What does it feel like to be smarter than most people?
What are some of the downsides to being overly smart? What is it like to be naturally smart? Really smart people, what’s it like to be really smart? Being highly intelligent has its own unique problems and hardships, but unlike most problems it’s next to impossible to talk about without being mocked or blown off. What is the saddest truth about smart people? Have you ever met a really intelligent person who didn’t really know how smart they were? What was your experience with them? What is it like to have an extremely high IQ? What has it been like to be 'smarter' than everyone else around you? How has your intelligence shaped up your social life? What problems you had to face dealing with others in your personal life? Very intelligent folks, in what ways does being smarter than most people make your life better or worse? I’ve always been slightly above average academically. I’m not stupid, I think my intelligence is just very average. I like reading too. But whenever I see a super smart person I get so insecure. When I scroll through tiktok I come across people who are younger than me who have very nuanced political opinions and a clear ability to think critically.
Not super intelligent, but smart, I guess. It’s sad. My high-strung nature is what makes me successful and I’d rather be completely daft and finally happy. I hate overthinking, and not being able to discuss my interests with my parents. It’s embarrassing being upset over amazing grades because you feel like you should feel more accomplished. It’s not fair, and I miss childhood. I miss being carefree
I do learn faster than most others. If I set my mind to it, I can understand everything as long as there is an explanation. Some things take me longer to understand than others, but as long as there is an explanation, I will understand it. That means I don't know what it feels like to desperately work to understand something but still not being able to. As a kid I used to be rather impatient with others because of this. It also means that I'm used to being at least okay at pretty much anything I try almost immediately. If I suck at something I tend to give up quickly, even if I know I could eventually get good at it. Expectations were high for me, especially when I was younger (first IQ test was when I was 7). Thank god they finally realized that I'm a disappointment and stopped believing I'd cure cancer or invent some sci fi shit. To be successful you need intelligence, motivation and the ability to work long and hard. I only have the first.
I always felt like I had to keep my IQ a secret. Kids in my school found out about it when I was seven. This caused many nasty incidents until I changed schools two years later. I spent a lot of time wishing I had a lower IQ, only like 120. I still do to be honest.
I lack social skills. Not in a way that you would notice in an everyday conversation. I am rather shy and scared of strangers, but not to an obviously abnormal level. I just have very little experience with having friends because nobody wanted to be friends with the weird kid. Now that I'm an adult I'm not as notably different anymore and I found some great people who are different in a similar way. I'm getting better with this. But honestly learning social skills is way harder than learning a new language.
I tend to overanalyze and overthink everything. I think a lot about my past mistakes, my present problems and how my future is probably going to be bleak. All of this thinking is obviously not great for my mental health. I'm one of those burnt out gifted kids. Super smart as a child, horrible at school as a teen, probably dead before I'm thirty.
By contrast Im not that great at this. I’m generally gullible and believe what someone tells me very quickly, I can’t debate from a standpoint of pure logic and complex topics and theories make my brain hurt. Said competent in skills too. I left out stubborn (persistent), which is the main thing you need to slog through years of training. Doctors are certainly more intelligent than average, and most worked hard to get into med school. But in general, not "superintellegent". That's a whole 'nother magnitude of smart. That's why I specified that those are the ones going into certain specialties.
I don't think you can get through that much schooling without being either highly intelligent, or extremely competent and hardworking (or both). I would imagine with the type of people you are around on a daily basis, the level of competition of being a doctor, your bar for intelligence and mine are different.
My wife works with a bunch of Doctors. From what I understand is they just have no patience for incompetence. Their expectations are much higher so if you do a good job or go above and beyond, don't expect a lot of kudos. My wife says they are so hard to work with that it's ridiculous, they're like robots, but when it comes to patient care it's unbelievable what they do.
I find the most annoying thing for me is that because my philosophies are based on being logical, and "making the optimal play" in serious/tense situations, being intelligent can be really restrictive. Because if I have the capacity to work out what the "best choice" is, then I'll have little agency in what I do in that situation.
The other thing is boredom. A lot of stuff is pretty boring to me through a combination of being pretty hyper and being able to pre-empt plots of books/films/tv shows to the point where they bore me very quickly. On top of that a lot of conversations can get really frustrating where either you're having a convo that you know how it plays out, or you're having a debate where the other person can't quite nail down what the points you're putting out actually are, and you have to dwell on topics for a lot longer than you want to.
It made the first few grades of school fun until I was in a high enough grade that they could pile non-creative work on me. It made me hate school. I said I would get collage over with as quickly as I could. My first semester I took and passed 20 hours easily. Then I decided just to stop.
Being above average has done nothing for me other than make me able to have interesting conversations at parties by knowing enough to get other people to go into the details of their passions. Most of the time I’m just bored, which is cured with constant information. Even if it’s shit information or stupid jokes it works. As long as it’s new information I can stay away from boredom and be fine.
