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Why aren't smart people happier?
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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#362Because they always have an intellectual itch. They want to go down every rabbit hole, They think things can be done better. And, in general, because they think. Because they have little interest in mundane and repetitive things.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#363[flagged]
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Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#364It's very difficult for most (not all) people to relate to others who are either significantly more or significantly less intelligent than them. So, for example (using IQ as a proxy), most people of average intelligence (~100IQ) would find it difficult to relate to those of ~65IQ, and equally difficult to find much in common with someone much more intelligent than them (140+IQ). Given power laws / bell-curve distribu…
I haven't found this to be true. For marriage, sure, pick someone close to you. But I've found that IQ is mostly irrelevant for friendship. Character and compatibility matter more than IQ.
I've noticed that many smart people have never learned how to enjoy spending time in mixed-IQ settings. I feel a bit sorry for smart people who were raised with smart parents and smart siblings and smart friends etc. I find their perspectives very limited.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#365Earlier 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…
What's interesting to me is how all of it is true. You were and are in an elite tier, the measure is purely how we care to slice it. Reminds me of the aphorism "whether you think you can or can't, you're right." I find this saying really insightful and true. Others may find it flippant and void of any meaning. The sports analogy of what you shared is: "there are levels to this". At any given level-child, minor, high-…
This gets to the heart of why visualization works. When you’re conscious mind visualizes outcomes, around say work or sport performance or really anything, your subconscious mind can’t differentiate it from reality; the better you are at visualizing the harder it is for your subconscious mind to tell this. It is why visualization is such a powerful performance technique. Negative self talk is really bad for you.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#366Simple; It is because they Think, Read, Reason and Experience too much. They cannot let well enough alone. We are the only species who can torture ourselves solely through our mental means.
The best explanation for this was given by Jack London in his novel The Sea-Wolf through his fictional antihero Wolf Larsen.
“Do you know, I sometimes catch myself wishing that I, too, were blind to the facts of life and only knew its fancies and illusions. They’re wrong, all wrong, of course, and contrary to reason; but in the face of them my reason tells me, wrong and most wrong, that to dream and live illusions gives greater delight. And after all, delight is the wage for living. Without delight, living is a worthless act. To labour at living and be unpaid is worse than to be dead. He who delights the most lives the most, and your dreams and unrealities are less disturbing to you and more gratifying than are my facts to me.”
He shook his head slowly, pondering.
“I often doubt, I often doubt, the worthwhileness of reason. Dreams must be more substantial and satisfying. Emotional delight is more filling and lasting than intellectual delight; and, besides, you pay for your moments of intellectual delight by having the blues. Emotional delight is followed by no more than jaded senses which speedily recuperate. I envy you, I envy you.”
He stopped abruptly, and then on his lips formed one of his strange quizzical smiles, as he added:
“It’s from my brain I envy you, take notice, and not from my heart. My reason dictates it. The envy is an intellectual product. I am like a sober man looking upon drunken men, and, greatly weary, wishing he, too, were drunk.”
“Or like a wise man looking upon fools and wishing he, too, were a fool,” I laughed.
“Quite so,” he said. “You are a blessed, bankrupt pair of fools. You have no facts in your pocketbook.”
“Yet we spend as freely as you,” was Maud Brewster’s contribution.
“More freely, because it costs you nothing.”
“And because we draw upon eternity,” she retorted.
“Whether you do or think you do, it’s the same thing. You spend what you haven’t got, and in return you get greater value from spending what you haven’t got than I get from spending what I have got, and what I have sweated to get.”
More on reddit - https://old.reddit.com/r/books/comments/1jqpar/what_book_sin...
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#367Pleasure and happiness aren't the same thing, but most people chase pleasure while calling it happiness. Pleasure is the quick hit—good food, sex, scrolling your phone—it feels great but fades fast. Happiness is something else entirely, and what it means changes drastically depending on how smart you are. Less intelligent people tend to equate happiness with basic pleasures and getting their needs met. Average intelligence ties it to status, money, keeping up with others. But higher intelligence complicates everything: some people find meaning in ideas, creativity, or purpose; others overthink themselves into misery, seeing through all the goals that used to motivate them. Intelligence gives you better tools to understand happiness but can also strip away the simple certainties that make it easier to actually feel happy. You gain clarity but lose the blissful ignorance that makes chasing straightforward goals satisfying.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#368> When they encounter a problem, they should use their superior problem-solving ability to solve it.
This sentence doesn't make sense in the context of human emotions. It's a category error.
Closest approximation: imagine someone asking Reddit, "How do I beat the main boss in the movie The Godfather?"
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#369Might 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…
I'd take a different answer to this question: philosophy. In times before Abrahamic religion developing or adopting a life philosophy was seen as a practical obligation for a man. This is where you saw the rise of everything from the Pythagorean to the Stoics. It seems that the rise of Abrahamic religions is what largely brought an end to this and mandated a sort of one-size-fits-all philosophy for everybody.
Now in modern times many people have moved away from religion, yet most aren't replacing that philosophical void with anything comparable. And I think this naturally leads to things like hedonism which is completely unsatisfying over time, or even nihilism which is even less satisfying. One could even argue this issue is directly related to the collapse of fertility in developed nations.
I think that a personal life philosophy is absolutely critical for having a contended life. And I use contended instead of 'happy' as part of my own philosophy of life. I don't think happiness is or should be a goal. Happiness is a naturally liminal emotion. And seeking to extend it is only likely to leave one 'unhappy', so to speak. So instead I think we should pursue contentedness. Being satisfied or pleased with one's life does not mean one is necessarily happy, but it certainly means you're content with it.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#370Might 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…
As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations. Smart people see more variables that could be changed, more components that could be modified, and are less likely to accept things as they are. This creates a false sense of ease by which reality could be modified, and thus higher expectations for the world around them. I suspect this misplaces happiness and contentment, but the two are also…
> As I heard someone say, happiness is your reality minus your expectations.
Similarly, stress is the difference between ones expected reality and ones actual reality.
Less expectation, less stress. More acceptance, more happiness.