I resent how overused and underspecified the word "happy" is
Why aren't smart people happier?
271–280 of 651 posts
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#272Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy? It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more) Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage? Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishmen…
"Asking why smart people aren't happier is a bit like asking why people who can jump high aren't more empathetic. There's no direct link between the two" - I disagree. If we consider happiness, as we should, as something that can be achieved and not simply granted (for example, the ability to walk is granted, it is not something that humans, apart from pathologies and special cases, have to develop through conscious…
If I'm smart, I certainly don't feel like it.
I can tell you I do not enjoy thinking. I hate it. It is a compulsion that I cannot avoid. I know that it makes most interactions in my life more difficult. I know it's a source of unhappiness. I cannot stop thinking.
I want to do. Not think. I fail to do. I think about failure.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
For me this has 100% been the main source of unhappiness in my life. I wish nobody had ever told me how smart I was as a child. The reality was that I was above average but in an unremarkable collection of kids mostly. I’ve done fine in life academically and career wise but I’ll never live up to the expectations that were planted in my head. Thankfully you can get over this/yourself and let go of ego, ambition, achie…
There is a HealthygamerGG video where he talks about gifted kids as special needs kids bc of this factor. I found it really enlightening. I definitely had to confront it in my own life. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QUjYy4Ksy1E
There is also one where he talks about how about half of his suicidal patients are not delusional and don't have some mood disorder, but are correctly recognising that their lives objectively aren't worth living.
(Which is something he tries to fix.)
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#274Might be useful to ask a different question: What makes people happy? It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more) Then the real question emerges: How many of those happiness 'sources' are made better by intelligence? What percentage? Relationships? Seems like no. Work? Also seems like no, lots of work doesn't make use of a high IQ that people enjoy nonetheless. Accomplishmen…
> It's things like relationships, satisfying work, accomplishment. (and many, many more)
Thats absolutely wrong and this is the reason why nothing works and being happy became and endless quest in the western culture.
In the eastern spiritual tradition they found the exact ways of managing body, mind, emotions and energy to reach highest peaks of bliss and ecstasy, and I speak from my own experience, its possible to feel so good that no amount of money, relationships, fame, power, whatever other things you can imagine will make you ever feel.
Because the real thing is happening inside, all the outside things you use to try to provoke inner experience, but it only works for a little bit.
Here its explained in a better way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MY5l0k6BTvc
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#275I love this line from a 2024 TV show called "The Gentlemen" and I think about it a lot: "It’s a lucky man who is happy with his place in life" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gentlemen_(2024_TV_series)
> "It’s a lucky man who is happy with his place in life"
This is a central premise of the Dune science-fiction cycle by Frank Herbert.
So, if you believe in this claim, you should (dystopically) brainwash people into loving their place in life.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#276It’s because everyone else is dumber than them…. So they constantly see avoidable mistakes and misunderstandings that could have been avoided…. Yet they cannot make the other people understand….because they think differently about it, and the people who don’t have that intelligence will not necessarily even be able to reorient their brains for the new information to be absorbed correctly. I constantly get demoralized…
You just sound like a misanthrope. If you’re so smart, why are you surrounding yourself with stupid people? Is it possible you’re not as smart as you think, and in fact, just as fallible as the rest of us?
or maybe they have spent time with some really brilliant people and they know they are not brilliant, but they also know they are not as dumb as the person they are talking to? they don't have to be mutually exclusive.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Asking why smart people aren't happier is a bit like asking why people who can jump high aren't more empathetic. There's no direct link between the two" - I disagree. If we consider happiness, as we should, as something that can be achieved and not simply granted (for example, the ability to walk is granted, it is not something that humans, apart from pathologies and special cases, have to develop through conscious…
If I'm smart, I certainly don't feel like it. I can tell you I do not enjoy thinking. I hate it. It is a compulsion that I cannot avoid. I know that it makes most interactions in my life more difficult. I know it's a source of unhappiness. I cannot stop thinking. I want to do. Not think. I fail to do. I think about failure.
Two things. First, not all smart people are overthinkers and not all overthinkers are smart.
Second, I find that a great way to change one's self-damaging behavior is, rather than the therapy that is often recommended, to try to be as much as possible, relatively speaking, in the company of people who behave the way we would like to.
For the person who wants to exercise, but for some psychological hang-ups, can't, the company of people who exercise tends to be much more effective than finding out the root causes of the behavior. The same for thinking too much, eating too much, not being able to talk to other people.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#278Seems like most of the comments are focusing on the happiness angle, but I am liking the framework that some people are good at solving poorly-defined problems. It makes me think of people who have huge impact and success in life, with little obvious explanation. People like Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, Steve Jobs, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, etc. People to whom a lot of success is attributed, but it’s hard to say exac…
> Steve Jobs definitely did something that was important to the creation of that product.
I had this discussion in the past with an Apple fanboi. After our very long discussions we concluded that the central important thing with respect to which Steve Jobs made the difference was that Steve Jobs was an exceptional marketer - but nothing more.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#279Earlier quoted context omitted.
Computers are just electrons moving. Biology is just phyics. See how little that explains? The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, even if it's still encoded in the parts.
Except happiness is a well-known thing, and there are substances like alcohol, cocaine, etc, that are optimized for it.
Putting aside that they are not optimized but just happen to have an effect, would you claim that these are the only things that affect happiness/its relevant chemicals?
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
Way to set up a false dichotomy. I agree with the "cleverness" and the pride people take in not being religious, it's silly. But there are many forms of religion/spirituality. At the end of the day, you're just pushing the Bible here, which isn't very admirable. Maybe instead you could encourage people to explore spirituality instead of a specific religion that you probably follow only because of where you were born.…
I hear you and I’m not trying to push a cultural version of Christianity. What I’m saying is that Jesus wasn’t just another spiritual teacher. He fulfilled hundreds of prophecies written centuries before His birth, and instead of conquering through power, He conquered through sacrifice. That’s what makes His message different and why His story has endured when so many philosophies fade. Not all spirituality leads to…
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