One thing the book Flowers for Algernon did not prepare me for is how scary it is to get too smart too quickly.

I have been experimenting with different capacities… what they do, what behavior, what insight they possible.

One of these capacities increased my capacity (it had been turned on, but not fully utilized by me) to see many steps ahead and act accordingly.

And for the first time since I started this work, I got scared.

Another thing, the story of Spiderman would have prepared me for that, but I discounted it when I watched it: the fear of having too much power. Too much to deal with.

I hope that I will eventually get used to it, but for now I need to pull back the reins… and slow it down.

Of course, the students and clients that want to pay for whatever capacities they can think of, they have no idea that going too fast will make you scared in the best case, force ego to turn off the capacity in the worst.

I am not thinking that you would use the capacities unethically… the likelihood of your conscience allowing you to do that is minimal.

One of the things that are happening is what I see when I read. It is hard to believe that inactive or active but unused capacities render you blind and dumb, distrustful, haughty, a know-it-all.

I am re-reading the book “The Life You Were Born To Live” by Dan Millman, available in for my subscribers and, of course, on Amazon. My experience of it is brand new. I don’t poopoo it. I don’t complain that it is too much English. I am amazed how accurate his assessments are about certain people… I am not only reading my own “horoscope” like before.

The most frightening aspect of being so smart is that it is not your conscious mind that is smart. You don’t know why you are doing the things you are doing, you are just watching them work…

Here is a student’s email… so you can see it is not just me

In the day and a half since you activated causality, I have been succeeding at not choosing the drama and instead choosing my attitude. This is huge. Before you activated the capacity, I was only succeeding 2 or 3 times a day. After you activated the capacity, I’m succeeding every time. My mind doesn’t see how the capacity is getting this result, but there’s no question that it’s happening.

Example: This morning when I woke up, dread suddenly popped up. Dreading Thanksgiving with family, dreading getting through it myself and having to help my dad get through it, including the cafeteria line which is physically and mentally difficult for him. But I was immediately able to stop the dread and instead choose my attitude. And it again amazed me that I was able to do that.

Another example: Before we went to the cafeteria, my husband reminded me that last Thanksgiving the cafeteria line backed way up behind my dad in the line and people were getting impatient with him, but I didn’t know what to do. Today, after I got him to a bench so he could sit until the long winding line actually reached the food, I easily realized what to do. I walked over to where I could see the food choices and then went back to the bench and described the choices that I thought he would most likely want, had to repeat them several times because he has difficulty making choices, but did so gently, no pressure, and after some time he was able to choose the things he wanted. Then, when the line reached the food and we brought him over into the line, as we reached each choice, I confirmed his choice with him and ordered it. At the same time, I was also having to order items for myself, which in the past had added to the confusion. But this time it was easy and went smoothly and the line didn’t back up. This had to be my new capacity at work. What I did seems so simple and obvious now, but last year I never would have thought of it.

Scary, eh?

You only know how limited you were at one time, when you manage to rise above it. The dizzying height of smarts… No wonder most people are happy being not smart, not intelligent, not succeeding.

Instead of raising their capacities, they limit their playground to the bare minimum.

This was sarcastic. I’ve read somewhere that getting the communication in sarcasm signals high intelligence.

Read the rest of the article: Getting really smart is scary