Zoe Crawford asked me if there is a way to be more intelligent? What I told here is below. Maybe you can provide other insights that would help the mind become more agile, more aware?

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Originally Answered: What are some fun ways to become more intelligent?

What a wonderful question, Zoe. My answer may or may not make you more intelligent, but it is guaranteed to keep you sharp and broaden your intellectual horizons. So, here we go.

1) Vocabulary helps build mental agility. How? Well, it allows you to think about things differently — and in more depth. One of the things I do is make it a point to learn at least one new word a day. Many of the words I have in my quiver are not words I use in conversation on a daily basis, but they have become a part of my thinking processes. Since my earliest recollections, I have perused dictionaries, thesauruses, and literature as a part of my daily routine.

2) Music expands your ability to think in abstractions. Listening to it is good, but learning an instrument — any instrument — gives one mental dexterity and discipline that is useful in all areas, from art to zoology. You don’t need to be ‘good’ at it. It’s not intended as a career path, merely another thinking tool. It also pays to learn to read and write music, even if you never compose a symphony.

3) Languages are excellent in expanding ones thinking, especially at the abstract level. Learn a new language, or at least attempt it. It is true that as one grows older, languages are more difficult to learn — maybe even impossible — but that is not the point. This exercise works in the same way as building vocabulary, plus it makes ones mind work in new and unaccustomed ways. So you don’t become a UN translator. Who cares? The point is the exercise. A byproduct of learning other languages is cultural. Learning about other cultures helps in understanding your own.

4) The driver in my life has been the physical sciences and applied mathematics. I know mathematics is not everyone’s hobby of choice, but if you are in the least mathematically inclined or it has some importance in your current studies, here is what I have done. Math is fun. It’s a game. That’s where it came from. A bunch of old guys (maybe some young ones, too) puttering about with ideas. Ideas like the relationship between one thing and another. So, go out and reinvent the wheel. We know how the Earth’s radius was originally determined. Find another way(s) to do it. I figured out how it could have been determined by staying in one place, rather than knowing about a shadow in the south. It was fun. To this day, I tinker with stuff like that.

5) Public speaking/debate <shudder> classes/clubs are terrific at keeping the noodle pliable. Take a summer course or join one of the clubs.

6) Art is magnificent. It covers all of the above painlessly. Draw. Paint. Sculpt. Carve. Again, you don’t have to be Michelangelo, Picasso, or Renoir. It is particularly good for people who suck at art; who can only draw stick figures, and who would rather not engage in it. It requires one to visualize and translate vision into a piece of art. If you are one who does not visualize things well, it is especially important for you to do.

There are other things I do, but I think you get the idea by now. Keeping your mind active in areas that are builders of abstract thought is by far better than texting friends and posting pictures of your lunch. I wish you the best of luck in your studies and — stay sharp.