My Hidden Gem
Humility, beauty, intelligence, wow.
It started, as these things often do, with numbers.
High school. College. Test scores.
Her: Objectively smart. Reliably smart. Above-average-to-excellent by every conventional metric.
Mine: embarrassingly average. 2.9/3.1. 🐺🙄
Let’s paint me as a Jobs or Picasso, shall we? Not the dummy I am.
As much as i love to talk about me, this is about the Muse. She is a fascinating mind that performed to near perfection in primary/secondary and exceptionally well in post eduction.
A soul deeply feeling and driven. And it fascinates me how a significant intelligence operates without presenting as high minded, arrogant or condescending.
There is an arrogance that comes with ignorance. Lacking education somehow makes one feel superior to people simply by the fact that you had to grind for what you have, thinking better educated people had it handed to them.
Truth: we are all grinding.
Tests and scores are a lot more than numbers. They describe patterns. Just as the weather is forecast, scores can show the shape of a mind and soul with only performance data.
Of course, statistic can be warped to meet any message. But holistically, the person as I have known them and history of study and grading tell a quiet truth.
She has always known how to learn. How to perform. How to carry responsibility. I thought I was a donkey of a man, but she—she is a herd of bulls.
Not the flashy kind of intelligence that walks into a room announcing itself and waiting to be admired. Hers is sturdier than that. It holds up when the structure around it is removed.
Anyone can get lucky once.
It takes intention to hit the same target repeatedly.
She isn’t a quick-spark mind that flashes and dims. She doesn’t rely on cleverness or speed alone. She thinks in connections. In continuity. She understands things well enough that they don’t need repeating or decorating.
Her intelligence integrates rather than performs. She hears implication as clearly as statement, tone as clearly as content. Which means conversation can slow down around her. You don’t have to push so hard to be understood.
People like her don’t announce themselves. They don’t need to.
Their intelligence shows up in pacing, in restraint, in knowing when not to speak.
And because of that, they’re often underestimated.
Early competence can produce a hard lesson. When a child performs well consistently, attention shifts from inner experience to expectation. Praise becomes about results. Curiosity thins out. The message settles in quietly: you’re fine — you don’t need much.
So they learn not to ask. Not to insist. Not to take up unnecessary space. Capability becomes quiet through repetition.
For women, in most cases, this quieting is reinforced. Intelligence displayed too openly can cost connection. Intimidate peers and authority figures alike. Being right can feel risky. Certainty gets labeled as arrogance. So insight is softened. Authority is hedged.
Known certainty is framed as suggestion rather than declaration — not because of doubt, but because the needs of the many are important to her.
Add a reflective temperament — a mind that naturally sees more than one side — and her sensitivity prevents her from arrogance. People like her are acutely aware of what they don’t know. They revise internally. They distrust loud conclusions.
Meanwhile, confidence — regardless of depth — is often mistaken for intelligence. A highly intelligent woman quickly spots this and eschews it altogether.
Watching that long enough teaches restraint. Speak when it matters. Let misunderstanding pass if correcting it would cost more than it’s worth.
This is where the pull starts.
Some people are sensitive to intelligence the way others are sensitive to mood. They notice timing. They notice restraint, when someone doesn’t rush to fill silence just to be present. If you live in nuance, encountering a mind that can hold complexity without constantly externalizing it feels stabilizing.
The attraction isn’t to credentials. It’s to how the world feels less chaotic in her presence. To the experience of not having to over-explain yourself. To rest instead of effort.
But this recognition is dangerous because being seen by her feels like being chosen.
This is particularly powerful when the people in your life mistake your own intelligence for stability and control.
Her resonance FEELS like inevitably.
Especially if you’ve spent a lifetime being useful, accommodating, emotionally fluent — the steady one.
Someone self-contained and capable can awaken a version of yourself that never had to carry so much.
Whether it’s comfortable or not:
She doesn’t need elevation. Or rescue. Or someone to narrate her intelligence back to her. Her quiet isn’t a request. Her self-minimization isn’t a problem waiting for the right person to fix it.
She’s already whole.
What she offers — and what she may sometimes allow — is smaller and more precious.
To be seen without being claimed.
To be understood without being turned into obligation.
To meet briefly and honestly — and then return to separate lives intact.
The ache? The burn and want, they come from accuracy.
Something real was recognized.
And that matters — even if nothing follows.
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Thank you for coming here and walking through the garden of my mind. No day is as brilliant in its moment as it is gilded in memory. Embrace your experience and relish gorgeous recollection.
Into every life a little light will shine. Thank you for being my luminance in whatever capacity you may. Shine on, you brilliant souls!
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