On our way to a family gathering yesterday I had the opportunity of chatting with my 2nd son about intellectual abilities, the structure of the mind, and spirituality in specific. For those non-parents out there, it must be difficult to fully understand the satisfaction that one can receive from having a conversation with an adult child (he’s 21). I’ve had the experience with my oldest son (24) on a number of occasions and this isn’t the first time that it has occurred with son #2. We just happened to be talking about spirituality and the theory that just as there are a range of intellectual abilities (Guilford) covering cognition, memory, creativity, kinetic behavior, etc., there are likely parts of the mind that govern what could be referred to as “spiritual” aspects. My Counseling Psychology PhD candidate wife reminded us that Gardner had also addressed Spiritual Intelligence, although my point was more along the thought that those who are naturally gifted at logical thinking often use and develop that part of the brain at the expense of their weaker spiritual aspects. We took a moment to discuss what has become the “religion of the Scientific Method” and how easy it is to ignore one’s spiritual abilities due to a desire to “prove” the “truth.” I’m sure I’ll address this topic again in a later post, but what was notable was my son’s interesting reaction to the conversation:

“Dad, I don’t want to be morbid, but if you die before I do, who am I going to be able to talk to about this type of thing?”

I hope he and I both get ample opportunity to spread the word about each person’s Intunique for many years to come! Science will continue to discover new and fascinating facts about how our minds operate and Psychologists will have to catch up to the new developments. And there will always be a place for some of us to try and interpret, synthesize and replay information about our nature that can provide additional insights as to who we are.