Highest in the Room

**I think I’ll go ahead and talk about anything other than the elephant in the room. You know, that thing that’s on the news all the time? Forget about it for a minute and read this instead.**

When I was a kid, my grandfather told me something very important. He said if I was ever the smartest person in a room, then I’m in the wrong room. I think on a surface level, you probably understand what he meant already. It’s simple really. And I thought I understood it too but deep down, it didn’t honestly sink into my behavior until very recently. So I feel like it’s important to explain why this is more relevant now in the modern world than ever before. There are two key pieces to my argument today: fragile masculinity and the internet.

Let’s start with toxic male behavior. Let me just preface that this is actually toxic human behavior but we just tend to see it manifest more in guys. So being female doesn’t make you immediately innocent of it. Anyway I debate with my friends about the whole alpha/beta male categorization all the time. I just don’t think those are reasonable boxes to place men in and more importantly I don’t think it’s productive to view our world through this lens.

**read my blog titled Monkey Business for more of my thoughts on that subject**

Here’s one reason why it’s unproductive. Let’s take my friend for example and we can call him John. John wants to be the alpha in the room all the time. Because what’s the alternative? Being a beta? Yikes. So he’s read a few books and he’s heard a few tricks and now whenever John is around other guys, he tries his best to position himself as the highest in the room. His posture, his gaze, his attention, his body language and his speech are all subtly (so he thinks) working to put him at the top of a hierarchy he envisions in his head. While John is so busy worrying about how other people perceive him, he neglects to pay close enough attention to what his buddy Jack was saying. Now let’s assume Jack knows what he’s talking about and it actually could have been really helpful for John to hear some of it. Catching my drift? Imagine a world where we all focus our energy on lifting our chins higher than the other guy in the room. We might forget to use our ears.

**also if you feel the need to compete with your friends, are they really your friends?**

That brings me to the next piece: the internet! In the year 2020, we have more access to information than our parents and grandparents ever had. That means we have more learning opportunities at any given time and place. And the most disappointing thing I see every day is people not taking advantage of it. Instead we like to distract ourselves with goofy memes and fun, friendly, happy-go-lucky TikToks or YouTube channels. I’m guilty of it too. It’s just so entertaining and so comfortable and you never have to feel challenged.

That kind of thing is fine in moderation. But imagine all the time you spend alone with your social media. Or alone listening to music. Or even just alone with your own thoughts. All of these are situations where you’re basically in control of “the room.” You and whoever you choose to pay attention to on your device make up the room that you’re in. You get to decide who the smartest person in the room is. And guess what. There are millions of hours of vlogs, podcasts and audiobooks online right at the tip of your fingers! Don’t you ever feel guilty that you’re not getting the most out of these resources at your disposal?

Maybe that’s just me. But I doubt it.

There’s a historic bar in Baltimore called The Owl Bar that my good friend told me about. At the time he brought it up, he was actually probably the smartest guy in that room. This pub is known for a quote that it has written boldly inside its walls:

“A wise old owl sat in an oak.

The more he saw the less he spoke.

The less he spoke the more he heard.

Why can’t we all be like that wise old bird?”

I guess my grandfather wanted me to recognize early on that the “old bird” wouldn’t be so wise if it was always the wisest one around.

Filip, again.