School grades are notoriously not a direct indicator of a person’s IQ score. Many highly intelligent people also say that the IQ scores do not reflect their intelligence directly because it measures only a certain type of intelligence, although it would correlate to some extent, certainly better than school grades. However, I found another interesting measure of intelligence, and that is self-confidence; one would imagine that a high self-confidence comes from a high IQ, but nothing could be further from the truth.

People with a high IQ KNOW where they fail. They are highly equipped to pick flaws and failures of other people who might not be aware of their own failings at all, so as a consequence, when they fail to see failure in themselves they tend to doubt that they are  one of those people who cannot see themselves realistically, lowering their self-confidence.

What brought this on was a study done on musical tastes and self-confidence and intelligence, where people who scored high on both IQ and self-confidence were listeners of Jazz and classical, and while I don’t dispute that both are brainy musical genres, I claim that the smartest of people fall in the category of a) people who listen to a great variety of music, and b) people who are most comfortable somewhere in the rock/heavy metal axis. The reason why I say this is that NOBODY supports that genre of music as a choice for showing intelligence or to fit in. It is the genre of the misfits, and to recognize oneself as such does require a high IQ, and also, a high level of self-respect, if not self-confidence. A lot of rock/metal fans also love classical and classic jazz and blues, but shy away from those genres because of the perceived “better than you” air that these people put out – the fake self-confidence, the self-congratulating air of your average jazz- or classical music fan. A rock fan is not a rock fan to boost one’s own ego, but they are a rock fan because they love the music – and again, this is not to say that egos do not exist in rock, because they do, but there is true testing of one’s position in the group unlike in jazz where one’s place is given by a gentlemanly act of approval. So my claim is, that the rock/metal crowd has a MUCH MORE even balance of self-confidence, self-doubt, social skills, emotional awareness, and intelligence, but also as the variety of emotions a rock musician conveys also appeals to a larger crowd of people.

Then, we get to the general IQ score dropping factor, and that is the appeal of heavy metal in the low IQ scorers, who are drawn to the genre due to the aggression and comradery and linking to hostility and criminal activities. Although these groups are far from the norm; as the study concluded, the heavy metal fans were “gentle but lacking self-confidence” I would nod in agreement that this would probably describe the fan base much more accurately than aggressive and anti-establishment. Punk rock, again, would draw the crowd in from the law breaking section of rock listeners, but then, on the other hand punk rockers also include pacifists and social anarchists who do not believe in any forceful control of another person; not person to person any more than group (government) to a person. Punk rock appeals to some thieves and racists, but take another sub-genre of punk and your audience is nowhere near the same by their personal values. Rock and heavy metal is different, because the same bands appeal to both peace-loving, gentle fans and biker crowd, who, as much as we’d like to white wash it, do contain groups that are tightly linked to crime and who even groom young kids to join the criminal gangs under the guise of support and friendship. (Although many law abiding people swallow the whole bear-hugging and “protect you from the bullies” act hook, line, and sinker, and also employ their own authentically altruistic brands of the same thing, only a naive person would believe the original intent was not criminal in nature. It is the easiest thing to do to show kindness to someone who receives none, to later turn them into your humble, grateful servant ready to do anything for you; including committing crimes, as long as asked in a kind, supportive tone.)

Any genre that is named as something as “recruiting point” or a sign of intelligence in general, always attracts a few posers, lowering the actual IQ score and the accuracy of the genre actually being an indicator of intelligence. Just as Jazz and IQ, a lot of social, friendly people shy away from even admitting to liking the music because they don’t want the stigma of being a poser, while the posers do the opposite; pretend to like the music while only pretending to because they think listening to certain type of music will “make you smart” (the belief that the act of listening to certain type of music will heighten your IQ because smart people listen to it) or “make you appear smart” (believing that it is appearances that count, and that one can always fit in with the smart people by performing certain actions and the truth of the matter doesn’t really matter), both motivations being possible motivations for listening to music you don’t really like.

IQ, music, and school grades

Your IQ scores and school grades do not correlate, because IQ measures your ABILITY to learn, while the school scores measure what did you actually learn. The fact that someone has an ability to learn quick, doesn’t mean they are willing or motivated to learn it, and when learning means mostly “memorizing” the correlation drops even further down.

School systems are created for the median intelligence level (because that’s where most students are), which makes the average IQ people feel smarter than the intelligent people feel because the average IQ people are focussed on things that the school system wants them to learn, giving them a power position in the system. The highly intelligent are rarely interested in what school has to offer them, particularly in countries where elite schools are either too difficult to enter into or completely non-existent. (In such environment, the school system doesn’t offer enough of a challenge to a person with a high IQ to be a motivation to try to learn, let alone memorize things.) Many of the high IQ people truly do not even try to learn things, but coast along through school still winding up at the top quarter of the graduates while putting no effort into the school, while a person with a normal IQ or slightly lower than median IQ could wind up on the top simply through studying hard, and putting all their effort into getting on top.

