Time has changed, along with so many things, the meaning of being intelligent. Intelligence is no longer associated with academic degrees, philosophical outlook, or IQ level. Rather, it has become the ability to act systematically at the quickest possible time. Intelligence, therefore, is different from schoolwork success.
Intelligence may be available to us in seven different kinds – linguistic, logical, spatial, musical, bodily, interpersonal, and intrapersonal. People with linguistic intelligence have flair with words. They can use words to create fiction, poetry, argue, persuade, and entertain.
These people have the ability to capture written words and write words with expertise. Someone with linguistic intelligence would be Shakespeare or Homer. A person with logical intelligence is good with logic and numbers. These people are usually scientists, accountants, or computer programmers. They have logical bend of mind that has the capability to think in sequence, reason, hypothesize, and usually bear a rational outlook of life.
Spatial intelligence is found in people who have the ability to conceptualize a blank space with something as is done by architects, painters, engineers, or photographers. These people have the ability to pen down their thought or vision graphically on a piece of paper. Musical intelligence is found in people with inclination and perception about rhythm, melody, and beat.
Bodily-kinesthetic is a form of intelligence that helps people to have a full control of their physical self and handling of other objects with equal amount of dexterity, this talent is abundantly found in athletes, surgeons, artisans, mechanics, etc. Interpersonal intelligence is the ability to work with and understand other people. This form of intelligence is found in people like Mahatma Gandhi or Machiavelli. These people are adept in becoming networkers, teachers, negotiators, politicians, etc.
The seventh form of intelligence is intrapersonal intelligence in which a person has the peculiar power to understand and segregate between her personal emotions or feelings and can guide her own life through that understanding. Such people become good counselors, theologians, entrepreneurs, etc. apparently these intelligences are present in us in different degrees of intensity. It is only is few human beings that six or even seven of them are found in full intensity as probably in case of Leonardo da Vinci.
Among the seven intelligences posed above, I can identify two intelligences that I may have to a moderately high degree of intensity. First, is the linguistic ability and second, is spatial intelligence.
Linguistic intelligence is related to one’s ability to grasp words from print medium and reproduce it with equal fervor in the same medium. I am a fervent reader. I read books related to literature, philosophy, social science, history, etc. Reading all these books helps to think in a certain way that I presently do, and I constantly use examples or ideas presented in the books in my daily conversations or interactions.
Books, I believe are man’s best friend and I plan to become a writer one day. I have the ability to use the words or expressions or ideas from these books into writing them my written works. I keenly read the books and can transpose their ideas into essays or articles that I write. I am part of a book club that reads and discusses books, usually fiction, and I have been able to draw similarities of ideas presented by authors one books into another.
I like to write and like to apply words that I learn. Writing is a hobby that I mostly keep to myself. I usually like writing non-fictional essays, rather reflections of what I see or hear in course of daily life. I love watching the billboards and the words in them. Words written in different shape and sizes, in different colors, with different expressions, and the ones with humor or pun usually attract me the most.
I love to sit for hours in a library just to feel the presence of books around me. I can go on reading for hours. I read in public transports, in car while not driving, in washrooms, in almost anywhere. I always got a scolding from my mother for reading on the dining table with rest of the family. I dream of lands I read in books and fantasize of the stories being real.
The other intelligence that I posses is spatial intelligence. This intelligence exuberate one’s ability to absorb the world in visuals (almost through a photographic memory) and reproduce them through visual forms of art. I like to paint. I usually paint portraits of people I see in trains or roads or malls. I love to capture the expressions on their faces – their fear, sorrow, happiness through the strokes of my brush.
Sometimes I paint what I have dreamt of – probably a garden or a solitary boat of the still backwaters. Colors always attract me. I have a keen sense of color. I usually like to use stark, contrasting colors to demonstrate moods, feelings, environment in my paintings. I like to sit and watch at a scene and think in wordless oblivion. I have a keen eye for photography and am able to perceive the best way to photograph an object.
Of the two intelligences I posses, I feel linguistics is the primary and spatial is the secondary intelligence that I have. The reason being, I give more time to the former than the latter. Even though I paint, but its occurrence is not as frequent as I write. I would like to become a writer; therefore, both of these intelligences would help me paint a portrait of words with wild colors of emotions.