“Statistically speaking, I’m the smartest person in the room.”
A friend of mine (Erika) was talking to an acquaintance of hers when the acquaintance made that statement. This pissed her off to no end, as she saw it as pure arrogance. I was hearing about it later as she was talking to me about the argument.
“Well,” I said, “What if it were true? Would it be arrogance if his IQ is extremely high?”
Erika’s response was unequivocal: Yes. After a small bit of back-and-forth, I pretty much established that, to Erika, there were simply no circumstances in which a person could make such a statement without it being an act of pure arrogance. I have no idea what the context of the original statement from him was, but I was still shocked by the depth of her determination.
Surely if a seven-foot tall person suggests that he’s probably the tallest person present, that’s not (definitively, at least) arrogance? If an Olympic gold medal sprinter suggests that he’s a fast runner, it’s pretty much established fact? So if a person knows himself to be in the top ½% of human intelligence, is it impossible for this to be mentioned without arrogance?
It certainly could be arrogance– somebody walking around randomly pointing out to people how smart he is is going to (rightly so) come off looking like a jerk– but if the topic of conversation is intelligence, then wouldn’t that be fair game in order to establish perspective at least?
Putting it another way, is it arrogant of me, here, in this blog, to mention the fact that I am a genius? Even though it is integral to the particular intent and perspective of this entire site? Some commenters have said so. Erika (if she knew this site existed) apparently would say “Yes”. So (with the same caveat) would my wife, Mary.
Recently I’ve been thinking about this aspect of myself more often — in context of this blog, and in response to suggestions from readers regarding books and such. As I’ve done so it’s dawned on me just how much I’ve been essentially stifling this aspect of myself, mostly in response to a strong negative push from my wife. She, like Erika, thinks it arrogant to mention it– essentially that I’m doing something morally wrong by bringing it up. But how can that be? It’s what I am. Is it morally wrong for me to exist? (I’m starting to think this is where this blog has done me the most good — it is the only outlet I have for contemplation or discussion of this part of myself.)
In recent months Mary and I have been going to marriage counseling. The last time we went I finally brought this topic up. I started by talking about how there was an aspect of myself that I had been burying because of Mary’s reaction to it, and that I simply couldn’t do it any more. With that lead-in, I stated what that aspect is — that I’m a genius. Mary started arguing back and forth about how I’m so arrogant about it, and the counselor* (visibly suppressing a smile) pointed out that he hadn’t seen me say a single thing that he saw as arrogant. I basically sat back in silence as she argued back and forth with him. The two of them actually went for about five to ten minutes, with a single interjection from me: “Mary, you’re doing it right now.”
It really struck me how bad of a point this was between us. For all the other issues we have, this one may actually be critical. I think many of our problems are her trying to “stand up to me” to prove that she’s just as good as I am, in light of my “arrogant” belief that I’m highly intelligent. The next day I picked up her laptop to use the web browser for a second, and the page she’d last been on popped up — an IQ test at Mensa’s web site. All I can guess is that she wanted to somehow show me that she’s just as “good” as I am.
I put “good” in quotes there for a reason. This is the crux of the problem: IQ is a measurement, and “genius” is simply a categorization based on that measure (at least in the sense that I almost always use it). Most people see it as a judgement call. You say “I’m a genius”, or “I have a high IQ” and they hear “I’m better than you.”
There are certainly arrogant geniuses out there; also non-geniuses who use the term for self-aggrandizement. But that does not– it can’t– invalidate every use of the term, or the very concept itself, as self-important fluff. Nonetheless, it’s clearly a touchy subject, and something that probably all highly intelligent people must deal with at one time or another. And it’s one more hurdle to be surmounted as geniuses try to fit in to the world around them.
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* The counselor is Norm, for those who’ve been reading all along. Actually my wife’s psychologist, but expanded to seeing us together as the marriage has had trouble.
“Recently I’ve been thinking about this aspect of myself more often — in context of this blog, and in response to suggestions from readers regarding books and such.”
:) :) :) :)
“It really struck me how bad of a point this was between us. ”
Oh… groan… You poor thing, Fred! :(
I think when people are launching that arrogance witch-burning, it makes sense to ask questions to get down to the bottom of it. What the heck does “better than” mean??? I still don’t know for sure and it may be different in every situation, but I have some pretty good guesses:
Equal rights are based on us being “created equal”. I think people may be getting rights equality confused with equality in ability, as they seem to react as if an inequality in ability undermines the entire concept of equal rights.
