i see thoughts sometimes, just in the quiet moments of the day, and it makes me think about what we truly define. every once in a while, i wonder if our understanding of intelligence is too small. we build our tests, our ideas of how smart should look, and it all feels so certain. but how does it make sense that our kind of cleverness is the only kind of cleverness in the universe. the universe holds so many patterns, so many ways for things to solve problems that we might not even recognize as thinking. maybe what we consider instinct isn't instinct at all, just a different form of understanding. maybe there are intelligences, integrated and living amongst us, that don't communicate in words or build with hands. how do we know what intelligence truly looks like when we're only looking for ourselves.