Intelligent, Between a Grandparent & a Grandchild

Translated…

Loo Chang is real smart, oftentimes, when I’d forgotten something on my to-do-list, where I’d put something, he could always recall it clearly.  One day, Loo Chang asked me, “Daddy, why am I so smart?”

Those of you readers who are very sensitive may connect this question with the great philosopher, Nietzsche’s biography’s second chapter, “Why am I So Intelligent?”, exactly the same, –that just shows, only super geniuses and uneducated children will have such narcissistic inquiries.  But this, is a hard question to answer, if you’d answered, “You think you’re very smart?”, it may damage the child’s pride; and if you’d answered, “Wow, you are, really smart”, then, it would have that hint of perfunctory and fawn, so, what do we do?  Yes, Chong-Jien Lee, the teacher kept reminding us, to keep our positive curiosities.

I’d asked Loo Chang, “Daddy is very curious, why do you feel you’re intelligent?”, and naturally, Loo Chang, from time to time would, get stumped and ask, “Daddy, why do you have so many curiosities?”  (call this, the after-effect of positive curiosity if you will, but gladly, this after effect won’t create major problems).

But this time, without any hesitation, Loo Chang answered, “Because there’s a memory card in my mouth!”—this answer, was so affirmative, even the master, Nietzsche himself couldn’t answer.

MY mother’s mentality was that of a first grader (because she was only schooled for two years in the elementary school), but one day, she’d asked the same question as Loo Chang, “Cheng, why am I so intelligent?” and, to prove what she said was true, she’d added the evidence, “Everybody said that I am smart!”, but this isn’t matched up with reality, before I’d shown my positive curiosities, I’d projected, blurted out, “You’re NOT smart!”

My mother immediately, used her intelligent, and answered this disrespectful and hostile question, she’d replied, “If I’m not intelligent, how can I possibly give birth to a son who has a doctorate?”

So, here, the young child and the elderly are both looking for ways to affirm that they are, intelligent, and, they both are, and, the mother IS exactly like the grandson, in the way she’d reacted, and that just shows, that as we get older, we’d become, more childlike, having our innocence returned back to us again!