The sources of intellect are from:

1. Internal, family’s intellectual abilities (no choice)
2. External indigenous intellect (others in the family and/or formal local education) and external global intellect (access to the finest experts, intellectuals, and formidable educational institutions). In some cases, the finest can be indigenous – e.g. living in Los Angeles, NYC, London, etc.

In order to have typical physical ability, we first need our Parents or Guardians or extended family - collectively, our immediate Network - to nurture us. To have the intellectual ability, we need our Network to provide at least the foundational information.

If we encounter a shortage of any single resource, then we can either produce it or take it.  Because all the essential resources are owned by another individual, it forces an exchange of those resources between people. We can exchange from our own essential resources, but then we may create scarcity for ourselves. For example, if I have enough water for myself but do not have food on the table and another individual has more food than she needs to consume but no water, the exchange between us will not be feasible, because the only thing that i have that I can offer will leave me without water, which I need as much as I need that loaf of bread. Therefore, the best option is to exchange from a point of excess – enough for me to sustain until I create enough +1 to exchange, i.e. enough water for my own needs and extra that I can exchange for a loaf of bread with an individual in need of my excess water.

To ensure excess, I will either produce or obtain more. Obtaining leads me back to exchange, unless I have already accumulated excess resources. As a result the only way to ensure reaching excess is through production. To produce more than what I have, I will need to do something more than the efforts that produce enough and until I create  at least enough+1 for exchange. I would require more capacities to go beyond my current abilities. Powered by fundamental know-how and collective essential resources both from my Network, I now can exchange some of that to broaden my knowledge size as an investment, thus improving the opportunity to generate all of the essential resources or more of one kind to exchange for the other two. In sum, to secure the essential resources, I can:

1. Do what I do for longer hours: result - limited expansion, easily maxed out
2. Increase production force:
   • Marry (bring my spouse to contribute): result – still limited, since we now need to secure resources for more than a single person.
   • Produce children and more of them: result - the larger family will produce more for the collective pool. Also, the mere number will increase the possibility of one of them having a breakthrough, thus lifting the entire family. Last, the larger the family size, the easier to secure all 3 essential resources. e.g. someone in charge of getting water, someone in charge of food, etc.
3. Do something else:  more value producing opportunities, may and generally will require new skills, hence the necessity for greater expansion of Intellectual Capacity.

In the modern world, WE require a Network that extends beyond our guardians and an Intellect that helps produce more than our immediate consumption needs. We will explore how we deal with the demand of the modern individual in the next blog…