Are You Resourceful?

Warning: Not for the faint of mind nor the short of attention-span.

A random thought came to my mind earlier today. How does one measure intellect? Is it a matter of how much trivia knowledge you have? Is it a matter of what you've learned from your past experiences? Does it even have to do with how sophisticated your vocabulary is? The problem with trying to measure intellect is the fact that people try to actually measure it instead of simply acknowledging whether or not they know what they're talking about (or doing). Most thoughts that came across listed possible ways in how one can determine intellect, but only a relative few will be addressed here.

One of the most perceived ways of figuring out if someone is bright is how sophisticated, or how technical, their vocabulary is. This is probably one of the most ineffective as well. Today, people have dictionaries that they can access fairly easily, which means they can simply look up unfamiliar terms to find their meanings within a short amount of time after coming across such terms. Other people may learn their vocabulary through experience, such as being around certain instruments that have certain uses and require you knowing what it is and how it's operated. Both of these ways to learn vocabulary deems vocabulary to be an ineffective way to measure one's intellect, because a common farmer may know all the different parts that make up a tractor and a rocket scientist may not know the different breeds of herd dogs. The common farmer would generally be deemed to be less smart than a rocket scientist, despite the farmer knowing something that the scientist may not know and vice-versa.

Whether or not a person is smart may depend on how practical that person is. Let's suppose we use the person that created the first metal spring. The problem does not lie in the invention of the spring itself, but what that spring can be used for. Without a purpose, the inventor might as well have been a newborn, or the result of an accident by an unknowing adult. The intellectual is found to be the person that knows a use for that given spring, such as providing suspension for a car or to help create self-loading firearms. The practicality of a person is the same as the measure of how innovative that person is. Most innovations, such as the use of the invention of the plow in agriculture or the design of modern ships to maximize buoyancy, came from a collective of generations of people that would experiment with the tools they had by finding out how to be more efficient with their tools. How efficient one is is also a form of their practicality since it takes knowledge to know what a person needs, how much, or many, they need, and how to obtain or achieve it in the least costly manner. For one to be practical, innovative, and efficient, one must have a key trait that really is what their intellect should be based on.

When caught in a situation that requires fast reaction, planning, and/or having to make do with what little you have, you have to be resourceful to know what to do, how to do it, and with what you can use to achieve it. Knowing what to do involves taking from your past experiences and picking out what best applies to your situation. Knowing how to do something also involves taking from what you know based on experience with the addition of your logic and reasoning. Knowing your surroundings and how you can use the things around you is the most direct link to being resourceful, because you have to know what you observe, how to observe it, whether or not it's useful in your situation, and how you can best put it to use. One situation, for example, may involve you getting pulled into an alley with a mugger. A resourceful person would know how to deal with the situation, whether or not that person's had a similar previous experience with a mugger. The resourceful person would know whether to fight or run. Whichever choice the person has made, he or she has to know how to find the attacker's openings for a chance to subdue him or to escape successfully. Knowing what you have and what's around you could help with your situation dramatically, especially when it becomes a matter of life or death. Someone who just knows how to confuse another with words beyond their vocabulary or knows how to make a profit on buying and selling cars would easily be left with either their valuables or their lives taken away if they are not resourceful enough. There are numerous examples that can even better explain the importance and usefulness of simply being resourceful, and to be resourceful requires knowledge of most things that can affect you as well as things that you may not ever come across in your life together with what you know about how things can be done and how practical, innovative, and efficient you are.

The intelligence of a person can't simply be measured in numbers based on whether or not they know what a danaus plexippus is or how to tune their car to get the best performance on the road. Instead, the intelligence of a person should be realized based on what they know and how they put that knowledge to use with what materials they have. Resourcefulness, or lack of, can determine whether or not you can pass that final exam or survive in a hostile environment. As I depart from this train of thought, let me leave you with but one simple question: Are you resourceful?

Comments

  • My take:
    Intelligent people are a dime dozen.
    What is much more rare is wisdom.

    Intellect=the information/knowledge
    Wisdom=action that stems from intellect

    Knowledge and action are both necessary components of wisdom.
    What worth is knowledge if your actions aren't in alignment?

    Its one thing to know the answer to a specific question/problem but if you do not act, its meaningless.
    Further, action without knowledge is also pointless.

    A lazy and knowledgeable person's worth is no more than that of the bum on the street corner.

    In my mind there is a fair bit of overlap between intelligence and wisdom.
    To know what needs to be done and not do it is pretty damn stupid.

    TL;DR:
    I should procrastinate less.
  • Although being resourceful covers half of the criteria needed to become wise, this thread is about resourcefulness and that it should be the basis for interpreting intelligence.
  • Don't have the time to read the great wall of text.

    The answer would be yes, though.
  • Are you resourceful?
    Sure, why not?
  • I agree with Nukem.
    Didnt read it. But I say Im smartical.
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