There’s also always a million reasons why your intelligence test might not be quite accurate, and certainly a person themselves will never be able to accurately assess their intelligence without some sort of test. An objective ruler to measure intelligence by is far from trivial, and essentially impossible. It’s especially impossible in the sense that a single test could accurately sum up a person’s capacity to be a productive human being as one number.

Oh, and the other mind-bending realization is that our perception of what it means to be intelligent is ultimately influenced by our own intelligence. So, chances are we’re all probably conceptualizing what it means to be successful in different ways anyway. In this way, there is a chance that the things you envy, like talent or skills you lack, are something that you can teach yourself. The things you’re aware of and can grasp conceptually are probably things you can learn to fully understand. Whether you have the time or motivation to learn new things is ultimately a different question entirely. So, take time to learn new things. In that sense, everyone can always become smarter than they are right now.