Satan's Lovechild says:
November 27, 2008 at 11:14
This whole article reeks of ignorance. That is, it is conceptually clever and its ideas theoretically plausible in most people of above average intelligence. I applaud the author for their thoughtfulness and their positive attitude. If I could live in the same magical fairyland, I would.
The Author appears to be fixated on the concept that the intellectual’s downfall is his or her habit of running away from pain. Unfortunately, for the highly intelligent, whether he or she is running away from pain or not, what he or she fundamentally lacks, is fixed, simple, concrete values. The more simple a person is, the more likely they are to “borrow” values and concepts, such as “happiness”, or the pursuit of wealth. Of course, such values values become more elaborate the more somebody knows, or thinks, but the less than highly intelligent person is still likely to live much of their lives according to what they have been taught, what their peers consider to be “right” or “good”. Unfortunately, borrowing values becomes harder as one peels away the layers of reality. The genius is left with the burden of creating their own values, their own reasons for living, and once one is faced with the reality of this infinite choice, the whole idea of values becomes utterly absurd. This is a lonely process when one is surrounded by people that have no advice or understanding to offer because they live in a simple and unambiguous universe filled with borrowed concepts and rigid boxes with which to evaluate every occurrence.
In short, I agree with the Author’s advice. Running away from pain is one of the silliest habits of the intellectual. Intelligent people have the facilities to deal with pain, whether by solving problems logically or by lowering their expectations and accepting the hand that life has dealt them. I don’t agree however that learning to deal with pain is the key to happiness for the over-intelligent person. I don’t agree with the idea that happiness should be the goal of the over-intelligent person because any intelligent person understands that happiness is a construct. The main obstacle that prevents the know-it-all from reaching his own, or any society imposed goal, is not pain, but confusion. Someone who knows too much simply has too many choices, too many questions to seek answers to and no simple, concrete reasons to pursue any sort of success in life. The person who knows too much doesn’t really know what success is, yet. The life of the intellectual is an existential bachelor in rocket science, while the rest of society is studying arts, or attending community college. The subject matter is just much more advanced for some people, and they may spend their whole lives trying to derive meaning from the void and never find it. My advice to the author is to stick to what they know and let geniuses be geniuses. Its likely that you haven’t even begun to touch upon what they comprehend.