Who is the cleverest person in the world?

A brilliant question from my son. And one that happened while we were driving. We have our best questions and conversations while driving. Driving makes me feel happy, I love driving with the music on and I think my son is the same. My son now has his own playlist that comes on and the songs he has on his playlist are the songs that I like too – this makes me so proud. So, when we drive, we now have his favourite songs playing. This pleases me. This pleases me very much and I expect it makes him feel good too. So, he’s at his most open while we are in the car, and this is usually when he comes out with his corkers. Today’s question was……

“Who is the cleverest person in the world?”

A very good question. And one that doesn’t have a simple answer. Because I guess it depends on how you define cleverness. If you take what seems to be a common viewpoint of cleverness in society then it is based on how well you do in school as to how clever you are. Someone somewhere has decided that if you get a grade 4 (or a C for us oldies) in maths and English then that is the lowest level of cleverness that is acceptable in order to move on with your life….supposedly. That is the golden ticket to cleverness. Actually don’t get me started on the cult again (Is Education a Cult? A Parent’s Awakening). I will say this though…..I am exceptionally good at taking exams but this does not mean I am clever, it just means I have an excellent memory (or at least I did many moons ago). But cleverness isn’t just about school, or I certainly don’t think it is. There are so many different kinds, like..

• Emotional cleverness – Understanding feelings (your own and other people’s), having empathy, and knowing how to respond to emotions.
• Creative cleverness – Thinking outside the box, coming up with new ideas, storytelling, art, music, or problem-solving in unique ways.
• Practical cleverness – Common sense. Knowing how to do things in real life—fixing things, problem-solving, working out how to get what you want in a situation.
• Social cleverness – Knowing how to interact with people, picking up on social cues, understanding conversations and relationships.
• Physical cleverness – Being in tune with your body—sports, balance, coordination, or even knowing when you need movement to feel good.
• Sensory cleverness – Understanding the world through heightened senses.
• Existential cleverness – Big, deep thinking. The type where you ask big interesting questions like “Why doesn’t the Earth fall down??” or “Why is life so hard??” or “Have I got a hole in my bum?” (Sound familiar?)

I think what is clever is how I have come up with that list of cleverness (thanks google!!). So there are a lot of aspects to cleverness. And you might be talented in one of those categories, but not so much in the other one so does that make you clever? And who decides that?

I, of course, responded to my son’s question by asking my son who he thought was the cleverest person in the world and he thought about it for a while and then said with absolute complete confidence…

“Santa”

What a great answer, And, you know what? I can see his logic. Santa must be clever. He knows what every child wants. He delivers presents everywhere in one night. He runs an entire workforce of elves. That’s next-level cleverness.

But do you know who I think is clever?

My son.

He is one of the most academically clever people I know. He can read anything and everything—has been able to for years. He’s brilliant at maths. His memory is phenomenal (especially when it comes to things I said months ago that I don’t remember saying). But he’s also clever in ways that go beyond school. He feels things in a way I’ll never fully understand. He notices details others miss. He asks questions that make me rethink everything I thought I knew. And yes, sometimes his emotions bring challenges, but if he learns to harness them, to understand them—that will make him even cleverer.

Because clever isn’t just about knowing answers. It’s about asking the right questions. And those, apparently, always seem to come when we’re driving, with our shared playlist on, figuring out the world one conversation at a time.