Right now I don’t know if this is a philosophical issue or more of a social issue — and it might be multiple things. By social issue I am referring to the way that many of the more powerful but less morally developed individuals out there (and here I am referring to the monetarilly greedy, like ammoral business owners for instance, because most of the geniuses I’ve met just aren’t like this) will use any advantage they can to strip people of everything they can. “Everything should belong to me” seems to be their philosophy. I think possibly many people fear that if you think you have an advantage, you will use it to hurt them – so they fight back with “propoganda” of sorts – if they can cause you to doubt your self-confidence, maybe you’ll think twice about your impunity to take advantage. Financial, psychological and other predators are a real danger to people, and they are extremely common! There is a real risk for people of being taken by a scam or screwed over by an employer. Because of that risk, they must remain wary. Grand self-confidence is a symptom of some very nasty diseases like sociopathy and narcissistic personality disorder and grand claims are common in scams. People are taught that grand claims are a red flag, and so I think their minds are primed to think “watch out, this guy might take advantage!” Tearing us down with “You’re arrogant!” might be a survival strategy.
Then there’s the problem that nobody likes to be held to unrealistic standards. A lot of highly intelligent people are unaware that their abilities are different. When they encounter someone with less ability than they have in some particular area, they perceive it as laziness or unusual stupidity and react accordingly. So, people around them feel expected to live up to standards that are impossible for them. This is an extremely invalidating experience. So part of it is that they want to be accepted and valued and not criticized for things that are beyond their control. This, I think, is what they’re complaining about when they say we’re being pretentious — except that they have no clue we really mean it when we say we have such an extraordinary ability. They assume that we are being dishonest, and also that the standard we set is humanly impossible.
And of course there are the people who want to be close to us and get angry when something threatens that. Many people view socialization as a social heirarchy. I’ve met geniuses who seem to be altogether unaware of this social heirarchy – perhaps because they see such a variety of complexities that a linear model does not categorize social reality well enough for them. The ideas is that in order to “have” someone, you have to be in the same “level” of the social “heirarchy”. If you’re not “good enough” they won’t want you. This is all very competitive – as if everyone can be ranked and all the people you want to be around must be won. To put yourself high up on the social heirarchy is to create an unreasonable expectation in their minds – they cannot climb that high on the rankings, so they perceive it as fatal to the relationship. So their only recourse is to attempt to get you to aim at a lower “level” – because if you choose to aim higher, they’re left out.
Everyone has different needs and we all have the need to be understood. For a lot of geniuses, the decision to be around other gifted people is simply due to a need to be themselves and be accepted for who they are. Unfortunately, this is misinterpreted.
Heh. That’s a much more complex concept than I have. The way I see it, nobody– absolutely, positively nobody– likes to be called stupid, and the vast majority of people will respond quite defensively if called such. (A corollary: Very few people in the world believe that they themselves are stupid. Statistically, a great number of people are wrong about this.)
So, if you say you’re exceptionally smart, then you must be saying that they (by comparison) *aren’t* smart. Which isn’t quite the case, but that is the easy perception of such statements. For most people, “I’m smarter than most people” equals “You’re stupid.” Thus an almost reflexive animosity toward anyone making such a claim.
There is definitely something to the “he’s taking advantage” argument as well, though. If people just blindly accepted others’ claims of high intellect, they would be more likely to just blindly follow that person — most likely to their detriment. “I don’t really understand what he wants to do, but he’s a lot smarter than I am, so I should go along.” Interestingly, I see this quite a lot lately in politics. “The experts say such-and-such, so just go along with it.” And many people do. So in that sense, the antagonism against professions of intelligence does in fact seem like a decent survival mechanism.
If you’ve never read Vonnegut’s story “Harrison Bergeron”, go read it.
And before other comments start coming in — no, I don’t go around proclaiming my own superior intellect. This blog is an aberration, and an outlet for that specific area of discussion. What I’m discovering, however, is that it is a legitimate discussion to have; and it may be important to try to get the people around me to understand that there are significant differences in the way I interact with the world.