Either way, I think you're trying too hard to be humble and basically saying all you need to be a doctor is to be good at memorization. Just the trait of going through all of that school and being broke for 10 years and then finally getting that job that basically ensures you don't have a life other than a hospital is something most people would not sign up for.
...And I'm not talking about me. Despite my mad test-taking skills and ability squirrel many obscure facts in the crevices of my brain, that put me on the higher end of the "iq" curve, I had children smarter than me. I mean documented "super-intellegent". Raising them was much harder than med school!! I have found most of the people you think are smart are actually stunningly average and the people you think are dumb have a 50/50 chance of being a genius. We do IQ tests when you get hired at my current employer, they also do a psych eval. My manager couldn't wait to see my score cause she was sure I was a genius, the day before I went I told her "I have done this before, I am stunningly average" sure enough I was either average or above average but nothing that would indicate any kind of genius. IDK if this was relevant, but I think it was.
On a good day it feels like being really sensitive to life. It feels like you can see everything you've learned reflected back at you as a vast web of complexity and depth and it just makes you feel so IN TUNE. I don't think this is really so much about being or not being smart as it is about having a passion for knowledge, but that definitely plays a huge factor in whether or not someone does come across as intelligent anyways. On a bad day it's pretty depressing because when things aren't going your way, the relatively strong certainty that you are not stupid that you are even, in some ways, at an advantage relative to other people, makes you feel like what flaws you do have as a person must be enormous and pathetic for them to be holding you back in the way that they are. I was praised a lot throughout my life for my intelligence and, while I certainly don't feel unintelligent, there are days where my mind is pretty garbled due to health issues and I would say, on average, my general cognitive tempo is slower than it once was. When that first started happening it was very assailing to my sense of identity and self-worth because, without even realizing it, I'd invested those things deeply into being able to think of myself as smart. I was raised to think that my IQ and grades meant something, and that I was destined to be something. This caused me to put tremendous pressure on myself to be some kind of savant, and my pride gets very hurt when I am wrong or see someone who is more successful than myself. I had to intentionally learn social skills, and suffer from insecurity and anxiety. I also have issues with perfectionism which sucks because I make a lot of mistakes and get angry with myself. I am very good at understanding concepts quickly and memorization. But I am not good at math, or making good life decisions. I had to learn that you can't be good at everything and to stop expecting to be Rainman. I used to be an arrogant know it all as a kid and it made people understandably dislike me. I struggled to accept the fact that I am not a genius, or a prodigy in anything. It was like being a kid that is better than all of his peers at basketball, but has yet to understand that he isn't and won't be Micheal Jordan, there are a lot of people that are better players, and that being a pro player is a lot harder than being in varsity. I also never learned to work hard or study because I thought that it was unnecessary. High School was a breeze, academically. But in college, that will get you nowhere. And nowhere is where I am. I am a cashier at Walmart making minimum wage. I guess I wasn't that smart, after all.
Not super intelligent, but smart, I guess. It’s sad. My high-strung nature is what makes me successful and I’d rather be completely daft and finally happy. I hate overthinking, and not being able to discuss my interests with my parents. It’s embarrassing being upset over amazing grades because you feel like you should feel more accomplished. It’s not fair, and I miss childhood. I miss being carefree
I do learn faster than most others. If I set my mind to it, I can understand everything as long as there is an explanation. Some things take me longer to understand than others, but as long as there is an explanation, I will understand it. That means I don't know what it feels like to desperately work to understand something but still not being able to. As a kid I used to be rather impatient with others because of this. It also means that I'm used to being at least okay at pretty much anything I try almost immediately. If I suck at something I tend to give up quickly, even if I know I could eventually get good at it. Expectations were high for me, especially when I was younger (first IQ test was when I was 7). Thank god they finally realized that I'm a disappointment and stopped believing I'd cure cancer or invent some sci fi shit. To be successful you need intelligence, motivation and the ability to work long and hard. I only have the first.
I always felt like I had to keep my IQ a secret. Kids in my school found out about it when I was seven. This caused many nasty incidents until I changed schools two years later. I spent a lot of time wishing I had a lower IQ, only like 120. I still do to be honest.
I lack social skills. Not in a way that you would notice in an everyday conversation. I am rather shy and scared of strangers, but not to an obviously abnormal level. I just have very little experience with having friends because nobody wanted to be friends with the weird kid. Now that I'm an adult I'm not as notably different anymore and I found some great people who are different in a similar way. I'm getting better with this. But honestly learning social skills is way harder than learning a new language.
I tend to overanalyze and overthink everything. I think a lot about my past mistakes, my present problems and how my future is probably going to be bleak. All of this thinking is obviously not great for my mental health. I'm one of those burnt out gifted kids. Super smart as a child, horrible at school as a teen, probably dead before I'm thirty.
