In full disclosure, I've always been one and it drives my behavior. I hope I've mostly grown up from the childhood notion that being smart is important because in children, it leads to their need to impress people so they can be the good boy or girl. Now that I think about it, I see it mostly in boys, more rarely in girls, and most often in people who are trying to convince themselves that they are smart because someone (or an undefined everyone) has convinced them that they're supposed to be smart which is interpreted as smart is good. So there are many precocious and pompous little smarties out there, and sometimes they take it into adulthood with them, which is just a little sad.
It's simple, I think. The inherent satisfaction deriving directly from understanding something. The little and big aha moments are intrinsically rewarding and significantly rewarding. Intrinsically in the most direct sense -- not simply because they contribute to edification, but like the click of satisfaction from putting in a puzzle piece or clearing 4 lines of Tetris. That too, but more. That part is nicely self contained and serves its own immediate purposeless purpose. But they add up to another phenomenon -- the broader grokking of broader swaths of the human condition and natural world. As more of the oceanic breadth of what can be understood is filled in, the ability to see the more universal patterns that apply in multiple domains brings on a meta-comprehension of things which transforms the nature of knowing things. It's quasi-spiritual in nature, and can conflate with the actual spiritual in nature.
I like to remind myself of a specific time in my life, in ways a little embarrassing, and but unregrettable phase in my growth where the feelings invoked by this, perhaps because contemporaneous with multiple tectonic shifts in my personal situation (ending of a 10 year marriage and a 10 year career) manifested as a supernatural spiritual event. A year later, my interpretation shifted again to a more grounded interpretation, but that meta-comprehension "puberty" phase is recognizable in others. It is beautiful to behold from the inside and the outside, and you'll consider yourself fortunate, I believe, if you are blessed with the opportunity to experience it. Expect to find yourself at a loss for words trying to share with others what you're going through. Suffice it to say, it left me with an utter appreciation for why people go off the religious deep end -- it feels very much like a religious ecstasy and the vocabulary of the spiritual is the only way I knew to describe the experience. It provided a Rosetta Stone for interpreting the world's wisdom texts, and reading them now resonates in a way it never could. Had I known then what I know now, I'd have been able to interpret my Catholic dogma in a way that would have allowed me to stay in the church with complete integrity.
Speaking of which (the crisis of faith), it's not much of an intellectual journey if you never have one. Breaking away from the simplistic childhood understanding of life demands a break with faith. Without it, one cannot truly "own" one's beliefs. They're borrowed until they've been challenged by the best arguments ones faculties can bring to bear. What emerges from that onslaught intact are the starting point for reinterpreting the world as an independent mind. Using all the tools -- observation, induction and deduction, experience and experiment, and feeding the machine gobs of information to be digested -- enables mature intellectualism and can become a formidable vehicle for playing about around in those rarefied airs of philosophy.
Being an intellectual, I want to know and understand. It begs for time to read and write and discuss, which takes time from other endeavors. When those other endeavors are providing fodder for intellectual exercise, like learning a new job, or even engaging in mindless and healthy activities like digging or washing dishes or aerobic exercise, it can feed the machine. But that middle ground which tasks the brain just enough, like child-rearing or teaching, puts intellectual playtime on hold. Sure, there is mental activity and creative juice flowing a little, and it can keep a mind from backsliding, but once the learning curve from those activities shallows, it hobbles most intellectual growth in areas outside those being conducted. I mean, being a teacher, I could continue to become a better, wiser, more intellectual and effective teacher. And if it were just teaching, I could probably find the time outside of work to enjoy feeding myself from the multitude of intellectual topics and activities upon which I like to suckle. But the parenting thing -- I can feel quite acutely the diminishing effectiveness of my parenting when I'm fully engaged in intellectual pursuits. The perfect example is this little piece of writing at this moment. Writing is an important and unique part of processing and both defines and is a fruit if my intellectualism. While my wife is out with the kids alone today, shepherding them from event to event, which is fine, but I know when I'm along on these normal, routine childhood-defining activities with my kids, there is benefit to them as they have one more person to co-experience it with, another hand to hold, another being to love and hug, another person to push them on the swing, another set of eyes to watch them explore independently so they can go a little further on their own (without coming to lethal harm) before turning their eyes back to make sure they're family is still around. And I also enjoy that role and what it offers my children. The tradeoff is clear, and we do spend a LOT of time together as a family unit, and it's worth it. But. But the opportunity cost is dear.
We all are varied in our values. I value doing right by my children more than feeding my intellectualism. So I can deny it more often than someone who, for whatever formative and (epi-)genetic reasons, has a different balance, tipped more toward something else and away from domestic obligations. And I don't judge them for it. In a way, I envy them but I accept that, for me, I would regret not being involved enough in my children's lives to believe I did my best to support a healthy and salubrious developmental experience. And as part of that, I DO have to give a nod to this intellectual drive, as well, or I'm not honoring who I am and my particular gifts. I want to give the rest of the world a little of the best of myself, too. And I acknowledge that helping my children become the best they can be (whatever that means -- a topic for another day) also serves the world at large, so there's that. Maybe my last word about parenting. Children learn most by watching, and especially the behavior of their parents, and the smart ones learn even more when they reflect (as adults) on their parents when they were children. So as a parent, they will gain most (I believe) from having seen me live an honest life, and do what I can to apply my best talents in service of the world. Setting that example, and talking with them about it when they reach their own age of reason, may, in fact, be the single most formative and beneficial experience possible. Particularly if I've been there enough to form that solid, trusting and indelible bond that everything I know tells me matters.
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