The value of being gifted.

Someone arrived on my site, today, with what I regard as strange search terms: "IQ 130 - how much money make".

It wasn't the grammatical choices that concerned me terribly, but the underlying world view of such a query of the internet. I cannot discern whether this is someone who has just had their IQ tested and is wondering how much money they will make in later life, or someone just interested in how much such a person would make. I can tell this, however: they haven't truly understood what being gifted means and the opportunities it presents.

Giftedness is not about money-making. If it was, the richest people would be the smartest - and oddly, they are usually not. They are "smart enough" to run their businesses, but not necessarily as smart as some of the people they employ. Their primary gifts are not necessarily in intellectual areas at all. No: richness and wealth do not equate. Wealth comes from a certain approach to life, in some cases one that others may not agree with - but it is not the inevitable product of intelligence. They are some rather dim rich people and some rather bright poor ones. Though, generally speaking, someone of high intelligence will do "alright" financially - though not necessarily as well as their not-so-bright but more money minded sibling/classmate.

Giftedness presents opportunities for doing things other than make money. It provides the opportunity to do something special. A gifted person who was also creative might write a novel, create a new product/invention, compose music, start a new business, in a new niche, propose a new scientific theory and any number of possible contributions. A gifted person who was not creative might make an outstanding accountant, lawyer or doctor - or any other professional in which intelligence, but not necessarily creativity, was required.

Giftedness is about doing something better than others could - or doing something outside the norm if creatively gifted. If there is money to be made by doing so, it is not usually the primary goal of a gifted person.

Gifted people are usually deeper than to choose the one-dimensional aspiration of "making as much money as possible". If someone's aspiration is to do just that, they are not usually particularly gifted, in my observation, because they have not seen a deeper meaning to life than material acquisition - and so are usually not the brightest of the bright.

A gifted person will often find a goal for their life that is unusual, a goal that others might not understand, but which, if attained, or even just pursued, will add to life in a unique way. That is a better contribution to life and the world, than just amassing the greatest possible fortune.

A gifted person is many things - but the one thing they are usually not, is a money-making machine. That latter accomplishment is usually left to those who are not as bright, but are much more switched on by the drive to amass money.

Linus Pauling, the Chemist and double Nobel Prize Winner, didn't make much money (apart from his Nobel Prizes). There are many, many far less bright people who were much richer. A typical American doctor, for instance, would be much richer than Pauling was. Money-making wasn't Pauling's primary objective: expanding the reaches of science was.

Pauling's life provides an example as to why the most gifted are usually not the richest: their life objectives are higher ones than making money. Any money they make is incidental to the higher calling that is their life's devoted goal.

Were there no people like Pauling - people devoted to their subject or cause, the world, as a culture, would be much the poorer. These gifted people make life richer for all of us, if not for themselves, by their contributions.

Gifted people will often live rich lives in ways not measurable by money. Their lives are rich in experiences, contributions, ideas, projects, new things done and great goals achieved. It is for these things that we should look to them, in admiration - not their yachts and mansions (which they probably won't have).

Society needs gifted people whose goals are other than making money. These gifted people may make ideas that change life for the better for many or for all - and such people are of greater value, therefore, than the world's plutocrats, most of whom don't make much real difference at all. (They do what would be done anyway, without adding anything new).

Some societies drill their gifted young people to aim for money as their highest goal. Singapore is one such place. I wonder how limiting that is, in the way they go on to lead their lives. If a nation's gifted people have the one-dimensional aspiration of money-making as their sole goal, then that nation will never truly shine. Perhaps that explains the way Singapore is: a nation whose gifted people are not encouraged, or even allowed, to have higher goals than the pursuit of wealth. The result is clear to see.

It is telling that the searcher who came to my site with those words: "IQ 130 how much money make" was searching from a Singaporean IP address.

It is time that the education system, here, instilled a deeper set of values than the almighty dollar and its pursuit. The dollar is not the meaning of life - and if it becomes so, the life that is led is ultimately fruitless, and shallow.

They are many other values which a nation could impart to its young. There are many other things in life of value than just money alone. Perhaps it is time for the dollar obsessed nations of the world - of which Singapore is one - to urge their young to look to these other values, too, so that some might choose a deeper path for life.

Oh, by the way, an IQ of 130 is probably enough to make as much money as you might wish for - if the moderately gifted person chooses the right area in which to apply their minds. Some very rich people don't appear to be any brighter than that.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and seven months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, five years exactly, and Tiarnan, twenty-eight months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, wunderkind, wonderkind, genio, гений ребенок prodigy, genie, μεγαλοφυία θαύμα παιδιών, bambino, kind.

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Signs of growing poverty in Singapore.

It is the odd little things that speak most loudly about a situation. Today, I saw one of those and was saddened by what it implied.

I was walking through an HDB area in the west of Singapore when I saw a middle-aged Malay woman, of perhaps 50 years old, clambering through an uncultivated green area that banked onto the road. It lay between an HDB estate and a shopping mall and MRT.

It was strange enough to see her clambering up this bank. It was stranger still to realize what she was doing. She was picking leaves, one by one, or in bunches, further down a branch, of plants. She had a plastic bag in one hand, which was already bulging with picked leaves. She seemed to be careful of which ones she chose. It was very clear what she was doing. This woman was picking her family's dinner from the side of a road. There were too many leaves for one person, in her bag. This was her way of "shopping" for vegetables.

I didn't wish to stare, but I looked long enough to understand the situation. She didn't look up the whole time I observed her. Her eyes were on the leaves, which she picked slowly, choosing only the best.

More saddening was that there were shops within 2 minutes walk of where she worked away. Clearly, she couldn't afford to buy vegetables, anymore, for her family - so she made do with these publicly available "vegetables". I only hope that she knows which leaves are edible. I am heartened that she was taking her time, so perhaps she did know which ones she was looking for.

Singapore shouldn't be like this. Prices shouldn't be rising faster than people can keep up with them. This is the reality of recent all round price rises. Singapore is becoming increasingly unaffordable for many people who are not earning million dollar salaries (which basically is the majority of Singaporeans). Yet, this truism is unseen and unheard. We are even told by the newspapers (see the Today paper of today) that the rich are taking the greatest hit from inflation. That may be so, in percentage terms, but the question is: who can afford to take a hit at all? The rich or the poor? Clearly, lower income Singaporeans cannot afford to take too much of a price increase. Those that can't may end up like this unfortunate Singaporean I saw today - foraging for her dinner in any uncultivated piece of land she could find.

The Singaporean economy needs to be more carefully managed, lest thousands of Singaporeans end up foraging alongside the Malay woman I saw today.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged eight years and one month, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and seven months, and Tiarnan, two years exactly, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, College, University, Chemistry, Science, genetics, left-handedness, precocity, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)