Susan Ambrogi, age 11, of Ashland, Virginia, for her question:
Who is the smartest person in the world?
Every year, the Nobel Prize is awarded to a number of scholars for outstanding brainwork in various fields. It seems only fair to rate these winners as pretty smart people. But nobody can say for certain that one of them is the smartest person in the whole world. For one thing, we all have different ideas about what smartness is.
This is not an easy question to answer because Andy can give you only his own opinion on the subject. Naturally he talks to a lot of brainy people in order to answer your thoughtful questions—and who knows, one of them may just be the smartest person in the world. However, this person might be smart in just one particular subject. And old Andy is interested in a sort of general all around smartness.
If he had to choose, most likely he would pick his old friend Gulliver. No, he is not the Gulliver of Gulliver’s Travels. Not many people know this Gulliver because he lives a rather quiet life. He enjoys every minute of his job, mainly because he is interested in it and has learned to do it very well.
Gulliver also enjoys his family and the home they share. He has time to talk with Mrs. Gulliver and the children, together and separately. They make plans, solve problems and talk over the news, good or bad. The plans include balancing the family budget; the problems include deciding on who gets what to make ends meet.
Gulliver thinks it’s smart to enjoy life as much as possible. He decided long ago that the lives of even the most famous people are made up of the small everyday things that most of us just don’t notice. Since there are so many of these small everyday items, Gulliver decided to concentrate on them. Believe it or not, he enjoys little things like putting on a clean shirt, chewing a variety of good foods and even brushing his teeth.
Some would say there is nothing smart in all this because anybody can do it. Anybody can try to get the most out of the small everyday things in life—and enjoy every minute of it. True, says Gulliver ¬and billions of everyday people do this every day. All these ordinary folk, he says, are just as smart as he is. Therefore it must be quite impossible to select the One Smartest Person in the World.
Besides, says Gulliver, it cannot possibly be himself. Mrs. Gulliver, he insists, is just as smart as he is, if not smarter. What’s more though he always plans ahead to do the most sensible things possible, he often makes a booboo and does something quite silly. Andy’s story of Gulliver is very true to life—and it goes to show that being smart is something anybody can be.
As Andy said, this is only his own private opinion. Some people would select a renowned scientist, a mathematician or a statesman. No doubt these talented ones are smart in their own special fields. But what really counts is a pleasant, all around daily life. This is the really tough one and everybody who tries it is a winner.