Advice for a slow child

Only partly in jest

I'm slow. Turtle slow, snail slow - my brain is wired for intuitive understandings. An idea, if I do in fact have ideas, will surface like a breaching whale. Large, complete, and several years in the making.

This might have been okay if I had grown up in a household of similarly slow pressures, but I did not. Very early on I had to learn how such a child, raised in a household of philosophers and thinkers, a world buzzing with the low level hum of new thoughts and creative capacity - functions.

Like the turtle, and the snail, as I did not have speed I turned to other methods. Armor.

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Dear child,

Silence is the best armor. If you sit unnoticed you can listen. If you crouch on the shadowed couch by the adults table you can pilfer phrases.

This is the second layer of armor. Take phrases and collect them. Like a martial artist, training for years so that faced with an attack their body reacts, train phrases.

“What is the purpose of life?” they'll ask. You don't know, but you've trained for this. Your Papa said “Learning" that will do.

Get the intonation right. Say it just the way the adults do. Learn the proper trigger words for a joke or a story.

Learn to listen. When an adult says something and then asks you what you think, tell them what they just said. Adults love this. They'll say “wow, what a bright kid. I didn't understand that till I was in my fifties.”

If asked about something you don't know, make it up, say it with conviction, and stick to it. Having a bad opinion is smarter than not having an opinion at all. Never say “I don't know.”

Your last layer of armor is the question. “But what do -you- think about that?” get them talking, keep them talking. Listen with just enough of an ear you can repeat back what they said with a few words turned around to make it seem your own.

Adults love to talk and rarely actually care what you think at all. Take advantage of this. Use the strengths you do have to offset the weaknesses adults must never know you have.

It's easy to appear quick when everything is prepared ahead of time.

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I have been in relationship with a lot of intelligent people, and at this point in my life I have a lot of mental reflexes.

I used to go through online databases of questions, taking the time to imagine what I'd answer for each one. There's a surface level answer for almost anything you throw at me. A story for almost every dilemma.

That’s one of the reasons I like stories as much as I do. They're answers built to be repeated, passed down from generation to generation. I don't even have to change the words.

Telling a story makes you seem wise.

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Dear child,

Your armor is complete but sometimes you will need weapons as well. There will be something not right and you have to try and change it.

Try to stay out of fights, they're dangerous ground where your armor is vulnerable, but sometimes they're unavoidable.

Try and figure out what your fighting about before getting into a fight. Restrict it to a small topic. Come in to the fight with a prepared statement i.e. “Lincoln wasn't a good guy because he made the bloodiest war in all of US history.” don't worry about researching your claims first, this is important because you can end a dangerous fight with “I think we need to do more research.”

Do find something provocative. If you're seen to have extreme views this lends itself to the illusion of your intelligence.

Never back down or admit you're wrong. Retreating phrases include: “We're just going to have to agree to disagree.” or “you're entitled to your opinion.”

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I should like very much if I were just permitted to be slow. If I weren't surrounded by liberal media demeaning stupidity. If I weren't surrounded by people who are so very bright.

Part of what brought me to the realization that I'm not quick was when I took off some armor and struck out to learn math for real. Earlier I'd pretended I was too smart for math. I questioned it's very basis, as I'd heard other smart people do. To sit down and learn it meant facing for the first time the limits of my mind.

As I grow older, and my armor grows thicker, I can afford to use a little less force these days. How easily I slide into a question or a story. How effortless the deflection. I can say nothing while seeming to say a great deal at command.

Mostly I've come to realize the quiet power of the story. It's capacity to make someone else truly listen. I don't need to be full of inner buzz to let a story pass through me, and perhaps the inner emptiness even lubricates the way.

I'm trying to be more honest. Trying to show a little more of what happens behind this mask. If you catch me lying call me on it.

Maybe I'll even manage to say an “I don't know”