Intellect is connected with self-consciousness, ability to develop oneself disregarding the natural state one could be in thinking what one could, should be and would be, how else to do, how many options there are for that person to take advantage and see solutions. It is awareness and learning of one’s abilities, possibilities and what is around, learning by looking, imitating, inventing, trying out, failing, seeing ways to evolve with what one has and putting things together. It is not enough to have information you have to know what to do with it. It is to see oneself as one self with something special to contribute. It is to be able to manipulate, calculate, think for oneself, see consequences of actions, be able to realize oneself as individually capable being and solve the complexity rather than escape it. Intellect is itself complex to the point we are not clear yet what it is. We still dwell in the old concept of intellect and are very quick to think of knowing what intellect is. The concept of intelligent things and beings and intelligence in people we many times like to keep alive as one-sided, thin and inaccurate. It could be mixed with a loud bully who is rich. To be able to make a fortune equals intellect in this world. It means one is able to play the game of the market, ready to take risks knowing circumstances, map of the market and ready to put oneself there in the game.

The idea of what intellect is, is more an illusion, what gets our attention and gets noticed most and as such keeps the old structures of society as they have been. Where intellect is found can surprise as deeds talk mightier than words. Who has intellect, how it actualizes itself in our every day when it seems to have vanished but still we think we are very clever. Doing what? It is stitched into and stamped on, held on though it is gone, sown and hammered in a way that it stays on the surface rather than would be thoroughly understood, weight, respected, found and known, if you know what I mean. Simple solutions can be brilliant but be simple and oversimplify complexity is stupid. It is a possession and quality hastily judged which deed itself shows lack and disrespect towards intellect as it is something that measures carefully looking into details and nuances rather than glancing fast without second thought. Intellect has been a possession of the upper classes and has been seen as result more than something that all could have and cultivate. High-born more than peasants, men more than women, adults more than children, money men more than poor men.

It is the most talked about characteristic and trait of anything. We may say that something is frivolous, meaningless, something is difficult and something stupid is easy, light-headed. Intellect is high and stupidity is low. It is to pay attention, ask, learn, but it is not to underestimate because nothing is meaningless. The mere label can do a great deal of damage especially when those labels given get stuck and are taken as such without questioning why it is so, who says, who decided this and why it could not be looked further, why it could not be something else. True stupidity is to believe without second thought, not to see underneath, not to do research and learn from that and believe old truths are true always. Something said becomes a label and fable when said repeatedly like a fate made by people. There is more than meets the eye is true wisdom. To play a broken record on and on, as does mankind in repeat doing the same mistakes over and over again. Things and beings represent something that have intellectual capital of certain amount. Intellectual capital gives value in cases where there is vast public awareness by this capital, what this intellectual capital is and value of what? It has contributed to make general innovations, understanding of facts and truths, made our comprehension wider about the world and ourselves. How we find intellect is to find meaning and more importantly how do we find intellect of our own and evolve and how we see evolving.

To learn value of things and beings, what truly is precious goes beyond intellect. We make a mistake when we stop there and start admiring intellect. Intellect is a tool. We are taught who is who, whom we should be afraid of and why, where value and strength come from, what is valuable, what it is to be strong. We learn to unappreciated ourselves as intelligent learners and makers when atmosphere is set in a way who can be intelligent and what it is to be intelligent. It is to put something and someone on to their place which place is dictated not necessarily actively chosen. To call someone or something stupid is to take no interest further. It is to verbally say out loud where you stand compared to what you deem stupid and beneath you because you are more clever. To judge is to deny development. To say she is an idiot means there is not anything other than irritating non-intellectual nonsense she drivels, does and represents. She is useless. She or he is worthless because of this judgement. There is not anything in her or him that is interesting to you, is valuable in what she does and says. She or he is seen through in that moment like a nonperson whose value is taken.