This subject is somewhat related to a previous article here.
Surely (unless you’re a hermit or something) you have often heard (and maybe even said yourself) things like “it’s my/your brains that make me/you unhappy”, “simple, undeducated people are the happiest”, “I wish I was a moron like everyone else and didn’t think so much - I would be much happier”, “I wish I didn’t think so much”, “you shouldn’t question everything like that, it’s better to just go with the flow”, “don’t be such a freak, be more like everyone else”, and many more variations.
A lot of people, both intelligent and unintelligent, really seem to believe that. Which is sad, because, well, they are wrong.
Sure, knowledge can bring you pain. Any kind of knowledge. If you love your wife, for instance, and she dies in an accident, you can close your eyes, refuse to admit what happened, and pretend that she’s still alive, to avoid the pain of the knowledge that she is no more. But would you do such a thing? No, and most people would agree that it would be sick.
Intelligence and awareness can bring you a sense of right and wrong. That sense may cause you to notice many injustices in the world that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. And that can surely bring you pain. But it can also help you to notice good things that you wouldn’t have seen without that awareness. Also, with it, maybe you can now make a difference.
Still, many people do believe that “the less they see / know / think, the better they are”. But is it so? Are those stupid, ignorant, blind people (let’s call them SIBs, to save on typing :)) really happy? Have you looked at them?
They usually aren’t, really. Happiness is not the absence of sadness, happiness is joy. Happiness is not the absence of pain, it is pleasure. Happiness, as a concept, is not defined by what it isn’t, but by what it is.
Most SIBs don’t live, they survive. They simply go on. They don’t feel intense sadness, sure. They don’t feel anger and revolt at what is wrong around them. But they also don’t feel true, intense joy; their lives are filled with apathy and emptiness, mostly. They’re used to it, though - indeed, they don’t expect anything else, they can’t even conceive the idea of anything else. They don’t read a book, they don’t dream, they don’t use their imagination. Music, to them, is no more than background noise. Any ambitions they may have don’t go any further than a bigger house or car to impress their neighbors. They will never know some of the greatest joys in the universe - nor do they even believe those exist.
Besides… another question. If intelligence is (among other things) the power to use your mind, to think, to deduce, to calculate, to solve problems, to plan and to learn… what’s the excuse for unhappiness, then? How can an intelligent person not use his or her intelligence to improve their life, to solve their problems, to get rid of most causes of unhappiness in their life, to look at their own flaws and either correct or learn to deal with most of them? In short, how can he or she not be happy? Do intelligent people take some sort of unspoken “vow” never to use their intelligence for their own happiness? Sometimes, that’s what it looks like.
Of course, intelligence is not a binary thing, like an on/off switch. It’s not a question of “either you are stupid, or you are intelligent” - there are many degrees. I’d guess that a little (but above average) intelligence can make people see what’s wrong, but it isn’t enough to help them deal with it. Maybe seeing causes for pain is easier, and requires less intelligence, than being able to deal with those causes. If so, it’s understandable that, when you go a little beyond the “average idiot”, it hurts, it’s confusing, you see too much, you see things that you’re not prepared to deal with - and it makes you long for your previous, but now unattainable, state of “average idiocy”. Because, except perhaps with a lobotomy, it’s not really possible to go back.
But it is possible to go forward.
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One thing I surely don’t understand here is what does intelligent and unintelligent mean.
“If intelligence is (among other things) the power to use your mind, to think, to deduce, to calculate, to solve problems, to plan and to learn…”
Does that answer you?
Not entirely but it helps.
Maybe because Bible says: Happy ignorant, Lord’s Kingdom belongs to them.
For those interested in getting there I’ll tell you how to know less by Quantum Theory:
It sometimes seems that we become more ignorant after talking to certain individuals. Perhaps they are saying things which are confusing or untrue. Well, after getting negative information, you know less. But not in the same sense as someone who tells you lies or tries to bamboozle you. Remember, that we don’t worry about the quality of information (whether it is true or false for example). We just concern ourselves with how much there is. So, if we know less after receiving negative information, the amount of information we have must actually go down. This obviously cannot happen classically, but it can happen quantumly
The Bible also tells you that homosexuality is a deadly sin, that an adulterous woman (but not a man!) should be stoned to death (and I don’t mean drugged :)), that the world was made in 6 days, that eating pork is a sin, that fig trees are EVIL, that God would make the best, holiest man in the world suffer for years to prove a point, that He would send an evil mist to kill every child in an entire country, that skepticism is evil, while accepting every outrageous claim at face value is good, that the mind is evil, that suffering on earth is good, because “real life” begins after we die… and I could go on and on and on.
I leave you one reference to the Bible and whole full explanation about how to achieve a lower degree of intelligence and your answer goes all straight to the first sentence?!?
If you wana discuss the bible sentences pls. Be so kind to open one entry for it
You are wrong. Heredity and envrioment limit a man. People cannot move foreward in THAT way. They cannot change what they are. Hell, most of the time, they can’t change who they are. Okay, so you were trying to say that it’s great to be smart, that smart people don’t realize it, and, for some reason, that semi-smart people get fucked (Why add this? Do you consider yourself semi-smart?). But, think about the overwhelming millions who think the other way around. Smart people have it good, and God screwed me. These dummies know you are right. Intelligence can lead to success and happiness. They’ve been excluded by an intelligence-crazy world one-hundred too many times, and no one is too near-sighted to miss why. But, you are right about one thing. Many of those “SIB’s” are not happy!
You have a narrow mind. Striking, for an intellectual but not entirely unexpected in a world that promotes such seclusion among intelligences. How could you know? You were busy studying with your college prep pals while the ballers and the losers “simply go on.”
