If you’re reading this, you’re probably also saying to yourself, “Why is this crazy nitwit changing his site again?” The answer is, I’m never satisfied. Those of you who have perused my site archives have some vague idea of my constant tendency toward change. I tend not be be content with things for very long. My interests change, my hobbies change, my tastes change. There are a few notable exceptions, of course, such as my interest in computers, my love for my girlfriend, and some of my more deep-seated traits (like messiness).
After working in my university’s Web Services department, I’ve developed a certain appreciation of user-friendly interfaces and more professional layouts. So I created a simple CSS-based page with light grey, white, and black. Graphics were virtually nonexistent. This was nice, but after perusing some rather bitchin’ site layouts, I was seized with a sudden impulse to create something artsy again, using (once again) flowers as a central theme. I wanted to get rid of frames and Flash (my skills in that being mediocre, anyway) and stick to my inspirations. The new “skin” recalls the semi-angsty DHTML sites that I used to salivate over in previous years, with their cursor decorations, scrolling DIV layers, and minimalist text.
Non-web-savvy individuals reading this are thinking to themselves, “Hunh?” I’ve impressed people simply by making a hyperlink. My knowledge of web design is fairly limited, but I may appear brilliant to someone who knows less about it than me.
The relativity of intelligence is tricky. If I were a little bit (read: demonstrably) smarter than a hypothetical person, how would said person know if I was just fractionally more intelligent or a pure genius? They can’t. The perception of intelligence is more important than intelligence itself.
I have a large vocabulary, and when I rattle off something sesquepedalian, people who don’t know better think that I’m Marilyn vos Savant. Except, you know, with a penis. In fact, there is so much about the world that I just don’t get and can’t do
The real measure of intelligence, I suppose, is Golding’s grades of thinking. For the unenlightened:
Grade 1 thinkers go through life based on their fears, feelings, and impulses (read: they are shallow).
Grade 2 thinkers are very logical and intelligent, but they use their powers of analysis only to destroy. Iconoclasts and cynics are often lumped (occasionally incorrectly) into this group. Grade 2 thinkers don’t or can’t form value systems of their own.
Grade 3 thinkers (Golding used Einstein as an example) are free from bias, devising a logical and practical “belief” system.
Myself, I hover somewhere between 2 and 3. People often comment on my remarkable dispassion for most things. Many, my mother included, belief this to be a bad thing. This is typical of Grade 1 thinkers, who follow their passions intensely and (more to the point) blindly. I may look severe, but I am one of the most reticent people you’ll ever meet, and better for it. I may not be fascinating, but at least I stay uninhibited and stress-free.