I spent 3 hours playing a puzzle game for "ages 4+"—and got progressively worse at it.

Then I wrote this blog post about the nature of beginner's luck.

A few days ago, I saw someone tweet, “Would you rather be the smartest or dumbest person in a room?”

I understand this is a famous topic people discuss as a less-than-literal way of diagnosing their own self-esteem problems, social motivations, or the kind of collaborator they are. But a pastime of mine is taking things literally when I know they shouldn’t be, and my first thought was that I didn’t think I’d ever been in a room with more than one or two other people where I thought I was either of those things. I have often thought, many times, “This person is smarter than me,” or “This person is dumber than I am.” But I can’t remember being in a room where I thought, “I am the dumbest/smartest person here!” I mean, most people in a room with a large group aren’t even talking, lol. What sort of room is this? An improv class?

In movies, protagonists are constantly told by some supportive person in their lives, “You’re the smartest person in the world, Will Hunting. I hope one day when I come to your door, you won’t answer because you’ve left town without saying goodbye. That will mean you have escaped this shithole and moved to California, where blonde surfer chicks who are also scientists will give you blowjobs in the lab as you personally cure cancer.” But in real life, I don’t think this happens much. I mean, it would be weird if it did.

There are also movies where the protagonist has a good heart but is so profoundly stupid that they walk around going, “Dammit, I put the eraser end into the pencil sharpener again,” or whatever. I don’t think that happens a lot either.

Most people are intelligent enough that they aren’t constantly thinking about their own intelligence or the capabilities of every person they interact with.