George Allen Miller One Geek's take on all things SciFi

No matter how much we would like it to be true, we are not all created equal. Some of us are born bigger, some stronger, some with natural talents and others like me that are ruggedly handsome. Ahem. But that’s all physical. Sure there are differences how we look, are there more than that from birth? Intelligent tests of kids would suggest that some are born more intelligent than others. There’s websites devoted to it in fact, http://www.kids-iq-tests.com/ to have your child’s IQ tested. So lets go ahead and accept it, we’ve been giving ourselves intelligence tests for decades. OK, some people are just born more intelligent than others.

So, is that it? We can look different, we can think different, can we even act different? I think the answer is a resounding yes. Have you ever known someone that seemed less interested in things? Have you ever known someone that you’d classify as a risk taker? Someone whose adrenaline doesn’t get going unless they are jumping out of a perfectly good airplane? I have. Many of them. They can’t sit in offices. They are always bored. They simply don’t react to things like the majority does. They are less responsive to stimuli that would normally elicit reactions ranging from excitement or surprise. They experience what I’ve heard called a low heart rate. Not bradycardia mind you. They are perfectly healthy. It’s simply that some people are genetically calmer and less excitable than others.

I find this to be fascinating. I myself tend to fall on the opposite side of the spectrum. I get excited quite easily and often am jubulient about the most innocent of things. Here’s a great example from my childhood, when watching cartoons one day I saw Cobra Commander appear on the Transformers. He was older and there was no Cobra anymore of course but it was him. I was jumping out of my skin I was so excited.

So, that’s neat right. Some people aren’t excitable and some people are. Now what. Well, the point of this isn’t so much that these people are out there, but rather, how to know it when you see it. I was once a flight student. I was learning to get my pilot’s license and my instructor was one of these people. She seemed as if she didn’t care about things, she travelled constantly, she flew planes for a living. Sounds like an exciting life but she was terribly bored. Turns out, it wasn’t that she had a bad child hood, or ate bad foods or did anything to warrant such a demeanor. It was simply that she was born resistant to stimuli that would normally have people dancing in the shoes.

If you happen to find yourself meeting someone that just doesn’t seem to be as animated as others you’ve met, they may very well not be built in a way that you are.