By contrast Im not that great at this. I’m generally gullible and believe what someone tells me very quickly, I can’t debate from a standpoint of pure logic and complex topics and theories make my brain hurt. Said competent in skills too. I left out stubborn (persistent), which is the main thing you need to slog through years of training. Doctors are certainly more intelligent than average, and most worked hard to get into med school. But in general, not "superintellegent". That's a whole 'nother magnitude of smart. That's why I specified that those are the ones going into certain specialties.
I don't think you can get through that much schooling without being either highly intelligent, or extremely competent and hardworking (or both). I would imagine with the type of people you are around on a daily basis, the level of competition of being a doctor, your bar for intelligence and mine are different.
My wife works with a bunch of Doctors. From what I understand is they just have no patience for incompetence. Their expectations are much higher so if you do a good job or go above and beyond, don't expect a lot of kudos. My wife says they are so hard to work with that it's ridiculous, they're like robots, but when it comes to patient care it's unbelievable what they do.
I find the most annoying thing for me is that because my philosophies are based on being logical, and "making the optimal play" in serious/tense situations, being intelligent can be really restrictive. Because if I have the capacity to work out what the "best choice" is, then I'll have little agency in what I do in that situation.
The other thing is boredom. A lot of stuff is pretty boring to me through a combination of being pretty hyper and being able to pre-empt plots of books/films/tv shows to the point where they bore me very quickly. On top of that a lot of conversations can get really frustrating where either you're having a convo that you know how it plays out, or you're having a debate where the other person can't quite nail down what the points you're putting out actually are, and you have to dwell on topics for a lot longer than you want to.
It made the first few grades of school fun until I was in a high enough grade that they could pile non-creative work on me. It made me hate school. I said I would get collage over with as quickly as I could. My first semester I took and passed 20 hours easily. Then I decided just to stop.
Being above average has done nothing for me other than make me able to have interesting conversations at parties by knowing enough to get other people to go into the details of their passions. Most of the time I’m just bored, which is cured with constant information. Even if it’s shit information or stupid jokes it works. As long as it’s new information I can stay away from boredom and be fine.
Either way, I think you're trying too hard to be humble and basically saying all you need to be a doctor is to be good at memorization. Just the trait of going through all of that school and being broke for 10 years and then finally getting that job that basically ensures you don't have a life other than a hospital is something most people would not sign up for.
...And I'm not talking about me. Despite my mad test-taking skills and ability squirrel many obscure facts in the crevices of my brain, that put me on the higher end of the "iq" curve, I had children smarter than me. I mean documented "super-intellegent". Raising them was much harder than med school!! I have found most of the people you think are smart are actually stunningly average and the people you think are dumb have a 50/50 chance of being a genius. We do IQ tests when you get hired at my current employer, they also do a psych eval. My manager couldn't wait to see my score cause she was sure I was a genius, the day before I went I told her "I have done this before, I am stunningly average" sure enough I was either average or above average but nothing that would indicate any kind of genius. IDK if this was relevant, but I think it was.
On a good day it feels like being really sensitive to life. It feels like you can see everything you've learned reflected back at you as a vast web of complexity and depth and it just makes you feel so IN TUNE. I don't think this is really so much about being or not being smart as it is about having a passion for knowledge, but that definitely plays a huge factor in whether or not someone does come across as intelligent anyways. On a bad day it's pretty depressing because when things aren't going your way, the relatively strong certainty that you are not stupid that you are even, in some ways, at an advantage relative to other people, makes you feel like what flaws you do have as a person must be enormous and pathetic for them to be holding you back in the way that they are. I was praised a lot throughout my life for my intelligence and, while I certainly don't feel unintelligent, there are days where my mind is pretty garbled due to health issues and I would say, on average, my general cognitive tempo is slower than it once was. When that first started happening it was very assailing to my sense of identity and self-worth because, without even realizing it, I'd invested those things deeply into being able to think of myself as smart. I was raised to think that my IQ and grades meant something, and that I was destined to be something. This caused me to put tremendous pressure on myself to be some kind of savant, and my pride gets very hurt when I am wrong or see someone who is more successful than myself. I had to intentionally learn social skills, and suffer from insecurity and anxiety. I also have issues with perfectionism which sucks because I make a lot of mistakes and get angry with myself. I am very good at understanding concepts quickly and memorization. But I am not good at math, or making good life decisions. I had to learn that you can't be good at everything and to stop expecting to be Rainman. I used to be an arrogant know it all as a kid and it made people understandably dislike me. I struggled to accept the fact that I am not a genius, or a prodigy in anything. It was like being a kid that is better than all of his peers at basketball, but has yet to understand that he isn't and won't be Micheal Jordan, there are a lot of people that are better players, and that being a pro player is a lot harder than being in varsity. I also never learned to work hard or study because I thought that it was unnecessary. High School was a breeze, academically. But in college, that will get you nowhere. And nowhere is where I am. I am a cashier at Walmart making minimum wage. I guess I wasn't that smart, after all.
