You know, I’m not as smart as people think I am.
I mean, yeah, I’m smart. I can say without too much unjustified arrogance that I’m a lot smarter than the average Joe on the street. But the thing is I come off as being far smarter than I actually am, because I have a vast amount of readily available data to draw on.
I’m knowledgeable. I’m really knowledgeable. This is one of the advantages that having a differently structured brain gives you. Sure, an autistic brain is retarded (I use the phrase in it’s literal sense of ‘held back’, so don’t be getting all up in my grill ‘kay?) socially, but it’s fantastic at storing and quickly retrieving ridiculous amounts of information. I absorb information like a sponge, and can usually pull it up for processing with a moment’s notice. Combine this with a merely higher than average IQ and it comes out looking positively phenomenal.
Trust me, I’m not really as smart as you think. Look at maths for instance. I can’t do maths in my head at all, I just don’t have the working memory for it. Give me a pen and pad to act as an external buffer and I can crunch numbers until the cows come home, but ask me to add two three digit numbers in my head (what’s 528 plus 234?), and I really struggle – I just can’t hold all the number combinations in my brain at the same time.
And time. I have very little sense of time. I caught up with Fabes over the weekend and he pointed out that it’s been six months since we last spoke. I would guessed it was one and a half, maybe two months tops. That’s just stupid 🙂
So yeah, don’t overestimate my intelligence folks. I don’t have a terribly fast processor, and very limited RAM – my fast System Bus and massive hard drive just make it seem like I do 🙂