That’s a really good point – that they feel stupid whenever they’re confronted with someone smarter. And I have observed that this applies to all kinds of things, not just blatant claims of ability. When I do something that comes naturally to me, not knowing that others have a hard time with it, sometimes I make them feel stupid by accident.
Odd that for so many, it never occurs to them that I might have an unusual ability. Most people compare themselves to me and feel bad about the comparison rather than the way I would like them to feel – like there’s nothing wrong with them at all and they are welcome to ask me to do the things I’m good at for them sometimes.
I wonder if this might have something to do with the way they are schooled. They’re not put in with smarter kids and taught to socialize with them, they’re actively separated from all the kids that are older and any smarter kids in the class are forced to go at a slower pace. So, a lot of this confusion might just be that they’re not raised steeped in an environment where it makes sense to consciously learn to make distinctions about who has what abilities and whether other people’s abilities and one’s own abilities are rare or common.
Maybe all they need is to know where normal is. If nobody told them… I mean, nobody told the gifted people, either, where normal is. We’re ALL ability-confused. Gifted people don’t see their gifts because they don’t realize that they’re normal.
Its interesting coincidence, though, that what is most common is for both gifted and normal people to be ability-confused in such a way that the giftedness is invisible. Then again, I was also having ability confusion in another way, where I didn’t recognize people’s stupidity because I thought they were thinking on the same level that I am. So perhaps there is no coincidence to speak of.
And we’re all just ability-confused.
“it never occurs to them that I might have an unusual ability. Most people compare themselves to me and feel bad about the comparison”
I think they do know that you’re unusual, but it’s still an uncomfortable thing. But you’re actually raising a slightly different point here — I was referring to *explicit claims* of intelligence, while you are now bringing up *any* demonstration of higher intelligence. And I think you’re right.
It’s kind of like mortality — people know they’ll die someday, but don’t like thinking about it. People know that somewhere out there is somebody smarter than they are, but they don’t actually like *meeting* that person — largely because they assume such people are… here we go again… arrogant about it.
Here’s another observation for you: from my experience, I have come to the conclusion that a great many average intelligence people believe themselves to be much more intelligent than they actually are. Thus, meeting an actual genius forces them to confront the reality of their position within that particular spectrum. If they really believe that they are highly intelligent, then displays (or claims) of actual high intelligence must be false. When you do something that comes naturally to you, but displays your higher intelligence, you are in a sense calling their bluff — you’re dashing their illusions.
Note that much of this train of thought was inspired by your reference to everyone being “ability confused”. I think it’s a good observation about how schools try to train people to all be the same. They train people to think it’s shameful in a way to be different — especially “better”. (Again: read Harrison Bergeron if you haven’t. There’s a link in a previous comment.)
Oh, hey, that’s an interesting alternate theory – that they are essentially over-confident in their intelligence perhaps as part of a means to maintain functional optimism.
Still, I wonder if this observation is truly different from my observation, or if they are two sides to the same coin… once again I wonder “What do they feel they’re up against that would necessitate being smarter than average?”
Once again I am coming to competition as the answer to that question. Otherwise, wouldn’t it be more likely they’d be content with being smart enough, and for their idea of smart enough to be specifically relative to the tasks they must complete every day?
Then again, is this really about wanting to be more intelligent, or is it about wanting to be more intelligent than OTHERS?
It could be argued that even if they do want to be more intelligent than average, perhaps what is actually going on is that they want to be more intelligent than what is needed for everyday life, while the difficulty of everyday tasks is pretty much tailored to the intelligence level of the average person.
Come to think of it, I would want to ask “Why is feeling stupid important?” It seems obvious that feeling stupid would be a very bad thing, but why?
I’m guessing that it’s because a person might fear social rejection, difficulty competing to survive (especially at work), being restricted needlessly (or treated like a kid) by authorities that are overbearing are playing power games or are overly careful, and being taken advantage of by bad people.
Intelligence is important to everything that’s important. So whatever it is that they feel is important they may fear losing to stupidity.
In any case, I would say that a large part of that could very well be fear of domineering behavior. Depending on how you view society, even more of the fear of stupidity might be fear of domineering behavior. Here’s why:
In a society where nobody is ever domineering and we’re all either trying to help others or being neutral towards them, we’d have such strong social networks that being stupid just wouldn’t matter. Instead of competition, we’d have co-operation. Instead of people worrying that someone smarter will get the better job, they might instead feel grateful to that person with the better job because they are providing a big service to others.
