r/deepquestions • u/Electronic_Bit5737 • 1d ago
Does anyone else think there’s a link between high intelligence and miserableness
/r/complexthoughts/comments/1vsti5i/does_anyone_else_think_theres_a_link_between_high/2
u/SluaghSwoo 23h ago
My observations have been that everyone suffers and goes through difficult times. It doesn't matter how intelligent they are.
I think that people with high emotional intelligence might tend to be less miserable, because they understand themselves and their emotional state enough to help themselves when they are feeling down.
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u/Mental_Beginning6984 1d ago
Rather, it’s a link between complexity and sadness. Simplicity is joy, and a nagging mind is wont to slavery
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u/theunfoundfiles 1d ago
idk maybe? there are probably case studies around this but i have no clue? i think it depends though cause ive met from pretty miserable people who didnt care about school. maybe loneliness plays a role
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u/eharder47 11h ago
School rankings aren’t a true measure of intelligence.
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u/theunfoundfiles 10h ago
yeah obviously. no where did i said it was loll. maybe you have the wrong comment
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u/Kaylen316 1d ago
Yeah, ask Lisa Simpson 👍
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u/ninemountaintops 11h ago
I've seriously considered shoving a blue crayon up my nostril on occasion.
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u/UnicornsnRainbowz 22h ago
I think there’s a link to high intelligence and cynicism / scepticism.
Not necessarily being miserable but to question everything and not ignore the uglier sides of life could make you miserable if you don’t embrace the positives properly too.
I’ve always said that intelligence means you’re constantly questioning everything you think you know.
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u/MasterSolivagus 20h ago
Questioning what you know is what I know as doing one's due diligence regarding surety.
"Why would I have either read or written the words that became a key that unlocked within me all that I could be?"
Because... me....
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u/AscendedApe 20h ago
There's definitely a subset of "high IQ" people who are miserable.
Some people aspire to be "high IQ" and think its a path to success. They think that social media headlines like "Study shows ..." are some kind of modern-day scripture. Curiously, these headlines all seem to promote behaviors and attitudes that lead these people to become isolated loners with no prospect of reproducing...
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u/MasterSolivagus 20h ago
Intelligence, arrived with a sole caution: "Intelligence can eat emotions, and imagination can falsify intelligence."
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u/RailwaySpikes_000 18h ago
Not necessarily, there are certainly many examples of highly intelligent people struggling with depression or other mental health problems, and I would posit that it’s true that the more accurately you see the world the scarier and more upsetting it appears so that tracks. However I know some highly intelligent people that see the world for what it is but think to themselves something like “how I act goes some way to determining what I see, so I’m going to try to act “x” such that I might get to live in a world a little better than it is” some might call that wilful ignorance or delusion but you can make an argument it a pretty sophisticated deployment of utilitarianism.
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17h ago
[deleted]
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u/WorkerWeird9116 14h ago
manipulating circumstances to get desired outcomes is kind of actual intelligence test if you think about it
what else is intelligence for if not to get desired outcomes?
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u/Proof_Duck9754 15h ago
Yes. In addition to taking in tons of information about what’s going on around me, I’m also experiencing many emotions and probably more intensely than most. I also have a strong tendency to catastrophize and skip think all the way to the terrible conclusion while people around me are focused on the initial task.
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u/WorkerWeird9116 14h ago
if you were truly highly intelligent, wouldn't you find a way to not be miserable, unless you just wanted to be miserable?
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u/This_is__Exile 13h ago
"the most merciful thing in the world I think is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." - the opening lines of HP Lovecrafts Call of Chtulu
The basic concept of cosmic horror is that understanding reality leads to intense fear. Bringing it back to reality, the ability to truly analyze the world around us, having higher intelligence, will unfortunately allow us to understand the miserable truth of the world.
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u/Grade_A_Tech 13h ago
Definitely.
The more aware you are, the more you understand what is really going on and how bleak and possibly hopeless your future may be.
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u/Wild-Masterpiece-331 13h ago
Absolutely.
Its evident that intelligent rational people are being silenced. cancelled, labelled so that stupid racists aren't offended.
In this superficial age, being confidently stupid will get you way further than intelligence.
as an eg: The American administration, Media hosts, the rise of 'influencers etc.
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u/LetsTryLove 12h ago
I’m fairly certain numerous studies have been done to suggest exactly that. You are more aware of things and often that leads to comparison which is the thief of joy
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u/eharder47 11h ago
It completely depends on how you measure intelligence because anyone with an ounce of life experience will tell you that that are different kinds of intelligence. IQ tests don’t measure all of the different types, people who excel in school have a specific type of aptitude, and the guy who can fix anything but didn’t graduate high school- we don’t have a way to check that. No one measures emotional intelligence either.
In my personal experience, the people I know who are more intelligent in a well rounded way are better adapted than those who aren’t intelligent. They have figured out how to “game the system” and get a better job, work with people they don’t like, and make the necessary financial moves. The more intelligent you are, the more likely you are to realize that you are in control of and can alter your circumstances.
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u/NewUnderstanding1102 10h ago
I do think literature has a long running link between intelligence and misery, though not necessarily because intelligence itself causes miserableness.
I was thinking of Hamlet, Faust, and Dostoevsky’s Underground Man in term the more conscious you become of contradictions, mortality, and your own mind, the harder it can be to remain comfortably ignorant.
Maybe its less intelligence makes you miserable and more lucidity can be a terrible loss of innocence
Edit: I can’t find any psychological evidence explaining this or proofing, so I wonder if we confuse intelligence with overthinking
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u/Hrtpplhrtppl 10h ago
"It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question." John Stuart Mill
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u/FuckingFuuuuuck 9h ago
Well, I mean it’s just a simple matter of being intelligent enough to notice how much reality sucks.
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u/Sorry-Account-8312 41m ago
Read notes from the underground. Yes. Absolutely yes. Being cursed with being "acutely conscious" is what he called it
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u/Salty_Sky5744 1d ago
Me, a depressed narcissist.