Smart/Stupid/Happy/Sad

People have always commended me for being really "smart" or whatever and I always did really well on standardized tests and the SAT and such, but I don't believe that test-taking and fact-knowledge or even the ability to "comprehend" (abstracts, maths, philosophy, music) is the measure of intelligence.

The reason I think this way is that throughout my life I have never been striving to be "smarter" or "better" in any way. I've only ever tried to be happy. Interestingly, the only result of reasonable thought and rationalization of my world is depression, hopelessness and a bleak world view. In other words, when I utilize my powers of (god I hate this phrase) IQ to attempt to form a schema of my existence, the inevitable result is unhappiness.

With my rational mind and emotions so closely knit together, I wonder why my constant second-guessing and analysis of the world around me leads me to such disquieting ends. My peers never seemed wracked with fear or depression at the prospect of the ultimately unknowable or sinister enormity and eldritch squamous nature of that which is.

This evident negative correlation of intelligence and happiness leads me to wonder about the nature of smart and stupid. What separates the intelligent from the gormless? What is intelligence?

My personal belief? He who is "stupid" and happy is the one who has truly transcended this mortal coil. The final result of the search for wisdom will be the abandonment of intellectual pursuit in favor of emotional leads. He who is "smart" is the real stupid one.

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Originally Posted by TurnyBright

People have always commended me for being really "smart" or whatever and I always did really well on standardized tests and the SAT and such, but I don't believe that test-taking and fact-knowledge or even the ability to "comprehend" (abstracts, maths, philosophy, music) is the measure of intelligence.

The reason I think this way is that throughout my life I have never been striving to be "smarter" or "better" in any way. I've only ever tried to be happy. Interestingly, the only result of reasonable thought and rationalization of my world is depression, hopelessness and a bleak world view. In other words, when I utilize my powers of (god I hate this phrase) IQ to attempt to form a schema of my existence, the inevitable result is unhappiness.

With my rational mind and emotions so closely knit together, I wonder why my constant second-guessing and analysis of the world around me leads me to such disquieting ends. My peers never seemed wracked with fear or depression at the prospect of the ultimately unknowable or sinister enormity and eldritch squamous nature of that which is.

This evident negative correlation of intelligence and happiness leads me to wonder about the nature of smart and stupid. What separates the intelligent from the gormless? What is intelligence?

My personal belief? He who is "stupid" and happy is the one who has truly transcended this mortal coil. The final result of the search for wisdom will be the abandonment of intellectual pursuit in favor of emotional leads. He who is "smart" is the real stupid one.

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Intelligence is already defined by the dictionary and has nothing to do with happiness. In this world there aren't many people who are 100% content and happy. From my experience with people the ones who have a deep connection with a God or other spiritual beliefs seem to be the happiest.

Well... your post is really a nice one, and ill have to think a bit to give it an appropriate reply... anyway, the relation between intelligence (or wisdom) and sadness is known since long ago...

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Ecclesiastes 1:18.

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Originally Posted by Coelho

"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." Ecclesiastes 1:18.

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That's me fucked then!

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Originally Posted by TurnyBright

My personal belief? He who is "stupid" and happy is the one who has truly transcended this mortal coil. The final result of the search for wisdom will be the abandonment of intellectual pursuit in favor of emotional leads. He who is "smart" is the real stupid one.

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Well... in my humble opinion, its an unwise belief. We humans have (at least) four ways to percieve and interact with the world. From the most primitive to the most evolved, they are:

Physical sensation
Emotions
Thoughts
Spiritual insight

When we are born, all we know are the physical sensations. The comfort of our moms lap, the pleasure of eating, etc... when we grow up a bit, we start to percieve and feel emotions. Little children has so much emotion... years later, we start to think thoughts. And only after decades, only some few people attains spiritual insight.

So, i think the sadness of the pure intellect comes from the fact that being "stuck" in the intellect (thoughts) level is a barrier to our evolution.
Think about people who are only moved by emotions, without rational thinking to moderate it. There are scores of persons like this. And their lifes may seem interesting to us, but they are leaves in the wind. Without the intellect to moderate their emotions, they just go from heaven to hell almost instantly, under the influence of their emotions. And i would never think that being like this is better than being a rational person.

BUT, it also works for the intellect. People who are only intellect, only thoughts, without spirituality to give meaning or scope to their thoughts, become immersed in the mazes of the reason, and easily are drawn to the dark side of the life, which is easily spotted by anoyne given to thinking.

So, i must agree with Bhouncy who said that the most happy people are the ones who have a strong spirituality. Cause its the level where all our potentialities as human are developed, where we are at the most evolved level, and are living to our fullest capacities.

ignorance is bliss....

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So, i think the sadness of the pure intellect comes from the fact that being "stuck" in the intellect (thoughts) level is a barrier to our evolution.
Think about people who are only moved by emotions, without rational thinking to moderate it. There are scores of persons like this. And their lifes may seem interesting to us, but they are leaves in the wind. Without the intellect to moderate their emotions, they just go from heaven to hell almost instantly, under the influence of their emotions. And i would never think that being like this is better than being a rational person.

