Well, 1040 on the old-style SAT, when it was out of 1600. This was back in high school, around 8 years ago when I obtained my results from my first SAT test. My friends were surprised, since according to them, I should have had way better than them (them with 1200+ scores), I was surprised too.

When I was 17, I was administered an actual IQ test that consumed a few hours. It involved memorization, some general knowledge, figuring out number sequences, assembling blocks to some specified shape, oh and drawing your way through a maze. The maze was probably the most memorable, since the rule was if you can complete the first maze (which was beyond easy – the gaps between the walls were WIDE, and the maze was easy enough for an ant to run through in 5 seconds across), without touching the walls with your pencil, you wouldn’t have to do the subsequent mazes.

Guess what I did. I touched the walls. The proctor and I stared at the squiggly line that passed the boundary line of the maze, completely baffled that I had managed to cross the wall with my pencil; we looked at each other blankly with one of us going, “I guess we have to do the rest.”

The rest of the mazes were not fun to complete, and the last one was beyond complicated and tiny, that to this day, I cannot comprehend anyone finishing it at all. It was like being issued the dumb-dumb constellation prize for failing the beginner maze – a larger maze that no one can complete, and you lose points.

Regardless, that maze was a real mistake. At the end of the test, the proctor spent around five minutes doing calculations. In the meantime, I debated whether to know my score or not, and as the title indicates, I choose to know.

For reference, the ‘genius’ level for IQ is considered to be 150 (gifted is 130), while the average is 100.

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I’m neither genius or gifted, but I am slightly above average. When I learned of my score, I was partially shocked, since I guess I grew up with people telling me that I’m a genius (it still happens to this day).

Since then, I’ve always struggled trying to understand why my talents and abilities do not correlate to scores. As stated in my previous posts, all of this changed for me when I had to take a required class at my university called, Creating a Meaningful Life. On first glance, you would think that the one unit class would be one of those joke classes, that have no real or intrinsic value to your education.

However, I strongly have to disagree. It was probably one of the most important classes in my life. My professor was Kelly Bloom, and she like most of us, was working towards a higher goal in life, which was obtaining her Ph.D, and the book she used for the class was Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Funny thing about the book – at the same time, when I worked at Stanford and ran the Emotion Lab, we were running experiments on inducing a psychological state called Flow. Guess who developed the concept of flow? Csikszentmihalyi.

I was pretty stoked knowing that what I was doing in class actually applied to what I was currently doing at work. We weren’t running experiments in the class though, but we were exploring the concept of flow, how people achieved that state, and what can one to do achieve it themselves.

A lot of emphasis was on flow in the class because Csikszentmihalyi believed flow and creativity had large correlations to success.

Although I never finished the book completely, there was one specific passage that closed my confusion with respect to my own identity as someone perceived to be a genius, smart, but when it came to numbers, there was nothing to show. Despite that, I was able to do many things that no one else can that would earn me such titles:

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“The earliest longitudinal study of superior mental abilities, initiated at Stanford University by the psychologist Lewis Terman in 1921… children with high IQs do well in life, but after a certain point IQ does not [matter with success]. Later studies suggest the custoff point is around 120; it might be difficult to do creative work with a lower IQ, but beyond 120 an increment in IQ does not necessarily imply higher creativity.

Why a low intelligence interferes with creative accomplishment is quite obvious. But being intellectually brilliant can also be detrimental to creativity. Some people with high IQs get complacent, and, secure in their mental superiority, they lose the curiosity essential to achieving anything new. Learning facts, playing by the existing rules of the domain, may come so easily to a high-IQ person that he or she never has any incentive to question, doubt, and improve on existing knowledge. This is why Goethe, among others, said that naivete is the most important attribute of genius.”

- Creativity / Csikszentmihalyi p.59/60

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That entire passage cleared everything for me – it explained to me that I didn’t need to be a complete genius to be successful. I have enough ’smarts’ and curiosity that allowed me to be creative and look at things differently than everyone else. It’s that combination that leads to success. In the class, we explored the ways we were all or can be creative, and the different types of creativity that existed, and which one suited us best.

And as noted before, I learned about how to address the “What will you be doing in 10 years?” question.

Because of this class, I learned that scores can’t tell the full picture about someone. Someone with a 150 IQ or a 2400 SAT doesn’t necessarily equate to success. What matters more is one’s ability to apply their intelligence, or what they know towards the real world. You can be the ’smartest’ person in the world with the Library of Congress in your head, but it’s useless if you don’t do anything, or know how to do anything with it.

By the end of it, I was much more confident with who I am. Kelly pulled a smooth one on us when we exited our finals for the class, and handed each of us a large rubber ball which had the entire earth embossed on the surface, and told us, “The world is now in your hands.”

It was also the week where she successfully defended her Ph.D thesis, so I replied, “Thanks, Dr. Bloom.”

All in all, we all accomplished something in that class, and learned a significant amount about ourselves.

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Expected entitlement is actually a common problem of college graduates. Lots of them think that graduating college will equal this ticket to a job, but what many find out is college isn’t just about the courses you take, but it’s also about connecting with others, developing and obtaining experience from the things you’ve learned. Without the networking capacity or having experience under your belt, one can at most expect getting an internship, or going back to school after graduating  to develop the skills they couldn’t during undergrad because they could not find a job. The bachelor degree is essentially the new high school degree.

I wish that there was some way to properly evaluate someone on their ability to lead, to come up with creative solutions (or problems!), etc. Overall, what society needs is not necessarily IQ, but  also curiosity and the ability to apply knowledge.

Regardless, I’m proud to say that I’m Theo Chakkapark, the person who had a 1040 SAT, and (five SATs later, managed a 1280) with a 123 IQ, who is as curious as a newborn chimp, and has managed to find his way into places like NASA and Stanford, was a 6th grade science and health teacher, developed programs that connected hundreds of people together and has become even more successful and inspired since then.

When someone says I’m smart or I’m a genius nowadays, I reply,

“You’ve got that wrong. I’m just creative.”

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Dying To Live – Jonny Lang
Johnny Lang – Dying to Live

You know I’ve heard it said there’s beauty in distortion
By some people who withdraw to find their head
And they say there is humor in misfortune
No, I wonder if they’ll laugh when I am dead

[Chorus]
Why am I fighting to live
If I’m just living to fight
Why am I trying to see
When there ain’t nothing in sight
Why am I trying to give
When no one gives me a try
Why am I dying to live
If I’m just living to die

You know some people say that values are subjective
But they’re just speaking words
That someone else has said
And so they live and fight and kill with no objective
Sometimes its hard to tell the living from the dead

[Chorus]

You know I used to weave
My words into confusion
And so I hope you’ll understand me
When I’m through
You know I used to live my life as an illusion
But reality will make my dream come true

So I’ll keep fighting to live
Till there’s no reason to fight
And I’ll keep trying to see
Until the end is in sight
You know I’m trying to give
So come on
Give me a try
You know I’m dying to live
Until I’m ready to die