You aren't smart if you don't wear a monocle

Dear Human Being,

Smart people read clever books, did you know that?  Smart people watch classic movies from the sixties and eighties. Smart people know history so well, they must be the editors of the book humanity has been writing for ages. Smart people like science and know the periodic table by heart, along with the entirety of Shakespeare, Dante, and Plato. Smart people know art, no, they understand art. Wandering twisted aisles of the museums, smart people admire the greatest conquests of the human mind expressed in an equally twisted shapes. Smart people listen to the right music - some Beethoven with a tinge of Beetles. Smart people walk around chins up and hands behind their backs, wearing monocles and long blue scarfs.

My entire life I have felt self-conscious for not abiding by these rules. I wanted to be that nerdy girl we see in the movies, who is messy but in a cute way and perfect in everything else. I chased the dream of a fantasy girl, molding myself into a shape I never was. It was when all my efforts went down the drain, that I realized how intangible my idea of a "nerdy geek girl" was.

We create labels to hang on ourselves and then make these labels unattainable. Ridiculous, isn't it?

Once, my close friend, a girl with wisdom in eyes wider than the entire world, told me "I would like to read this book, but I am scared I am not smart enough." I was stunned. No one is "not smart enough" to read any book. Of course, someone, whose eye is sharpened by philosophy, would find reading Heidegger less of torture than I do (I doubt that person exists though, even Heidegger himself made a joke of how ridiculously incomprehensible he was), but that does not mean that it is impossible to understand. Quantum physics was founded by humans, along with rocket science, molecular biology, philosophy, literature, and art. Humans just like us, human being.

Intelligence does not have a set in stone definition and thus cannot be measured - not in how many books you read, not in what you say or listen to. The modern era has a million ways of attaining knowledge - movie podcasts, videos, Ted talks, online courses, blogs, social media posts, etc. One must only want to know.

At the same time, there is no shame in not knowing and in not liking. You might not like modern art, despise Plato and consider Shakespear a total doofus. If you can articulate why having given them a try, I am willing to respect your views. Thus, the question of the day is:

P.S. What I described in the first paragraph seems like a collective image of a professor from 1800s, nobel lady from 1920s and Sherlock.