[j45]

Truly smart people have always come across to me as not needing to prove how smart they are

Smart people don't care to convert me to their way of seeing the world. Be it using Ruby, Apple, or not, they are able to see a bigger, wider picture where everything is possible with the right amount of understanding and well placed effort.

Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of the differences and exceptions that divide.

Smart people aren't righteous. They don't seek external validation / conversion to fuel their own beliefs.

Smart people don't add to a situation if they're merely replacing one set of confusing concepts with another (theirs). They are driven by clarity.

Smart people are genuinely, insatiably curious about everything.

Smart people know how to take the good from everything, and deeply understand little knowledge is new, or truly unique.

Smart people I've met live in a mindset of possibility, not doubt or skepticism. One fuels creativity, and the other douses.

[VMG]

> Smart people see the patterns and similarities in everything that unite, instead of the differences and exceptions that divide.

Smart people know that their brain recognizes patterns where there aren't any. They know that they should not fool themselves.

> Smart people I've met live in a mindset of possibility, not doubt or skepticism. One fuels creativity, and the other douses.

Then they are the opposite of what the article is describing. Smart people I know constantly question their own beliefs.

[j45]

Agreed all around.

I didn't say I agreed with the article, haha. ;)

Constantly questioning your beliefs can lead to constantly doubting everything. Over time there is risk of only believing in doubts.

Developing a healthy curiosity that tests, clarifies and strengthens your current understanding is that.

If there's one thing I would have added to the post above, it would be that Smart people know that developing a correct mindset for the journey of learning is far more important than the destination of feeling that they have "arrived" with their level of understanding.

Too many people, think they're done once they arrive at their conclusions, or hang onto them so dearly and fanatically based on all the work they've done. Smart people, for me, are ready to piss everything they've believed into the wind every day because of possibility.

[pestaa]

Bookmarked, thank you. May I ask the source?

[j45]

Um, I wrote it. Flattered, though, thanks. :)