IQ could be measured by the required repetition times that it takes for a person to retain a piece of information in their memory, and further, how fast they can apply it to a larger context. Low intelligence people need several times for repetition, and a lot more additional information to be stated out loud to understand the full picture, and some still fail to understand a concept that to a highly intelligent person takes but a sentence or two to convey. This, again, contains an observational bias. A person who is skilled in one area of life will retain the information related or adaptable to that type of thinking faster than a person who is not naturally interested in that area of life. For instance, music is a highly mathematical form of art, it consists fractions, scales, and consistent patterns, yet, a mathematician will not be able to repeat or explain a piece of music that to a skilled musician is a no-brainer. Because we all are somewhat exposed to mathematics, however, a skilled musician could most likely solve a fairly complex mathematical problem, even without a particular interest towards it, or even give an intuitive answer, because music is highly intuitive, and anything that can be solved with something like the distance measured by the speed of sound intuitively, they might be able to give an answer that is based on a gut feeling where a mathematician would fail. (The question is, would the musician be able to accurately give the answer in meters, even if they could accurately estimate when the sound was to repeat or whatever. People who do not read notes but still play music would understand what I mean.)

However, one of the strongest signs of intelligence is the speed at which the person is able to understand and use new information in practice. Unfortunately, intelligent people know this, and often, when they try to impress someone, they get so boggled down with the fear of making a fool out of themselves by not being able to learn what they should, that they simply shut down and fail to remember it. A great example is Steven Tyler who can recite the most complex of lyrics in his comfort zone, but in the fear of not being able to repeat the lyrics to a relatively simple-worded Extreme’s song (that even I can do) More Than Words, he “snobbed out”, probably pretended to be too busy to take time to learn the lyrics and failed miserably to deliver, but a week later, after relaxing a little, had no trouble with the lyrics. A person’s values and fears are a huge issue when it comes to measuring intelligence, and Steven Tyler is the perfect example, being an absolute wizard doing what he does, but as a senior rock star, faces the fear of aging, probably fearing Alzheimer’s that would end his career, if not prematurely, then short, fear of being outdone by younger colleagues, and insecurity of not knowing what people think of his very public past with drugs and other conflicts, giving him an undue pressure to simply go through the day, and to perform. There should be no question in anyone’s mind on whether this man is a true genius or not, but there is, and that affects his ability to function – highly intelligent people are ALWAYS observing themselves and others, continually assessing themselves, other people’s perception

A person’s values and fears are a huge issue when it comes to measuring intelligence, and Steven Tyler is the perfect example, being an absolute wizard doing what he does, but as a senior rock star, faces the fear of aging, probably fearing Alzheimer’s that would end his career, if not prematurely, then short, fear of being outdone by younger colleagues, and insecurity of not knowing what people think of his very public past with drugs and other conflicts, giving him an undue pressure to simply go through the day, and to perform. There should be no question in anyone’s mind on whether this man is a true genius or not, but there is, and that affects his ability to function – highly intelligent people are ALWAYS observing themselves and others, continually assessing themselves, other people’s perception on them and how well they are performing and how they are perceived, and that creates insecurities that are lacking in median high people who simply see themselves as being fail-proof and awesome even though that is not at all the case. There is also the observational bias of the normal-high intelligent people, who believe that people who are different do not know how to be normal, and do not understand that “being normal” is not a goal for most people, but being happy is. Being normal is often in direct conflict with being happy, and that drives people into “abnormal” behaviors and lifestyles, that is neither sign of stupidity nor trauma like the normal people often think.

To muddle the waters even more, we get the fear of aging, and that aforementioned Alzheimer’s threat looming in the horizon. When the people surrounding a person starts looking for signs of intellectual decline, they can see a decline when there truly wasn’t any, and nobody is as easy to convince that they are losing their smarts than someone nearing 70.

Sexuality and intelligence

As far as music goes, sexuality is a huge part in many musical genres, apart from sections of Jazz and classical music, and it is those sub-genres that “intelligent” people thrive to listen to. Asexuality isn’t, of course, a measure of intelligence, but often confused as such. Speaking of Steven Tyler, if you cannot understand his lyrics, if they make no sense to you, you truly must be a virgin. 😉 To write such smut with so few naughty words is a true sign of intelligence if there ever has been one! To many people, his lyrics may sound like just words strung together without any meaning at all or disjointed sections of idiotic meanings, but they are truly a work of a sex-crazed genius, nothing short of it (and I love the Tyler lyrics and shamelessness of his sexuality and expression of it). However, I am certain him and the rest of Aerosmith have been more than often subjected to a treatment of a circus animal in the misguided belief that these guys are nothing but a product of a crazy marketing ploy that happened to work.

Sexuality is often referred to as “the lower nature” of humans, but the reason why it is labelled that has again NOTHING to do with intelligence and everything to do with the fact everyone wants it so much that those who do not get sex have to protect their egos by pretending it is “dirty” “low” or somehow a sign of a low intelligence. Obviously, that is not true, but it is an easy target to take, especially if you believe the pretense: “Oh I am so high and mighty that I don’t even WANT sex!” Ludicrous! If not wanting sex is true, it is caused by a severe trauma, often by a past life attack on one’s sexuality, most likely through religious belief systems. (And the pretend-smart people who got this far thinking “ok she makes sense” and dropping out now as I mention “reincarnation” just got caught for being ego-smart, which means they have a dogma that they need to uphold, in this case; “no consideration of the possibility of the existence of soul can be discussed, let alone believed or promoted in an intellectual conversation.” Well fuck you. Your dogma doesn’t change the facts, nor does having the word “fuck” in my vocabulary make me dumb, nor having an emotional reaction to a situation makes me stupid.)

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