Translate

Friday, March 28, 2014

That's a mighty big brain you have there

I call them The Big Brains.
They are the scholars, professors, doctors and some of the high-achieving students I met during a not-long-enough stint in the PR department of a prominent university.
These were some very smart people, hence the nickname.
I never said it directly to them because I was not sure if it might insult them and the only people I like to insult are politicians.
Sure there are a few politicians who do not deserve my barbs and laser beam shots of disgust, but they are definitely in the minority.
I must admit, there is one area politician I do have respect for. Sure he is part of the national gang known as The MPs, but he seems like a genuine guy, with a genuine interest in doing what is right.
I know, that sort of thing is even more rare than a Big Foot sighting, but I can confirm at least one of them exists (the decent politician, not the sasquatch.)
And don't even get me started on the Senate.
For the record, my daggers are meant for provincial and federal politicians. I find most of the local ones quite nice and seem to be in politics so they can actually do some good in their community.
Anyway, I was talking about people with large craniums crammed with all sorts of valuable knowledge.
I must admit, when I first started at the university I was somewhat intimidated by The Big Brains and oft felt akin to a multi-celled organism that just crawled out of the slimy pond of stupidness.
My wife tried to tell me it was not true, but I was too busy swinging from the trees in the courtyard and picking nits out of people's hair to notice.
I was definitely not running with my usual band of co-workers.
Not to say newspaper people are not smart. Some of them are quite bright and some of them are, um, er, my co-workers.
Moving on. For the most part, The Big Brains were pretty decent to work with. A few did think they they were God's gift to the world and needed one office to work in and another office for their ego, but some of the extremely smart ones were basically regular people (with really big brains.)
I guess when you are that good, you don't have to act like it. Those were the Big Brains I liked the most - regular people who just happened to be smarter than 22 of me put together, but they never made a big deal about it.
I did feel conspicuous my name did not have a whole bunch of letters after it like everyone else did.
I thought about adding a few just so I could be one of the gang and contemplated putting GSC at the end of  my moniker. But the letters for the Gold Skating Certificate I earned when I was 15 probably wouldn't impress anyone.
I do have a college education, so I have some functioning grey matter, just not as much as many other people.
I can string a few words together, add a comma when needed and I have a pretty good idea how to form a readable paragraph, but I highly doubt that will change the world like some of the people I met at the university are likely to do.
But we all have our role to play in this life. Could I have been nestled among the brethren of big brains had I tried harder in school?
I doubt it. I think a really big brain is something God gives you, like being tall, or having a sense of humour (hey, two out of three aint bad).
You can study all you want and yes it will help, but at the end of the day unless you have a big brain there is only so much room in there and eventually it will get filled up (some sooner than others).

No comments: