves.
most of the time when i reach, or in this case, type, i feel the most stupid of all; i have to fight myself not to delete whatever i manage to type. i cannot remember how to use puctuation, (that used to really bug me), my hands are numb, so i type with these weird feeling things. i loose my train of thought if i had one. i only care and that is where my heart is when i type here.
eq is what's important to me xx

Whenever my self-esteem backslides, the intelligence question always comes back to haunt me. Am I as smart as peanut gallery *A* tells me or as idiotic as peanut gallery *B* claims?

Seems to me that "Emotional Quotient" (EQ) is an oxymoron. A quotient is a mathematical divisor. Can emotions be mathematically quantified?

i know it doesn't matter how smart or not smart i am when i can't get out my front door to go to the store and i need almond milk. any amount of smart is not getting the almond milk here without going to that store - or ______________________fill in the blank with a need. assuming there isn't someone who can and will bring me the almond milk.

i think THEY can measure EQ. they can measure who gives more of a darn than the next person. even in dogs. for the sake of the discussion - insert friendly shrug here. oh! also, some rabbits now - i have a cousin with a certified therapy rabbit/trained/tested and approved. a larger shrug right here.
arf, maybe we should test our chickens?? martha consuela conchita esmeralda would not do well, but Grace would have gotten some high marks. higher than Martha Stewart, but not certified therapy worthy.

Vmon Arf you are 62 years old and you are a survivor of child sex trafficking in the 50s and 60s. You had to be pretty bloody smart to survive that good buddy. And here you are now a wife a mum and a grandmum and you have all these cool little sidelines going like the chickens and Bumfuck Texas...ya know what I mean?:and you STILL believe your sense of self worth is linked in to the ascribed quotient of intelligence THEY ascribed to you when you were a baby and THEY were in control? Sorry man dont bloody jive with me. I think you're bloody amazing what its worth. Fuck the brainwashing is what I say.

Love you mate.

Manda xx

When I'm angry or under stress my mind shorts out and I do bone headed things. Once I was so stressed I forgot my address. I can relate to being turned into a stuttering fool. It's very frustrating in it's self.

I prefer and often admire and envy the state of oblivion ;)