So, a large part of the fear of stupidity might be that we’re living in a culture that is heavily influenced by those with domineering personalities.
What a stupid question!
.
.
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(sorry, did that sting a bit?)
Sounds like socialism. To paraphrase a smarter man than I: “Wonderful theory. Wrong species.”
Such an attitude would go against millions of years of evolution. Man will never be comfortable being dependent on the benevolence of strangers; and man will never be comfortable with strangers feeding off the sweat of his brow.
If we were ants, it would be a different story perhaps. But so long as we are individuals….
Hahahah! It didn’t sting. Then I read “Did that sting” and wondered if you were trying to make it sting… and that thought did sting. But now I don’t know what your intentions were (probably you were just being funny, but I can always come up with more possibilities. For instance, it is also possible that you were trying to make me feel stupid for a moment as a sort of psychology experiment to give me the opportunity to analyze how I feel about it and gain insight into the conversation) so now I’m just confused.
“Sounds like socialism. To paraphrase a smarter man than I: “Wonderful theory. Wrong species.””
Interesting that you seemed to react as if I was advocating for socialism when in fact I was just using it for compare/contrast.
A friend in a foreign country told me that people were really appreciative of giftedness where he lives and he thinks it is because in their culture, they perceive giftedness as a gift to everyone – the culture is far less selfish.
As far as whether socialism would work or not, I think there are some who are purely selfish (as in literally without empathy) and will try and take advantage of any system they’re in. If we don’t deal with those people directly and instead attempt to hide THEIR nature in a new system, we are going to have severe problems with them whatever we do.
In a socialist system, they’d be making everyone else distrustful and spreading a sense of “every man for himself” that results in things like cutthroat competition and general callousness – both of which would prevent anyone’s hearts from being open enough for socialism to work.
Then there are a great many people who want to be good and do have empathy but are often compelled to be selfish – just due to things like a lack of a sense of security and an inability to synthesize (which might be the reason people tend to compete rather than seek a consensus by creating a solution that meets everyone’s needs). If there were no non-empathetic people, and everyone else had financial security and the ability to synthesize, I think it is possible that it could work.
I am not particularly impressed with any of the systems I know of.
Um… actually, your “possibility” is as good a description as any. :-)
Tongue-in-cheek, certainly, (I don’t imagine for a moment that you’re stupid), but at the same time, bringing to the fore the simple fact that *nobody* (including someone very confident in her own intelligence) likes the suggestion of stupidity.
(Specifically, though, I’m intrigued that your reaction was the exact opposite order than what I intended. I thought you *might* take the initial declaration seriously, and added the “did that sting” to demonstrate that I wasn’t entirely serious.)
So “Why is feeling stupid important?” It’s important because evolution has created creatures that have a strong aversion to feelings of inferiority. Which in turn plays right in to my theory that people tend to think themselves smarter than they actually are— it’s just a way of coping with the world. Also, a bit of built-in overconfidence in some is one of the things that drives man to greatness. If we only ever did what we knew we were safely, rationally, capable of, we’d probably still all be living in wood huts.
Actually, I find this more and more interesting as I think about it: intellectual overconfidence as an evolutionary trait. A person who thinks he can do something is more likely to try, and thus succeed— an evolutionary plus unless the overconfidence lead him to something that gets him killed. The more purely rational person isn’t as likely to try something unless he is already sure of success, and is thus less likely to strive and really succeed. What was that ad campaign? “Here’s to the crazy ones”?
…which in turn play straight into my depression, which has led me to attempt very little in recent years despite the arguable likelihood that I would be more successful than average if I just got out there and tried.
“*nobody* (including someone very confident in her own intelligence) likes the suggestion of stupidity.”
Actually, the sting was concern that you might have meant to hurt me or might have set aside your empathy because you found some excuse to ignore my feelings.
It has always hurt far worse that a person would *want* to hurt me than the actual thing they said.
“I’m intrigued that your reaction was the exact opposite order than what I intended.”
Come to think of it I haven’t felt stupid in a very long time. High intelligence helps a lot, but other important parts of this recipe are that I am careful beyond what is needed to avoid embarrassment and I don’t blame myself when things go wrong. That probably seem very irresponsible. My replacement for blame is to seek to understand the underlying cause and effect, accept whatever limits are involved (Whether those be another person’s emotional limits or my own intellectual limits) and then ask, with my new understanding: “What could I have done differently?”. I never fall short of coming up with an answer. I may not get one right away, and sometimes what I try doesn’t work at first, but I never seem to run out of options before finding one that fits.
