Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can think that but you’d be wrong.
Perhaps you're depressed?
Far from it. But you only have to watch the news to see the world is a shithole and people are the worst.
Why aren't smart people happier?
371–380 of 651 posts
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#372Might 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…
I think happiness is an inevitable byproduct of honestly following your innate sense of self. Intelligent people can be dishonest with themselves, not know themselves and be (more) capable of lying to themselves and coming up with justifications to do what they mentally want (rather than following their innate sense), thereby trapping themselves in endless dishonest but justified loops.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#373“ Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in itself as a self-centered end, to the exclusion of human relationships, can only lead to violence and pain.”
- Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#374Earlier quoted context omitted.
"If people would not tell you how smart you are, you would blame your unhappiness on low esteem and on the lack of support in your childhood." It depends how it was told. Being told "you are smart" vs. "you are the smartest kid" makes a big difference.
As is not saying anything about your smartness vs. being actively told that you are dumb. Radical examples should be compared with each other, as should more balanced ones. In both cases I would prefer to be told about being smart. In a vacuum, self-confidence in kids is more useful than lack of it.
I think you’re right that I’m a negatively biased person, so the praise may have been received differently if I was a more positive person. However, the outcome of the praise was that I was never self-confident and had/have low self-esteem. I think what I received was closer to “you’re the smartest kid” and that set me up believing I was destined to be the _most_ successful adult even if I never felt capable of achieving that.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#375Earlier quoted context omitted.
Isn’t there a danger though of running into differences between oneself and others and concluding that the cause is oneself being “weird” and not the inherent difficulty of bridging the intelligence gap and correspondingly different ways of thinking? Like I could see a very bright kid ending up with low self esteem due to being different if they aren’t told that the differences may be due to their intelligence. Like…
Do you mean that there may be some harm in "hiding" from children their intelligence? I can see that maybe at early ages, but certainly they'll eventually catch on with grades and such? I don't know when different parts of personality manifest, maybe some child psychologist can chime in. But my hunch is that maybe not saying anything until grade 2-3 could potentially help. Above all, I think the key is to tell them t…
> Above all, I think the key is to tell them that it's trying hard that leads to getting what you want
Totally agree. This is now the approach I’m taking with my 4 year old who is clearly quite bright.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#376Might 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…
You could also say that the hedonic treadmill runs faster. Getting a result that takes a smart person a day instead of lets say a week means repeating that 7 times (successfully) to feel like the week was well spent.
This is an interesting take. Your expectations for yourself get higher the more you successfully do something hard. Hmm
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#377The devil is in the details, e.g. people usually self report very different levels of happiness if you ask them more or less frequently, and if you ask them about general happiness or in the moment happiness.
Also someone if someone told you they couldn’t make you happier but they could make you more comfortable, more healthy, or more secure, that’s still a life improvement, so it’s possible it’s linked to other positive life outcomes. Happiness quite literally isn’t everything.
Also, when someone is unhappy they will usually report that accurately, but when people are not unhappy they often fail to report themselves as happy or even just not unhappy, when perhaps they should, because they normalise to it and so on. We’re just bad at reporting this stuff.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#378To a large extent, thinking beyond what is needed for processing sensory inputs, is same as being unhappy. Smart people, by definition, think more and naturally be unhappy. Just like how smart devices with more work to do, tend to be warmer than non-smart devices with same computing power.
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#379“ Intelligence is one of the greatest human gifts. But all too often a search for knowledge drives out the search for love. This is something else I've discovered for myself very recently. I present it to you as a hypothesis: Intelligence without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis. And I say that the mind absorbed in and involved in…
You can remove intelligence from that hypothesis entirely, and it won't change the meaning. You can substitute almost anything else, too: "Owning a rubber duck without the ability to give and receive affection leads to mental and moral breakdown, to neurosis, and possibly even psychosis." Well, yeah, but why is the duck in that sentence?
Re: Why aren't smart people happier?
#380“With much knowledge, comes much sorrow.”