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Intelligence and "smartness" are probably different. It has recently been ascertained that a baby gets it's intelligence from their mother. I'm sure we all had super intelligent mothers. I'm not sure that it is being smart that is likely to make one unhappy, it's probably that many of the people who are both smart and successful to an extent get caught on the materialism treadmill. They are never happy with what they have and are always striving for more.
Moravian
Level 8
Feb 5, 2019
3
Smart is in the eye of the beholder. It is generally self defined, leaving a lot up to the individual. Look, Trump has self described as a Stabile Genius when most of the world considers him nuts. And IQ measures intelligence, not nessisarily smart. There is a difference. I had a friend who was very intelligent, he could answer questions on history and world governments without hesitation. But the man couldn’t fry an egg. My philosophy has always been that everyone is stupid, just in different ways. Perhaps the same could be said of smart?
Barnie2years
Level 8
Feb 1, 2019
2
Some smart people are unhappy when we are surrounded by people who aren't. There are far fewer people who get us and it is harder to find those connections as there are relatively few of us. Depending on how you want to define smart...
shockwaverider
Level 8
Nov 22, 2018
5
@Songsmith That is unfortunate for you. I've had the pleasure of working with some in tech. My BFF is one too. You might find some in Mensa and I'm sure there are lots of activities around Toronto.
I did an internship at the IBM Canada Lab in Toronto. There were some very smart people there too.
@Songsmith ignorance is a matter of lack of knowledge, not lack of intelligence. Generally smart people will have a shorter list of things they're ignorant of, but of course you don't have to be omniscient to be smart or no one would be. Thats an impossibly unreasonable bar to set for smarts. If you can use what you do know to deduce and elucidate your blindspots, and never stop learning, then you are smart, no matter how ignorant. Being an enyclopedia doesn't make anyone smart. Neuroplasticity and adaptability do.
@Songsmith so theyd have to either be omniscient on knowledge or on all of lifes problems to be smart? By setting an unattainable standard for it, all you accomplish is making the word smart irrelevant/nonexistent for all practical purposes. The concept of being relatively smart exists, and its definition can't possibly be that stringent. Feel free to define it however you like, just know that no one else is going to be using that definition because it's meaningless.
By the same token I could claim that humility doesnt exist because no one is absolutely devoid of all pride. Beauty doesnt exist because everyone has flaws. Do you see how meaningless that standard could make everything? Humility and beauty do exist the same way smarts do: by relative degrees and to the extent possible by humans. No relative attributes like this in real life are so binary that you can expect absolute qualities and still make any sense. They can't be unless you're a super intelligent alien judging us from outside the species. Even then, it would be unfair to say. We can't judge a dogs intelligence based on standards of human intelligence. And you can't rule out human intelligence based on the imaginary standard of godlike intelligence unless you presume to be that god yourself. It's all relative.
@Songsmith That wasn't my contention at all.
Just because something is relative doesn't mean that it is meaningless. That's ridiculous. The difference between having $100,000.00 and having $1,000,000.00 is relative. However we all would prefer to have a million dollars, or to be smarter, more successful, more popular, and so on.
Relatively speaking, we appear to be the most intelligent life on this planet. In the universe, I sure hope not.
The difference in IQ between the smartest and dumbest people is significant. If you don't see that, you aren't smart.
@Ragamuffin hey everyone he got the first part right, kudos!
Some smart people are happy because they don't prescribe to anything that tells them they aren't...
thinktwice
Level 8
Nov 17, 2018
2
I think "smart" people may be more alert to larger problems and want to see solutions inacted at greater speeds than usual. As a result they may experience dissatisfaction when they don't see miracle-like leaps and bounds towards their idealized goal. Sometimes it takes being content on fixing one problem at a time rather than wanting to resolve all of the world's ills, and also recognizing that smallscale progress is still valuable progress. All humans walk forward one step at a time... and each step in the right direction is integral to reaching the ultimate destination.
Return2Sender
Level 5
Nov 14, 2018
4
smart people are not happy because they see the flaws in the world stupid are happy because they ether don't see them or just don't care
benhmiller
Level 7
Nov 13, 2018
6
I suppose they say "ignorance is bliss" for a reason.
My Mom explained this to me in detail once. I think she was trying to prepare me for abject misery?
She also recommended I not read Tolstoy as bedtime reading. She was a smart lady!
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