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The anachronistic thing about stupidity is it's tendency to induce unnecessary complications (of mind and circumstance). This evidence that rational thought is "better" glares obvious all the time, like when you need to do your taxes or work through relationship issues.

However, I still feel left in the dark as to the nature of the smart/stupid. The dictionary defines "intelligence" as "capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc." and gives no insight as to the reason for the difference in this capacity among individuals. In contrast to bhouncy's belief, I feel that this "capacity" is integral to the level of happiness and the very meaning of what happiness is to a person.

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Well... in my humble opinion, its an unwise belief. We humans have (at least) four ways to percieve and interact with the world. From the most primitive to the most evolved, they are:

Physical sensation
Emotions
Thoughts
Spiritual insight

When we are born, all we know are the physical sensations. The comfort of our moms lap, the pleasure of eating, etc... when we grow up a bit, we start to percieve and feel emotions. Little children has so much emotion... years later, we start to think thoughts. And only after decades, only some few people attains spiritual insight.

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I don't get how you can back up what you're saying here. How can you know that newborn babies don't experience emotions or thoughts? The pleasure of eating is both a physical sensation and an emotion that you attach to that sensation. It also would logically require the phenomenon of thought to be cognizant of the food and your mouth and taste buds and your own existence (you have to know you exist to know you want to eat food in the first place). The very act of recognizing one's own role as a perceiving ego is spiritual insight, and it is the most basic foundation of all the other modes of perception. Perhaps not everyone realizes the strangeness and significance of the fact that inside this weird lumpy tall hairy organic system there is a seemingly magical thing that perceives (and orders and thinks about and essentially creates) all these things that surround and affect the wet, soft, strangely shaped things that are our physical bodies.

Intelligence is vague at best.
Try defining levels of intelligence and you have to quantify something that cannot be measured.
The need for information is based around your situation , a surgeon can save your life but he may be useless if you need knowledge of plumbing or nuclear reactors.
To me happiness is fulfilled desire and lack of fear, if I have both then I'm happy.

sometimes fear makes me happy

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Originally Posted by TurnyBright

sometimes fear makes me happy

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That isn't so much the fear as the adrenaline , I'm an adrenaline junkie so to me fear also has different meanings.

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Originally Posted by TurnyBright

However, I still feel left in the dark as to the nature of the smart/stupid. The dictionary defines "intelligence" as "capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc." and gives no insight as to the reason for the difference in this capacity among individuals. In contrast to bhouncy's belief, I feel that this "capacity" is integral to the level of happiness and the very meaning of what happiness is to a person.

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Hmmm... now i understand better what you meant... and i agree with you... intelligent people can see deeper into the things, so its harder to them to be happy because of the things that make stupider people happy... like... some not-so-bright people can be happy because their team won a game, or because some couple of their favourite soap opera got together, or any shit like this... yet for intelligent people, this things does not bring any happiness, cause they know the shallowness, the meaningless of it...

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Originally Posted by TurnyBright

I don't get how you can back up what you're saying here. How can you know that newborn babies don't experience emotions or thoughts? The pleasure of eating is both a physical sensation and an emotion that you attach to that sensation.

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Well... i must admit that i really cant back up what ive said. I think nobody will ever know how to be a baby feels like... of course we all were babies one day, but for some reason we just cant remember...
Anyway, while i dont know if they experience thoughts and emotions, surely they does not experience them like us adults, and thats what i meant. They may feel the emotions and think the thoughts, but i doubt that they recognize them as us do.
I meant that the babies are driven mainly by physical sensations, simply cause physical sensations are the stonger stimuli we humans feel... emotions are not so strong, and thoughts are weaker still... then, with the growing, they learn to give more attention to the emotions, and after it to the thoughts. Or in other words... they learn to "function", to be driven, to be "guided" by emotions, and then by thoughts...

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Originally Posted by TurnyBright

The very act of recognizing one's own role as a perceiving ego (...) is the most basic foundation of all the other modes of perception.

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I dont know if i understood rightly what you wished to say... anyway... there is a difference between percieving and being aware that youre a person percieving something... we dont need to know that we are percieving beings to percieve them... its possible to just percieve the world, without interpret it, without being constantly aware that "im a being and im percieving it, and that, and that else"... so i dont agree that the notion of being an percieving ego is needed to percieve anything.
BUT, this is my response to what i understood from your post... if i misunderstood you, please excuse me.

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Originally Posted by TurnyBright

Perhaps not everyone realizes the strangeness and significance of the fact that inside this weird lumpy tall hairy organic system there is a seemingly magical thing that perceives (and orders and thinks about and essentially creates) all these things that surround and affect the wet, soft, strangely shaped things that are our physical bodies.

