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Can High Intelligence Be a Burden Rather Than a Boon?
HughPickens.com writes David Robson has an interesting article at BBC on the relationship between high intelligence and happiness. "We tend to think of geniuses as being plagued by existential angst, frustration, and loneliness," writes Robson. Think of Virginia Woolf, Alan Turing, or Lisa Simpson – lone stars, isolated even as they burn their brightest." As Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." The first steps to studying the question were taken in 1926 when psychologist Lewis Terman decided to identify and study a group of gifted children. Terman selected 1,500 pupils with an IQ of 140 or more – 80 of whom had IQs above 170. Together, they became known as the "Termites", and the highs and lows of their lives are still being studied to this day. "As you might expect, many of the Termites did achieve wealth and fame – most notably Jess Oppenheimer, the writer of the classic 1950s sitcom I Love Lucy. Indeed, by the time his series aired on CBS, the Termites' average salary was twice that of the average white-collar job. But not all the group met Terman's expectations – there were many who pursued more "humble" professions such as police officers, seafarers, and typists. For this reason, Terman concluded that "intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated". Nor did their smarts endow personal happiness. Over the course of their lives, levels of divorce, alcoholism and suicide were about the same as the national average."
According to Robson, one possibility is that knowledge of your talents becomes something of a ball and chain. During the 1990s, the surviving Termites were asked to look back at the events in their 80-year lifespan. Rather than basking in their successes, many reported that they had been plagued by the sense that they had somehow failed to live up to their youthful expectations (PDF).
Well now, this should end up a wonderful thread full of angsty "geniuses" whining about how they can totally identify with the Termites because no one "gets" them.
I surely wouldn't qualify as one of the 'termites' in the study, but there still things in my life I take to quickly. There is a third metric that I am in my coming to respect even more: motivation and inspiration.
There is a big difference between having the ability to do something, having the need to do something, and having a want and drive to do something. That last one seems to get people much further then being at the very top in intelligence. It also provides a framework of interaction and social connection between peers, if it is truly a passion.
So maybe it takes being the best and brightest to be first chair violinist in a prestigious symphony, but being brilliant alone won't get you there. Meanwhile hundreds of others have a long and successful career they make out of their perseverance.
Some ten or fifteen years ago, Scientific American published an article about the positive correlation of "general intelligence" with virtually every measure of success in life.
Like earning enough money to be comfortable, having the emotional intelligence to have a successful marriage, etc.
They showed that "general intelligence" which is correlated with but not directly measured by things like SAT scores, was basically a ticket to (or highly correlated with) a good life, and even good health.
And the article was mighty persuasive.
--PeterM
It's not so much that others are idiots, it's that they actively resist any attempt at being enlightened. They rejoice in their stupidity.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
(See? I used per se, so I'm... oh never mind...)
Intelligence and being highly observant are great skills both in society and from an evolutionary/survivalist standpoint.
But in a society I've found it brings up two downsides:
Guilt, because your intelligence allows you to avoid pain or achieve a higher level of comfort in society. You weren't "superman" you just made rational choices based upon your understanding of how the system works and now your friends and family are suffering because they didn't and you want to help them which requires more energy and effort or you can't which means your intelligence has limits and all you can do is watch them suffer.
Stress and anxiety. Once you figure out that you can problem solve and improve your quality of life it's natural, like any athlete, to grow and push your boundaries. But intellectual pursuits aren't as cut and dried as physical ones - It's easy to know that you can only bench press 200lbs and that's what you need to work on - Less so when you're trying to solve problems like familial and social discord but nobody will listen or trying to improve your company's fortunes by making proper investment choices. More to the point, I'm an engineer and there's nothing more frustrating trying to solve a problem you've encountered with your design that YOU pushed for, can't figure out why it's not working, might not work AT ALL and the boss is breathing down your neck (oh and the company is on the line). There's plenty of days I've driven by a building crew and daydreamed about just running the earth mover or driving a dump truck.
In an Agrarian society - in a pre-industrialized world these issues just didn't come about for intellectualism - Partially because it wasn't as much of a survival skill. (And that's probably why steampunk is so romanticized today)
I can bang my head against a brick wall all I want, but all I will ever get out of it is a broken head.
The trick is to pick a battle you can win, and then buckle down and win it.
I've climbed high in my own life, but that is because my goals were achievable and I had the tools (both born with and the opportunities I needed) to succeed.
There are many who work hard in life but don't get much of anywhere.
That said, working hard is the only way to MAXIMIZE your opportunities and inborn potential. Praise your kids for their hard work, not their brains.
--PM
Although Bill Gates certainly had great opportunities and took advantage of them, one pair of traits that is often overlooked now (but not be people in the tech industry in the late '80s and '90s) was that he was 1) exceptionally ruthless; and 2) had the looks of someone who wasn't, just an introverted kid who'd rather be solving calculus problems on his pocket calculator. In fact, by his own admission (much later) he read many biographies of Napolean, and obviously managed to find and read many bios on the US capitalist robber barrons of the late 19th century and early 20th century.
Gates had his toe on the throats of just about everyone in the PC industry (other than Intel, his co-monopolist) for about 15 years, and he wouldn't let up.
Just like John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt, Gates turned to philanthropy after he'd amassed his fortune, and he'll probably be remembered the same was as those folks 100 years from now.
You're too lazy to look it up? Just because we can't define intelligence to 5 digits of precision doesn't mean it isn't a useful concept. We can still talk about a correlation between X and intelligence, as long as the correlation is strong enough that it will hold for any reasonable definition of intelligence.
There was plenty of motivation of the conquering Spaniards to demonize the culture that they were destroying
Wherever You Go, There You Are
bill gates is one of the stories described. he had luck and opportunity - by being born at just the right time when personal computing was beginning - and circumstances - by going to one of the very very few schools in the USA that actually had a computer available
Yes, and by having rich parents. That is the single most reliable predictor of economic success. As such, it is anything but surprising that Gates was successful.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The notion that North American native peoples lived in any kind of harmony with nature is simply false.
Wait, what? That's nonsense. Any kind clearly covers a lot of ground, and some North American native peoples clearly did live in some kind of harmony with nature. They didn't leave it untouched, but they did see themselves as stewards with a responsibility to maintain the land. Again, there's variation between peoples. On the plains they burned down forests to make room for bison. But in other places they set controlled burns which successfully maintained forests throughout thousands of years of continuous occupation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The true burden lies in thinking a "high IQ" means you're better than other people. There are many valuable skills and talents which are not measured by an IQ test, including art, music, empathy, and so on.
The burden is the arrogance of presuming IQ means intelligence. It does not. It is simply one metric for measuring skillsets.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.