So, I take control over my life, knowing that it is not my fault that things go wrong. I am neither responsible or irresponsible, conceited or humble. My aim is to be assertive, realistic and Zen.
I can see that.
This was an interesting comment from you , as it gives a significant insight behind the semi-singularity that is your intellect. You have a level of dispassion that is unusual, and I think is definitely connected to the insight provided by your intelligence.
I’m also reminded of my own reaction to a comment by “Halcyon” to my first post on this site— He said something intended to be hurtful, and my response was more one of bemusement than anything else.
It seems you are more successful that I am at this type of thing. In my case I’m overly careful— to the point that I don’t ever really do anything of significance. Fear of failure to the point of complete impotence. But then again, I have other issues beyond your experience. :-\ And of course this is the precise opposite of the overconfidence in others that I’ve described in earlier comments. Irony!
I can recognize it, but that doesn’t make me strong enough to overcome it.
Without turning this into a political blog, a quick response: I don’t believe such a society could exist long term on a large scale, and thus such a theory is almost purely academic. (Socialism can work on the small scale, such as tribal societies, but doesn’t scale up well in any lasting way.)
Fred –
“In my case I’m overly careful— to the point that I don’t ever really do anything of significance.”
I read a quote recently that really liberated me:
(This is a paraphrase.) Doing nothing is just as much of a risk as doing something, so you have acknowledge that you’re taking a risk either way and simply choose to take the best risk.
For instance, doing nothing could lead to death by suicide in your case, so doing nothing is a huge risk.
“Fear of failure to the point of complete impotence.”
Perfectionism is common in gifted people and it can result in procrastination.
Just find a successful idiot – they’re fairly common – and if you acknowledge how easy it is, you’ll realize that you can blow them away.
“But then again, I have other issues beyond your experience. :-\”
You have had one extremely significant issue beyond my experience. However, I have had countless extremely significant issues beyond your experience.
And I have resolved them.
“And of course this is the precise opposite of the overconfidence in others that I’ve described in earlier comments. Irony!”
They say “The problem with the world is that the idiots are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
You don’t have to be full of doubt. There are things you can do.
I recently remarked to friend that I was tired of feeling like a freak and “I need more friends with IQs over 140.” He bristled visibly and replied, “Yes. YOU do. *I* don’t like feeling stupid.”
I didn’t intend arrogance. I even lowballed the number to be close to his level. (I nearly said 160.)
To state that one is probably the smartest person in the room isn’t necessarily arrogant, but it may unavoidably result in making others feel unintelligent by comparison. Not arrogant; but insensitive and insulting because by using a measure of intelligence we assure that comparison. I am generally very careful not to mention IQ or refer to generic intelligence; I will say if pressed that some things come easily for me. Unfortunately the one time I let my guard down, thinking this friend was close enough to understand, I was wrong. Lesson RE-learned. :)
Vraivamp — (and… everyone else!)
Read this article: How to Charm Gifted Adults into Admitting Giftedness
The title is sort of misleading.
If this is a good friend, you might take a chance here and talk to him. Very specifically talk about how you can’t control what you are, any more than he can control being blond|tall|crosseyed|whatever. Talk about how important his friendship is. Talk about how your mind separates you from people around you, and how difficult it is being alone in a room full of people. Especially, talk about how difficult it is to hide what you’re really thinking — to hide what you are — and talk about how you have to do that all the time. Talk about how great it would be to have one friend with whom you can let your guard down. Say you’re sorry you made him feel bad when you “talked numbers”, but you were just venting — trying to get someone to understand just a little.
(I’m suddenly drawing a comparison to the character of Sookie in “True Blood” — she’s psychic and everyone is always suspicious of her, until the day she meets a guy whose mind she can’t read….)
Especially, (if he gives you a chance after all this) talk about how it isn’t just a numbers game — and it’s not a competition. The way your mind works is different, not, specifically, “faster” or (!) “better”.