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Indeed... from all the uncomprehensible things that surrond us, surely the most mysterious is the fact that we percieve... and yet most people just take the fact we percieve as granted, and live their lifes without ever thinking about the marvel that it is...

I think about the smart/stupid happy/sad thing a lot too.
I'd trade half of my IQ just to be content with being alive.
But then again, I can't imagine all the frustrations a "stupid" person must feel when they can't comprehend things that intelligent people take for granted... "If only I were a little smarter I could realize my problems and form solutions to them."

From my point of view, I'm always saying to myself: "I've realized most of the problems and found solutions to them... now, how can I convince the Stupids to accept real logic and reasoning?"

Or, on my worse days, it's "If only I were a little dumber then I'd fit in with the majority of people, I would be accepted and treated as their equal."

People are always telling me "gosh you're so smart" but I become insanely infuriated when they won't accept my ideas. They think that I'm crazy for believing in certain things, only because they're stuck in their old backwards small-minded ways of reasoning.

And the laws... oh, the laws! Created by people to protect the ignorant humans from THEMSELVES. And those of us that are intelligent enough to govern our own rules of ethical conduct, we're being repressed by them. We are their slaves. We want peace and happiness, they want money and control.

I could use my intelligence for so much good, and such evil... I'll just work on playing the Apathy card and be an anonymous supplier of healing herb.

Let the world bring about it's own death, as it has done since the beginning of time.

One who can find joy in reading a book and becoming smarter and can be happy and smart. Maybe the more intelligent crew feels inferior when they can not take the next step in acheiving success by using their intelligence. at they end of the day this person may end up asking his or herself "where did this intelligence get me?''

The happiest person in the world could sit in the wilderness and take it in with his enlivened senses. Y cant u say that this man who is absorbing everything around him be considered intelligent? It takes your brain to process everything that is being thrown at it.

Intelligence in nature is who lives and who dies? Ur dumb dog is the one who runs in the road. ur smart dog is the one who realizes he cant be doing that. Th smart dog iwho obeys his owners commands becomes a smarter dog when he can obey those commands and then put 2 and 2 together to realize y the owner has set out that command. In some parts of society the smart dog would be considered smarter than the afformentioned smarter dog becuz he does what he is told and doesnt ask y.

In developed countries u need to 'work' (many people may hav a job but dont do shit.its hard to consider that work but it is if u get paid) jus in order to live. a person must use his intelligence in order to pay for desired amenities and to put food in his stomach. Intelligence becomes intelligence when it can become practical thought and theory and possible actions.

i hav more thoughts in my head but its too hazy to see in there.

yeah intelligence is so dependent on the criteria of how it is to be measured.

Intelligence doesn't seem to be shit unless it's utilized. And, then, exactly HOW it is to be utilized is only relevant to the person trying to accomplish a goal and other incalculable variables.

It's better to not even think about it at all and just do the best you can or whatever you're comfortable at doing. Happiness should not be a goal; it should be the experiences you have. I don't really know.

Personally, I believe a hi IQ can breed unhappiness, not cause it!

You have the ability to think things through for a means to an end. When you see (or take the time to visualize) the results of you or someone else's action's or other events, it may seem even hopeless and then feel unhappy!

If you watch ants, you know what they are doing, repeatedly, day in and day out. Seems a waste, so why bother! On a larger scale, all people will die, so why live! Like, "life is a bitch and then you die!":beatdeadhorse:

Is that sort of what you are thinking? :(

Ultimately, if you vision your life as, I am just gonna die anyway, so why bother--that is more of depression than unhappiness and needs treated better! :twocents::twocents: PR :hippy: :stoned:

I really hate to think as some people as stupid or dumb, because they are the ones that do not know it and do not try! Unfortunately, one dropped in the Forum yesterday and was out of here, in short order. It is what you do with your brain that counts, not what you think you should do!

I'm saying that the happy ones are the people who have either realized that being "smart" won't make you happy and thus look elsewhere, but use their intelligence to facilitate their own growth as happy people, or lack what's called "intelligence" in the first place and do the same.

The unhappy people are the ones that either use their intelligence to complicate their search for meaning, or use their thick-headedness to complicate other people's happiness. The latter might not know that they are unhappy, though.

I tend to dwell on whats before me, and attempt to figure out just what it actually is, and that usually leaves me feeling equal parts disturbed and amused.

I pretty much sit inside my head, ridiculing the things I'm experiencing and how I'm experiencing them, while attempting to dig deeper into just who I am to experience these silly things.

That's "who I am" as in "JUST WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"

I think in life you need to use the intelligence you have and are still gaining and get filthy stanky rich as possible, so you can do whatever the hell you want whenever you want. Money is the key to every door in life, get enough cake and find which door triggers the chemical reaction in your brain that creates a pleasant feeling in which we call happiness.

Don't do dope or any that shit thats some fake ass waste of life shit that sum may cause 'happiness' cuz thats not happiness thats pathetic. Anyone living in america can find some real happiness and if dont then shit son catch the nex ride over.