Back in September, I started and occasional series on what it means to be “smart.”  I did not so much define it as I tried to demonstrate that there is a lot more to it than just amassing information or credentials.  In this post I want to look at a couple of characteristics that smart people seem to have in common and talk about the burden that comes with it.

Smart people are generally a bit of a polymath.  (For the uninformed a “polymath” is someone conversant in a wide range of subjects.)  In the first post I went on and on as to how academic achievement in this world of massive knowledge often means specialization, which can exclude a wide spectrum of knowledge.  A polymath may not have deep knowledge in a field, but they will generally know enough to hold their own in a conversation with a specialist in the field.

The other characteristic of truly smart people is a bit corollary – they are unendingly curious.  In that conversation with a specialist, they will often ask many insightful questions.  If you get to see their library it will be large and filled with books on all sorts of subjects.  They will generally prefer to read to obtain information as compared to lectures and/or TV because reading enables them to more readily and immediately interact with the information and incorporate it into their general knowledge base.

But these characteristics come with a burden.  Their curiosity can test the boundaries of an expert’s expertise, thus making the expert feel threatened.  People that are not blessed with smarts or expertise can simply feel intimidated by a smart person.  Smart people are often socially awkward, or worse ostracized, because they, often unconsciously, threaten and intimidate.  Thus, a smart person that wishes to live in a social setting must place extraordinary effort an intention into character formation lest they be isolated.  This is the true burden of being smart.

I have seen many a wonderful idea by genuinely smart people get washed up on the shores of what is often derisively referred to as “politics” because the smart person counted on their smartness to sell the idea and ignored the realities of interpersonal relationships.  And the fact that people make decisions often on criteria that have nothing to do with how smart the idea is.  The smartest person in the world will not amount to a hill of beans absent decent and sincere character.

Chief among the character traits a truly smart person needs is humility.  Humility does not mean pretending not to be smart, rather humility means counting the other person as more important than the self.  (See Philippians 2.)  And from humility flows many other important things – not always trying to be the center of attention, listening, using the smarts helpfully, not for personal gain.  Most obviously a smart person’s humility should prevent them from pointing out that other people are not so smart.

In my college days I had many smart profs.  They came in two varieties – those that used their smarts to help me get smarter and those that used their smarts to stand in a spotlight in front of a lecture hall.  we need more of the former.