I was reading a comment thread recently.

One commenter stated that they are aware of the people who are "dumber" than them, and if they are not aware the person they are talking to is either similar in intelligence or smarter than they are.

So my question is, do you have this awareness?

Are you conscious of your relative standing in the intelligence hierarchy around you?

And a side point, can you tell a smart person is acting dumb to fit in with those around them?

I'm not sure if this is a right type of question for this community.

The context is not essential, but in a recent video Alex O'Connor quoted "The Apologist's Evening Prayer" by C.S.Lewis. As a non-native English speaker, I failed to understand it from hearing, so I looked it up but I still struggle with interpreting it.

Can someone here help me out with "translating" to a bit simpler English?

So here's the poem, as taken from cslewis.com:

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more From all the victories that I seemed to score; From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh; From all my proofs of Thy divinity, Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head. From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee, O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free. Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye, Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.

Disclaimer: I'm aware that with poetry, interpretation can be problematic, but here's my thought process: when I tried to look for "explanation" I haven't found any, which hints to me that the text is not particularly ambiguous once you can see through the poetry part. (In other words, people who quote this don't feel the need to add explanation since the meaning is rather clear for an educated native reader.)

I've read a fair bit of philosophy and Hegel is the first time I've felt like the stereotype of philosophers, where they're being deliberately obscure to hide the fact that their arguments don't actually follow, might actually apply.

Now, most likely, I'm just being stupid, so I was wondering if anyone here actually got anything much out of Hegel and, if so, what?

I'm most of the way through the Phenomenology of Spirit, if that's any help.