Happiness and Intelligence

Not sure if this is the right forum, but this is the best match I can find. From what I've seen, intelligence is mostly correlated to less happiness. My guess is that it has something (not all, I'm aware that there are most likely other factors at play here) to do with ignorance being bliss. Intelligent people will be aware of things (mostly bad things) that the generally dumb/unaware masses will be ignorant to. From my own experience (not that I consider myself an intellectual or anything) people with above average intelligence seem to be more emotionally unstable and suffer from a variety of conditions ranging from agoraphobia to depression to bipolar disorder or all of the above. Since most people are satisfied by the most basic of human delights (ie. sex, food, money, etc.) and the intelligent often look for happiness in things with more substance and meaning (ie. art, music, literature, etc.), a huge gap between the two is created thus the latter feel they cannot relate in many ways to the former. Unfortunately, since the former greatly outnumber the latter and many of them ultimately come to positions of power and reside over them (not always the case, but it currently seems to be so in some countries where idiots reign supreme), they begin to feel isolated and thus their level of joy revolving around human interaction begins to decrease as they realize.

What do you think?

 

awareness//intelligence
awareness//knowing you're surrounded by idiots and shit
knowing that...yeah it sucks

 

I've often said that I'd rather be unintelligent and happy.

 

In brief, yep.

 

You are Absolutely Positively right.

The phrase "Ignorance is bliss" is true as true gets.

The masses seem to have gotten more ignorant as time has passed, and as you said, ignorance seems to reign supreme in some places. The fact that GW was actually voted in the 2nd time around left me with No faith in the sense of the masses, in the US at least.

 

i also agree. the more i learn, the more i dispair at the state of things and at people who are happy with the mundane.maybe i should just stop trying to expand my mind and try to be happy with my small amount of money and my ready meals....i think sex is meaningful though and can be as enlightening as anything else if you let it be, it doesnt have to be empty and devoid of meaning. its never been that for me.

 

ignorance is bliss, beeyotch

 

I agree. I'm not going to say I have high intelligence but I am going to say that everyday I feel trapped in a world that seems too dumb to realize how they're living. My life is basically every other day remaining somewhat stable and between days of my brain thinking in it's darkest ways. I just never got the purpose of life overall because there wasn't any voice or language in the beginning giving purpose. I see so many people living to one purpose, when I think the existence of life overall is pointless so therefore its there for us to project our own individual purpose.

Sorry for over using the word purpose.....but that's the word that seems to have me stuck.

 

it seems like inteligence people seem to look to close and are absorbed into what they want to learn and get more intelligent

and dumb people seem to not look to close at anything but far away always wondering and get more wisdom

you can probably balance them together

buy taking a break from what your trying to learn with gaining intelligence

stretching of course whould be a good way to stop looking at the picture to close

or if you want easier just get up and go get a glass of water thats another break

and so on

 

I agree and disagree. Many intelligent people look very closely at fact and can either denote this a good or bad thing. They can either find more beauty within reality, or see it through the perspective or ugliness. I think it comes down to attitude more so than intelligence.

It ultimately comes down on how one interprets the information that he has before him.

Is the universe cold and ugly, or is there something deeper, more majestic than one is willing to see?

 

Acceptance is a huge tool largely overlooked in the intelligence/happiness department.

 

What do we or should we accept.

 

I don't have the answers for you or anyone else.
I do see a lot of people obsessing over things out of their control, though...
I may not be intelligent, but I am happy.

 

i worked with mentally retarded people for a couple years and in general the "lower functioning" they are the happier they are... probably the happiest people i've ever met... of course I also consider them the most intelligent... because they don't try to interpret the world with their minds... seems a radically advanced way of approaching life.

 

Absolutely

 

sure, the more aware you are, the more you open yourself up to negative energy, but so is the same for positive energy. You are intelligent, use your gift to create happiness and peace within, not dwell on the what has gone wrong with Us.
of course, that's just my opinion. some people like to be angry with the world, ya know?

 

I don't know if I'm angry with the world. I don't think I am. True there is a lot of dislike but it rarely insites anger. I know atleast that I am somewhat happy being to see the oddities and rediculousness of our self created reality. I feel happy to feel independent of everyones reality. I can create my own with my own ideas. But I don't need to...I'm happy with being myself.

 

This is because quite often, intelligence leads to showing off. Not always of course. But the way society is set up these days, thats what it leads to.
Its a balance of having intelligence, but also sympathy/empathy and an eagerness to help others. If you are TRULY up to the challenge of helping others, then roadblocks dont become dead ends and frustration is a passing phase.
When intelligence is designed to absorb everything the consciousness encounters and manipulate for material gain, you are going to have nothing but emptyness. But when intelligence is designed to absorb everything and process this reception with the intention of turning situations around to benefit those who are less fortune than we, then it is fulfilling, with no room for selfish feelings of despair and depression.
Why should we be so sad that the majority of the world is filled with selfish people who dont educate themselves on what we believe to be the finer things in life? This is not something which has gotten worse, quantitively it has grown (duh, so has the population) but qualitively it has grown in the opposite direction as well. And really, with the internet now, it is my belief that your average child in school is learning and absorbing slightly faster than children were 100 years ago.
So yes, ignorance is bliss, and intelligence without taking selfless action is misery. But combine the childish energy the ignorant seem to have with a mature intelligence, and you cant go wrong. In my opinion.

 

It is a frustrating topic. I would like to say that, when an intelligent/aware person is happy, they feel that happiness more strongly than an unintelligent/unaware person. On the other hand, it may be just that they remember the depression and confusion they had to go through to get to that point which colours their memories. I don't think anyone can experience the world through the eyes of someone with more or less intelligence. More or less knowledge, maybe, but not with more or less intelligence.

 

i think i'm pretty ignorant to the world around me, i'm never concerned about politics or all the things that are wrong with society.

i never really fully understand it when people get so stressed out about things like that, i guess i'm one of the dumb ones