No, you're not. No, you don't. No, you couldn't.

Lately it seems as though every person I meet says one of the following things in the course of our conversation:

"I have a 'genius' level IQ."
"I could be in Mensa if I wanted to be..."

There are a couple of problems with these statements/people.

First, if so many people are "geniuses," that makes the "average" person a "genius," and you can't be both. Every definition of "genius" I can find uses the word "extraordinary," meaning "more" or "beyond" ordinary. One definition of "ordinary" is- guess what!?- "average." Sorry, but you can't be- and probably wouldn't want to be, even if you could be- "extra-average"!

Second, your IQ (assuming you accept it as a meaningful concept/measurement) means nothing if you can't apply it! One of the people who made the "Mensa" comment to me is a community college dropout, who can't pay his bills (but can afford lots of pot!), who just lost his driver's license, and claims to have a 146 IQ. Congratulations.

Finally, on a more philosophical level, the idea that one is "born" a genius is appalling at the very least. Humans can't learn or improve?! If you fall below a certain "score" early in life should you just be handed a shovel and told to start digging ditches. I think not. In fact, I would argue that the opposite is true-

“One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius”

Simone de Beauvoir