Bright, Smart, Knowledgeable

I'm thinking about these three words: bright, smart and knowledgeable. What do they mean? How is one different from the other? Sometimes they become interchangeable, but I believe that there are differences between them and that we almost intuitively understand them.

Bright is a birth trait. You are born Bright -- which is to say that Bright has to do with your physical brain. It comes from your genetics, your lineage. It can also be affected by the way your mother takes care of herself as she carries you inside. Bright manifests as the ability to quickly process sensory data and use it in problem solving. Bright is what enables you to navigate a maze, or drive a nail when no hammer is available. Some children demonstrate their brightness very early on, solving minor problems they encounter as they explore their world. By the time they get to school, we already know which ones are bright and which ones aren't. The opposite of Bright is not Stupid. It's Dull.

Smart is what you do with Brightness. It's an environmental thing, a trained thing. We learn Smart mostly from out parents, though friends and school also play a part. Smart is the ability to accomplish tasks. It's discipline and creativity. It's determination and persistence. It' reasoning and how to think. It's also pleasure in learning, the joy of exercising the brain. Where Bright is innate, Smart is trained -- and there is a difference between training and learning. .

Then there's knowledge, which is possession of data. It's names and dates and Shakespear and People Magazine. It's your phone number and mine. It's Sponge Bob Square Pants. It has nothing to do with Smart or Bright, but smart or bright may enable you to acquire more knowlege more rapidly. Knowledge is learned (as opposed to trained; see the difference?)

Of course the ideal would be to have healthy doses of all three, and every once in awhile someone comes along who is abundantly Smart, Bright and Knowledgeable. Jacob Brownowski was such a person. He was obviously Bright; the air around him nearly sizzled with the electricity of his mental prowess. And he was very Smart, too. He knew how to get from point A to point B, knew how to use his mind in ways that moved him closer to his objectives. But he was also   Knowledgeable. Read the Ascent of Man or watch the 13 hour series of tapes (they're at the library). The man knew tons.

Most of us have one or two of these traits in spades and one or two in lesser quantities. I'm thinking about an old roomate of mine from the early 70's. He was quite Bright and Knowledgeable, was erudite and clever in his conversation and his writing was outstanding. But he wasn't smart. He had no discipline and didn't know how to think about the challenges of his own life. Unable to move from point A to point B, he mired down with a liquor bottle and sat immobile through his early 20s. I don't know what happened to him, but I'm pretty sure he didn't win a Pulitzer Prize.

I have a very good friend who is not Bright; he's also not particularly Knowledgeable. But he is sooo Smart. He gets stuff done. He's blessed, too with an amazing attitude that draws people irresistably to him. Smart plus attitude has made him successful, happy and popular.

Me? I'm very Bright (thanks, Mom), a little Smart and a little Knowledgeable. I say a little Smart because I fall down miserably in discipline, deadlines, project planning . . . all the things that are required to produce stuff. But, because I am Bright and have a little Knowledge, I can come in with the other prerequisite to production: creativity. What others have difficulty seeing, I find very apparant. Unlike my good friend, I have a shitty attitude and a worse personality. I'm rude, people avoid me like the plague and if anything gets done at all it's usually because I'm pissed about something. Anger is my Project Manager.

But, which of the big three is most important in today's world? It's certainly not Knowledgeable. Remember Einstein, who never bothered to learn his own address because he could always look it up? Today we have the most remarkable looker upper: the internet. If you are Bright and Smart and can access the internet, all the knowledge you could ever need is there. Of course, you don't have it immediately in your skull so that you can assemble it in new and different ways to solve problems and make stuff.

I said I have a little knowledge. I know nothing well enough to be considered an expert in anything, though I fake expertise in several areas quite well. The better I learned how to navigate the internet, the more of an expert I became. Now I can know almost anything in a matter of minutes or hours.

So either Smart or Bright get my vote for most important for success in life today -- success being a life with minimal struggle and difficulty. Yes, success can have to do with money, but only because money is one of the primary means by which we eliminate struggle and difficulty from our lives. Attitude, friendship, love and joy are also part of the equation. And probably the greatest measure of success is the capacity for and experience of Peace.

I'm Bright, right? So I really want Bright to be best; but I'm afraid it's not. Bright is capacity. it's the wattage of the bulb. But without Smart -- the flow of electricity -- the bulb will never light. The ability to think, to plan and go step by step towards your goals, the discipline it takes to make anything, these are what's essential today. Knowledgeable -- which used to be so important -- is a minor consideration. Bright is great, but without Smart, it's nothing.

Smart is the Mexican who spends two years becoming reasonably fluent in English before sneaking across the border.

I said we get Smart from the environment. We learn it from our parents and friends and teachers. I'll betcha if Junior is raised at home by a mom and dad who don't know how to think, to accomplish, to plan, parents who aren't Smart, Junior will most certainly not be Smart either. Unfortunately, that seems to be the case more and more today. Have you noticed the dumbing down of America? I people watch a lot when I travel and I gotta tell ya: we really are a pack of Yahoos. Sound judgemental? Remember, I'm the rude guy with the shitty attitude.

Bright - Smart - Knowledgeable.

Aptitude -Ability - Achievement

Friday, March 25, Southwest Airlines Flight ??, Nashville to San Diego.