I recently found myself rereading and thinking about this earlier post, where I noted a few thoughts about a quote using the expression smart in spots. I still really appreciate that particular wording, for the same reasons stated in the aforementioned post: The reference of spots reminds of sparse and small. It is well descriptive of the circle of competence.
As such, it makes sense for me to say and believe that I, too, am smart in spots – and they are most assuredly few and far between. Everyone has their own circle of competence, so it stands to reason that everyone is likewise smart in spots. The expression is not really a judgment on someone’s intelligence, but necessarily a statement about human cognitive limits.
It is what it is: No matter what, the things you are competent at are vastly outnumbered by those you are not.
If that is true for all of us, it is also true that none of us have the same spots. Perhaps we do in type, but not in substance. That is partly what makes us human and gives us our individual perspectives.
Differences in spots mean that people can complement one another. No single person covers much ground, but different people cover different ground. When those partial views come together, new and more complete views emerge. Many ideas, decisions and creations arise not from any one person seeing clearly everywhere, but from multiple people seeing clearly somewhere.
Those same types of differences also make disagreement unavoidable. When everyone quite literally looks at the world through at least slightly different lenses, it is no wonder that everyone also ends up having slightly different thoughts. It is deceptively simple to not see why others do not get what is so obvious to you.
Everyone is smart in spots. In any two or more people it is virtually impossible for those spots to fully overlap. This is simply part of the human condition and there is nothing wrong with it either.
This type of misalignment is not inherently good or bad; it has both upside and downside, and both can be valuable.