“The Rosy Life Of The High IQ + Neuro-divergent” (A Prose Poem)

by Anton Martin Smith antonmartinsmithwrites@gmail.com

If you have high IQ and Neuro-diversity you tend to live in your own world.

A world of ever-swirling-ideas, stacks of sky-high books & mindsets of never wanting to be ‘pinned down’.

And of course, at least a few decades of voluntary poverty – that goes without saying.

But let me explain the ‘pinned down’ thing.

You see people like us – who are smart & also neuro-divergent (I reckon I have ADHD) –

We love ‘Ideas’ much more than the current version of ‘bland Earthian reality’ dished up.

So this explains our tendency to not want to commit to a single-probability-wave-collapsed, long term course of action –

It is too much connected to the ‘real world’.

We would rather talk about the myriad of pitfalls that the ‘real world’ has waiting to ensnare.

When we do this with a beer or tea or coffee we are in our version of ‘heaven’.

For example I don’t like the idea of being a Lawyer with two kids in private school with a high price wife on a hill.

And then we would have dinner parties where we all sit & rattle off narrow upper-middleclass epithets to each other.

“Oh I’ve decided to rebalance my portfolio”

“Oh really – that’s wise”

“Yes I decided that while drinking bitch juice at Portsea Polo last week”

“Oh what a great Idea Ms X, and I have got my reno going – we are adding an extra room & two new bathrooms”

“Oh isn’t that wonderful Ms Y – but will Burt still pee on the toilet seats?”

Cue the laughing like Hyena’s & all in front of poor Blushing Burt.

That kind of life I would see as a ‘living hell’.

The performative narrow-band blandness of it all is stomach churning.

Why would anyone want to live like that?

When I see people like this I think it’s all because they have killed off their inner child.

They have ‘human sacrificed’ themselves.

You can’t think of them as the playful child they once were – it is impossible to divine from their adult faces.

Someone that has a high IQ & is Neuro-diverse sees these things very easily.

We see the unhappiness & the unhappiness out there in the world.

We see through the smoke & mirrors of this ‘reality tv’ world they’ve sneaked on us.

Of course we suffer – for we are usually poor – but perhaps a few might get wealthy off Art/Media/Music etc.

Those ones often can’t handle being back in the world of empty epithets, status, & bank balances – so they do themselves in.

So we are better off being alone on our rooms with books piled high & living off the food scraps the world throws up.

If we die under a ditch early in life – we can accept that.

For at least we saw the swindle and had a original few ideas.

We let the dull have their dinner parties, & we were happily uninvited.

It’s far more fun to make fun of them.

They can swig their overpriced bitch diesel & practice their sneers in their expensive cracked mirrors.

We will be writing of it all with full epistemological & philosophical accuracy for future generations to enjoy.

While they will be outed as the ‘intellectual sludge people’ of the ever-declining post-post-Roman era.

All in all I’d say us high IQ-Neuro-diverse have it pretty good.

The only draw back is we need to raid the back of the couch to buy milk,

And our rooms are book laden dusty debacle obstacle courses.

Other than that life’s Rosy for us.

The only weak point we have is when there is a sudden ‘crisis of confidence’:

Where we wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night with the thought:

“Are we just a rehahsed version of them but don’t know it?”.

It is a terrible conjecture indeed.

If it were true, I would act to bury it deep in my psyche forthwith – to protect a fragile ego.

If it were not true, I’d be willing to write a poem about it.

Dragon slayed my friends – Dragon slayed!

We are not at all like them – we are not like our natural enemies.

We have not yet became that which we fight against.

But this is not the end of our problems:

For what of the next conjecture:

Are we High IQ Neuro-divergent family still just ‘bunch of assholes’ none-the-less?

I call this the ‘Griswold’s theory’ and I hope the answer is not of the ‘one hand clapping in the woods’ type.

But let’s be honest with ourselves: we can easily slip into the territory without knowing it,

So perhaps all of us can be assholes some of the time,

Some of us can be assholes all of the time,

But all of us can’t be assholes all of the time.

This is called the Dylan-asshole-theory.

Of course I could continue, however this is a poem and not an essay.

And I think we can all agree, be us High Iq Neuro-divegent’s or Upper middle class pustules or somthing else:

Only an asshole would write am essay and call it a poem.

I reader pals, would never do that.

Though I am also sometimes a unscrupulous liar.

I regard this as an inalienable right my artistic license,

Which strangely is now made to expire every five years, & limits the number of passengers I can stage dive onto.

And now this essay, er…I mean poem must end.

For more than enough intellectual chaos has been metered out,

And ‘world befuddlement stocks’ have been greatly enriched.

My work is done here.

“My Comic Book Days” (A Poem)

Sometimes I wonder….

Am I what’s left after making the decision many years ago to not to do myself in?.

For there a few stints of bed-riddled-ness when I was younger.

It would have been easy to seriously contemplate ending it all.

But for some weird reason I always had at least a kernel of hope,

To stave off the dark reaper, the destroyer most grim –

Pick a name.

Perhap’s I mostly keep myself alive for the hobbies.

The 60s-90s Rock music, The writing, The coffee-houses.

Yes that all seems so glib,

But it’s amazing how those things can keep you going,

Even when carrying such a wounded soul,

Even while being left holding a quiver full of broken Cupid’s arrows.

Even after this process repeats with the next long-haired spell-caster.

For I probably wouldn’t try a short haired one – call me old fashioned.

But then again, who am I kidding? –

The Port O’ Love has long been closed indefinitely –

This wasn’t so much a choice per se,

More of something external that chose to wash over me –

These the oh so quiet waters of self-preservation.

Or is my entire life just an ode to undiagnosed ADHD?

ADHD that was masquerading as Depression?

I’m sure all the Docs know this & that’s the swindle –

I am convinced there will be a shady medical profiteer’s book called:

“There’s nothing more profitable than misdiagnoses”.

But here I am at middle age – 46 almost 47.

Still Alive & fighting each day to not become what I used be:

“Self-destructo”

That guy unfortunately squashed a lot of my chances to be young & happy.

Though he did provide plenty of empty drunken highs along the way,

So, I guess I shouldn’t complain too much.

I guess a wise man would simply be grateful for it all & soldier on,

& be happy for the bonus wisdom squeezed out along the way.

And I guess this is our fate anyway:

To live in a world that doesn’t really work,

With the real well-designed one,

Forever just slightly out of reach.

To the more troubled life, the thought is soothing.

And so as the sun goes down, now the comic ends.

And as always….

Once again by the end of the day, the city is safe.

……….but for how long?