441–450 of 651 posts
True happiness can be achieved. It's like being "high" all the time. Those who are truly intelligent will find a way to attain this true happiness.
Achieving meaningful happiness, now that is the trick.
I think beyond a certain level surplus IQ begins to cause problems. While still useful, the amount of self-sabotage and thought spirals the brain can generate with the extra power can cause neuroses and unhappiness on a larger scale than those less intelligent are capable of. Combine it with higher societal expectations and it's no great mystery to me why smarter people seem unhappier. Just my thoughts anyways. I'm a…
Not true at all: 1) more intelligent people are happier (author of the blogpost cherrypicked 2 studies, one of which in fact showed that iq is positively correlated with hapiness. 2) IQ negatively correlates with neuroticism. 3) In fact IQ correlates positively with almost every positive facet of human experience - https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2212794120
IMO, "unhappy smart" people are more likely to be described as those belonging to privileged social classes and backgrounds that were able to afford premium tutoring and education, so they ended up at places that provide opportunities and connections to the most powerful of the economic elite. The latter's influence on societal perceptions have of course helped the aforementioned category become a role model for those that do not possess the same privileges, on the deceitful pretense that this all is a result of superior raw mental capacity.
The unhappy part could be multifaceted; apart from being able to essentially buy elite institutional credentials, they're being indoctrinated at an early age about the importance of maintaining the status quo and being penalized if they deviate to any degree. Hence they may be suffering from some sort of transgenerational trauma that has shaped them to tie their worth to a narrow set of things, most usually occupational prestige and amount of wealth. When their environment consists of people of similar backgrounds but varying levels of social achievement, it's expected that they'd feel inferiority if they come across someone more accomplished (whose "accomplishment" almost always ends up meaning choosing the even-more-right parents), even if they already belong to the top ladder on the social hierarchy.
Might 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…
Its very rarely a smart decent person (and most smart folks are decent), those end up as quiet grey mouse in some lab or university position, seldom recognized for their added value. Extroverts, aggressive (to certain point at least), self-centered narcissistic egomaniacs seem to take the cake since ancient times. Those (and worse) are true decision makers, those people shape the world and its to their liking, which usually far off from what smart folks prefer seeing.
Another reason - once you are way above the crowd, you realize how stupid people often behave, how easily is to manipulate those via emotions like hate, envy, fear or inferiority complex(magas are a prime example but such folks are everywhere). If they destroy just their lives with their stupidity who cares, but since everything is connected in societies and we have ie elections, it permeates everybody's lives and you have little defense. You know the situation - clearly a stupid decision that shoots off one's foot, yet crowds cheers and yell for it, willing to fight for it. And smart decent folks are dragged along whether they like or approve it or not. It can be on a small scale but also national/global level. Who wouldn't be frustrated, continuously, during their whole lives?
Also warfare, almost always a supremely stupid move that is a loss for mankind as a whole while very few benefit. Yet look around. We should be reaching to the stars, fixing our environment properly so we can actually look in our children's and grandchildren's faces without a deep shame, yet look where world is heading steadily.
To be happy these days, you have to have lowish IQ or be an utter ignorant, or both. I can find some smaller pieces of joy like kids, hikes or other sports in mountains and so on, but I have to keep ignoring big picture continuously, how powerful do harm all of us.
Being pulled aside by management because your desire for correctness and high quality got you in trouble when you wanted to correct project management kind of sucks. Having your “ah, that’s probably easy” attitude makes you seem arrogant and as if you want to “show off” - even if the thing objectively speaking IS easy to you and even if you could do a better job in less time than your colleagues. It’s a blessing but…
Apparently you have not solved the problems of how to find the right group and company yet. Either you are in the wrong room or just delusional.
Don't ask "what stops you being happy?", instead ask if they're suffering - hopefully most of them are not, but if they are, what can be done about it?
I just have an aversion to someone trying to inflict their version of happiness on others i think.
Being pulled aside by management because your desire for correctness and high quality got you in trouble when you wanted to correct project management kind of sucks. Having your “ah, that’s probably easy” attitude makes you seem arrogant and as if you want to “show off” - even if the thing objectively speaking IS easy to you and even if you could do a better job in less time than your colleagues. It’s a blessing but…
It’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?
But I am convinced that I am pretty stupid, which makes the whole situation even more painful ("ffs, I'm dumb and these people are even dumber!")
The smartest of us are not having a good time.
Many of those problems are even unrecognizable for others, many of those problems even created by others.
If I am unwilling to live isolated in the woods, society is creating and simultaneously not recognizing a whole set of problems that increase my personal unhappiness.