In my last piece, I wrote about how we repair. Our bodies, our relationships, our social environments all benefit from developing what I call “repair radar.” Repair often follows from something yielding or breaking, something going wrong with the situations that we are in.

Yet there is a kind of uncertainty that is built into our everyday lives that begs us to not wait until something feels wrong or off. We must prepare for things to yield, break, or go south, at least the smaller things that are in some ways predictable to go wrong. 

In order to repair our bodies and minds by reworking our genetics, we must get critical about our environments. Just think of how many things you do in the span of a single day that require critical thinking. I know I think like this when I’m working at my job and when I’m handling things with my kids. When we feel it’s imperative, we think hard and creatively about the choices we have and are making. 

I suggest we apply this critical thinking to our social-environmental contexts like our lives depend on it. Because they actually do. 

The turn to redefining disability is ongoing thanks to the Disability Rights movement. The movement has helped raise awareness of just how detrimental ranking and comparing people is, and how stacked against them our social and educational systems are.

However, the bad news is that the way we determine disability status is the same way that we came to create the rank-comparison system: by IQ. We still give those scores the authority to decide who is what and how valuable we are.

It’s a joy to be able to celebrate the half birthday of Rethinking Intelligence with you! I can’t believe we’re already halfway around the sun. It has been a rich six months full of some of the most memorable moments of my life. And all thanks to readers like you who are enriching the world with a new way of exploring, experiencing, and enacting intelligence!

I’ve been thinking of this in the context of learning and testing knowledge. Psychologist Adam Grant has a new op-ed out in the New York Times that talks about the SATs and their time limits, which the College Board will remove starting next year. He argues that time crunches hurt the majority of people’s chances at doing their best on a test. Time pressures cloud the mind and put it into the opposite of a flow state—a slow state in which learning and performing one’s mastery over learned material is impossible.

I was just writing my monthly newsletter and ruminating on how going back to school is never really about going back. It’s much more of a leap into a new set of relationships, partnerships, creative connections, and novel expressions of your own valuable perspective. But it’s also so full of expectation and expectations that it does sometimes feel like something is reeling you back in. Like Al Pacino as the Don Michael Corleone says in The Godfather, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.”

It is true that we suffer differently according to our race, and that those who suffer the most have the worst social outcomes. It is false that genetics is the cause of our suffering. When we talk about the reality of race, we must put the so-called “evidence” perpetrated by the pundits in our crosshairs. We must question the work that those lies are doing to motivate members of our communities to commit racist acts.

I saw a bumper sticker of this quote on two different cars this week, both times credited to Albert Einstein. It made me recall the Einstein quote I used in my book Rethinking Intelligence: “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” In these different versions, we hear a similar message. Imagination is key to a quality life. Knowledge or intelligence without it lacks meaning.

I was reading a powerful article on social media and addiction from Washington Post columnist Kate Woodsome and it got me thinking of how common addiction is now that we are all pinned to our devices. I work on my computer and phone every working hour of each day and social media is a big part of that now. It is a must that I do this to get my job done. Of course, that was not the job description of either writers or professors in the past. Just think—people used to write all their dissertations, articles, and books in ink! Nevertheless, this is the world that we live in. There is no opting out. 

I believe that in that fight for independence, there was a glimmer of what our founders should have been fighting for. It is not independence but rather interdependence that can manifest a society of free and equal people. We need each other. We are social by nature and entirely interdependent. We must recognize that if some of us are endangered, then all of us are endangered. By contrast, if all of us are nurtured, all of us will thrive. We need to generate quality environments and social institutions that truly serve each and every one of us so that all of us can realistically dream, live, and love, and reach the happiness we so deserve.

I want to take a moment at the end of this special month to both echo and clarify this sentiment for families with kids. The one thing a child needs more than anything is real authentic unconditional love from at least one grownup in their life. Whether a child is fortunate enough to have a dad or a mom, a grandpa or an auntie, two moms and a “boppa” (biological poppa) or two stepparents, a mom, and a dad, no matter which way it comes, real love is the root of all healthy growth. Gender, sex, and biology are not requisites for real love. Authenticity and unconditionality are.

I learned a lot about myself and my thought patterns from this exercise, especially around my ability to think before I spoke and take other people’s psychological interests to heart. But I also learned that there is a time for spinning a positive message about life and there is a time for being critical. My research into structural racism, sexism, classism, and heteronormativity made this plain for me to see. This year happened to be the pinnacle of my early life working in community organizing and political activism as well as the year I committed to a career in social justice, and I needed to marshall all kinds of censorious and exacting emotional vibes to get my message across. Positive vibes? Yes. Positive vibes only? Not a chance. 

In the wee hours of the night, I tended to my youngest who didn’t get the fan, and I smelled smoke in his hair. It made me think of how other kids are faring today. Some of our childrens’ friends have asthma and other chronic respiratory illnesses. Do they have fans? Do they have masks? I also thought about the millions of youth without homes in this area. If we as a society have already failed them in terms of the basics then what will happen when these major climate shocks befall us? How can their growing bodies weather the storm and avoid being fatally weathered by it?

No surprises here but I’m very critical of tracking. I maintain that any policy that works against the most vulnerable students in our systems—students of color attending grossly underfunded schools—should be abolished. I posted some videos on TikTok this week to this end and got mixed reviews. Some were like Hallelujah! and others were like, don’t trust researchers to know what it’s really like for teachers on the ground. My interpretation of this discord is that some educators worry that detracking will make a difficult situation worse. For some, tracking is the best way to cope because everyone is so stressed and so strapped for time.

In Rethinking Intelligence, I talk a lot about work—its quality, its cultures, and its importance to your stress levels and health. Nearly every chapter of my book draws in some way on workplace research and gives in some ideas for building a positive relationship with one’s work. This was an intentional decision. As one of the two main things I put my time towards (that and parenting), I care a lot about the nature of my work and whether it is working for or against me.

My instagram virtual tour has kicked off! Here is the list of where you can see who is hosting and find helpful reviews of Rethinking Intelligence. Follow me @Dr.RinaBliss there and on TikTok if you haven’t!

Rethinking Intelligence is out and at a bookstore near you! If you haven’t yet gotten it, then please grab your copy. And if you’re on social, post a pic and tag us both! I’ll return to blogging soon, but for now, check out this list of places to see and hear me talk about the book.