Choke on a fat Christmas turkey. What about the rest? Would you, too, spit them like pesky water melon seeds? Maybe we don’t see much. Maybe not even enough to understand our predicament. But isn’t that sad? People who don’t see need to be shown. Stop yapping about intelligence not being a burden and start helping. The SIB’s already understand that intelligence can, in fact, enable someone to soar. The majority of people do not need that lesson. They live it. Maybe, if you helped someone who cannot see as much as you can, then you’d be happy.
Okay, one quick question I’d like answered. Didn’t that stare you blatantly in the face when you wrote, “it’s my/your brains that make me/you unhappy”? Look closely at the words beyond the slashes. Why would someone tell you that it’s your brain making you unhappy? Did you talk to an SIB? I bet he would resent that term, though I doubt you used it in conversation, and I’d go all-in to say that person felt jealous. Maybe you don’t see enough. Somo los mismos. I’m certainly not a genius, but even I can see that.
Good post. I think it true that intelligence is correlated to moral sensitivity (in those people who are not born sociopathic — without empathy). As a child, I would get physically sick at seeing pictures of children starving in Africa, and I endlessly asked my parents questions about why people did some evil thing or another. (this is not to claim I am a genius, particularly, but just that I know my experience is not solely my own)
As you rightly pointed out, moral awareness can bring us great joy, along with the great sadness of seeing so many people reject the potential of man. I am an existentialist, and I have waded through cycles of cynical depression over the futility of life then great joy over the experience of it. I think that what is good is not “being simple” but in “living simply” — according to pared-down ethical concepts that we apply consistently, and the ability to find happiness in life’s small pleasures, and be awed by the magnificence of our universe. Perhaps that is what people refer to with SIBs. Perhaps too many intellectuals forget how best to achieve la dolce vita?
I believe that IQ alone does not guarantee happiness and as far as I have seen research supports that.
However, EQ, or any measure of TOTAL MENTAL ABILITY in my opinion directly controls our happiness.
Most peopel only consider IQ which merely is a measure of our brains learning and memory capacity. However, IQ alone
although has a strong influence on , does not determine our total mental capability. I believe EQ (emotional quotient)however is a better measure of mental health and ability.
There are many people with very high IQ’s but with various mental deficiencies such as low self confidence, obsessive behaviors, bipolar personalities and so on. Many of these people are in mental hospitals. These people are very unhappy.
To summarize, I think IQ alone does not warrant happiness but mental health does.
I agree with this article. I was one of those above average people. I was smart enough to notice something was wrong with this world, but not smart or strong enough to be able to do anything about it. Thankfully I’ve found my happiness.
Since I started smoking marijuana, I’ve noticed I’ve developed a thin veil of haziness over my life. It leaves me in a slight cloud that gets me through the monotony. I usually smoke 1 joint per week. This amount is not enough to affect my ability to sustain myself. I still earn a living, pay the bills, and feed and cloth my kids. In fact I’m doing much better at my dreary, dead-end job now that i can cope with the hours of drudgery.
I’ve given up looking for a new position. I know full well that there are no ‘great jobs’, or ‘exciting careers in…’. In a world of more than 6 billion, every job is a dead end job. I know that it is all just a marketing ploy by the colleges, universities, and workopolises of the world. There is no adventure left in this world. By emptying my head of thought, I’ve emptied my inbox of useless job search spam.
I’ve lowered my own standards to that of my colleagues and associates. I’ve let go of my pain and anguish towards the world and given up. The world doesn’t care about me so why should I care about it? I’m going with flow and my life is happier because of it.
My spelling may suffer, but who cares? I still have spell check.
This whole article reeks of ignorance. That is, it is conceptually clever and its ideas theoretically plausible in most people of above average intelligence. I applaud the author for their thoughtfulness and their positive attitude. If I could live in the same magical fairyland, I would.
The Author appears to be fixated on the concept that the intellectual’s downfall is his or her habit of running away from pain. Unfortunately, for the highly intelligent, whether he or she is running away from pain or not, what he or she fundamentally lacks, is fixed, simple, concrete values. The more simple a person is, the more likely they are to “borrow” values and concepts, such as “happiness”, or the pursuit of wealth. Of course, such values values become more elaborate the more somebody knows, or thinks, but the less than highly intelligent person is still likely to live much of their lives according to what they have been taught, what their peers consider to be “right” or “good”. Unfortunately, borrowing values becomes harder as one peels away the layers of reality. The genius is left with the burden of creating their own values, their own reasons for living, and once one is faced with the reality of this infinite choice, the whole idea of values becomes utterly absurd. This is a lonely process when one is surrounded by people that have no advice or understanding to offer because they live in a simple and unambiguous universe filled with borrowed concepts and rigid boxes with which to evaluate every occurrence.
In short, I agree with the Author’s advice. Running away from pain is one of the silliest habits of the intellectual. Intelligent people have the facilities to deal with pain, whether by solving problems logically or by lowering their expectations and accepting the hand that life has dealt them. I don’t agree however that learning to deal with pain is the key to happiness for the over-intelligent person. I don’t agree with the idea that happiness should be the goal of the over-intelligent person because any intelligent person understands that happiness is a construct. The main obstacle that prevents the know-it-all from reaching his own, or any society imposed goal, is not pain, but confusion. Someone who knows too much simply has too many choices, too many questions to seek answers to and no simple, concrete reasons to pursue any sort of success in life. The person who knows too much doesn’t really know what success is, yet. The life of the intellectual is an existential bachelor in rocket science, while the rest of society is studying arts, or attending community college. The subject matter is just much more advanced for some people, and they may spend their whole lives trying to derive meaning from the void and never find it. My advice to the author is to stick to what they know and let geniuses be geniuses. Its likely that you haven’t even begun to touch upon what they comprehend.