Welcome to Ten Days of Stealth Giftedness: A Crash Course on Incognito Intelligence
This is your guide to effectively hiding your giftedness from the world.
Kind of like being the James Bond or Jason Bourne of smart. Or both.
Like these boys.
Day 7: Look sickly at your peril.
To paraphrase Jane Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person in possession of a good intellect must be in want of health and robustness. The stereotypical gifted individual is pasty and sickly, like someone who has endured a particularly dismal London winter.
In order to hide one’s giftedness, therefore, it is required that one appear as if one is apt to climb an Alp at a moment’s notice with robustness. Typical health is not sufficient disguise. One must go overboard.
Substitute your sneakers for hiking boots (extra stealth points for having them covered in mud).
This:
Not this:
Muss up your hair a little bit to look windblown.
Throw random references to physical health into brief pauses in conversation.
Leave a gym membership card dangling on your keyring. Optional: actually owning a gym membership card.
Girls, wear your hair in a messy ponytail in manner of person just returned from run with no time for new blow-dry.
Drink electrolyte-filled beverages. Ignore the fact that they have more sugar than Kool-aid.
In this way, if someone accuses you of being gifted, those around you will jump to your defense saying, “Oh, no, she can’t be gifted. She’s far too healthy for that.”
If, heaven forbid, you actually GET sick, hide. It will takes months to undo the damage.