RE: the above: I’ve done this— sort of— in the form of a session with a marriage counselor. I talk about it a bit in the main post above — but basically it was the first time I really confronted my wife regarding how this is who I am, and it’s not something I can spend my life hiding and stifling. This was “make or break” for the marriage itself— if she can’t bear who I am, there’s just no point in continuing. Ultimately her real response to this still remains to be seen….
What’s the dichotomy? Ballpark.
My husband is hard to peg, his school test puts him about 25 below me, though dyslexia makes it hard to measure. His spatial intelligence is vastly beyond mine – one area I really do feel inadequate in! But we’ve gotten to a point where we can respect each other’s different talents. most of the time.
I have no idea what the split is. She’s no dummy. Took an online IQ test (huge grain of salt on this one) and came up with 124. She has other issues though and tends to sabotage herself — which ends up with here basically acting less intelligent than I think she could be, and resenting the idea that I could have some claim better than that.
Interesting bit about spatial intelligence— hope I’m talking about the same thing you are. I have very poor vision, and virtually no native depth perception. My brain has compensated for this by, on an ongoing basis, modeling my surroundings in 3 dimensions. I can’t see distances so well, but I interact with the world basically moving though an overlaid 3-D VR model. It’s handy when I turn the lights off and have to move through a dark room.
Yes that’s exactly what I mean by spatial intelligence. I’m lousy with visual memory; I remember turns and street names while he remembers the gas station or yellow house with the white fence, etc. I have more difficulty with schematics, 3d modelling; he’s great at that. He’s an intuitive whiz with fixing things, machines. Interestingly, dyslexics and those with autism spectrum disorders often think in pictures, while most others think primarily in words. There are many different types of intelligence. I try to remind myself of that when he screws up things that I consider elementary. Then I try to find activities where we are on equal footing.
Good for you! I hope it works out for you whether you stay married or not!
I have actually read that before. I find xi to be a more useful concept for my husband than myself. Despite extreme native intelligence, his self image was skewed by severe dyslexia. He struggles constantly with opposing feelings of being smarter and stupider than ‘normal’ people.
I can’t objectively address the differences between gifted/average people regarding emotion. My own early experiences have no doubt imprinted my reactions. I can identify with the cited example of the boy who responded violently to a whole litany of past offences rather than to just the events of one day.
However my opinion that verbally claiming genius, or the extent of that genius, leads to others’ hurt feelings stands. Recently my mother was trying to reassure my daughter that being gifted was indeed a gift, despite its complications. She noted that when I was IQ tested that I wasn’t given a definitive score, that she was only told I was somewhere above ###, the upper limit of the test’s accepted accuracy. My daughter is a Mensan, but tends to compare herself to me and others unfavorably, and took away from that conversation just another confirmation that she is less intelligent than her mother.
Seems every gifted person I know is both arrogant and insecure about their abilities. The xi article makes that point fairly well, though I am still partial to the theory of intelligence and social adjustment advanced by Grady Towers. (Moderately gifted = successful, leaders of men; while genius = social inept, isolated and alien to average people.)
My apologies for the linguistic shorthand and inconsistencies, as well as any typos… my Droid is not allowing me to view the entire text field as I type, and I’m lazy enough to let it fly.
“my opinion that verbally claiming genius, or the extent of that genius, leads to others’ hurt feelings stands”
Oh, absolutely. The question is how to deal with it.
PS — For some reason I had the impression you were quite young– i.e. teenager or early 20s (not sure why).
PPS — You typed all that on your PHONE? Dang!
I did email my friend last night, and we’re good though I doubt he can ever truly understand. Other complications there, primarily his desire to do things other than talk with me, LOL. As for having one friend that understands, my best friend is also the only person I have ever met that is statistically tied with me on raw IQ score. We did the same online test, and scored within 3. (When she wants to irritate me, she’ll bring up those 3 points. Brat!) I know that I am very very lucky to have found her. Have considered joining 999, but have doubts both of my own ‘official’ test scores, and the existence of a real peer group.
Well I’m not leaving this url on any of the work or home computers! I’m 34. I suppose I could utilize more precise termiology here, just a habit not to. I have spent my life trying to translate what’s in my head to regular people, and my kids. I’m good with not posturing ;)
AND – I’m a soCal girl… we play fast and loose with language here. Anything else is rewarded with blank stares or open hostility. I think I’ve avoided dropping any f-bombs; and you have no idea how habitual THAT is.