I wish I was an intellectual

[noname223]

Yeah maybe a smarter wish in my situation would be: "I want the brain of a neurotypical" If I had to choose I would take the life of a neurotypical. But there is always this allure for me to be exceptionally smart. I think this stems from my time as a teenager/child. Many people insulted and bullied me. They treated me like trash and told me I can't even speak my native language properly etc.. (I have made a lot of mistakes in the past.) Nowadays I receive a lot of compliments how well I speak German and how articulate I sound. I try to learn more and more technical terms. This is like a hobby for me. Lol.

I think I value education a lot. I try to learn everyday. If I could I probably would never stop studying. I have done that till I collapsed twice but another reason for that was my mania. I think I try to convince people that I was smarter than I really am. My intelligence gives me my last remaining self-esteem. My therapist thinks I was very smart and thought I might have the imposter syndrome. I think I am good in some parts of academia. I can perfectly interpret poems in very short time after I read them. I impressed a lot of people with that ability. I can make very witty jokes and I am quite glibly. Though I am such a loser in math. I always was only mediocre in that. I am quite thoughtful but this is not really part of intelligence I think. I am not sure about that.

And I overestimate my intelligence way too much. In contrast to many people I just spend all my free time in learning new things. I almost don't do anything else. When I have conversations with other people I always try to impress them but most of my knowledge is only learned by rote. This is really pathetic. On the other hand one could say I just do the best with what God (as if this motherfucker existed...) gave me. Intelligence has an hereditary component component. And compared to my family (the Neanderthals) I really make the best with the cards I have been dealt. Why I insult them? Because they abused me over a decade and screwed my brain.

I am always scared that other people notice that I am an idiot. Yeah this really fits the imposter syndrome.

 

[Al_stargate]

You seem quite smart. Intellectual is a non-rewarding trait. Idiots usually get their way by brute force. Trying to impress or teach them is a Sisyphean task, it gets you nowhere. People can only comprehend on their level and if they want, which usually they don't.

 

[Un-]

I wish I was smarter, too. Maybe in-line with what you've said here, but there's a certain finesse and insanity that really smart people have, that I wish I understood.. For example, old Japanese and Chinese literature shines with this sort of excellence.

I'm often told I'm smart. I obviously don't believe them, but it has instilled a sense of pride that I'm too terrified to let drop and shatter on the floor... I don't know. At the end of things, nihilism rings true. What difference does it make if I'm of any use? Furthermore, I think it's quite stupid to worry about trivial things like this; I'm young. My ideas aren't worth anything. Nothing. Because they have no life experience solidifying them, similar to a puppet with no ventriloquist. In this manner, I'll never be smart unless I'm willing to suffer to old age... It's better for me to accept my incompetence and naivety.

This is an excerpt from Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human.. an example of old Japanese and Chinese literature's excellence:

In other words, you might say that I still have no understanding of what makes human beings tick. My apprehension on discovering that my concept of happiness seemed to be completely at variance with that of everyone else was so great as to make me toss sleeplessly and groan night after night in my bed. It drove me indeed to the brink of lunacy. I wonder if I have actually been happy. People have told me, really more times than I can remember, ever since I was a small boy, how lucky I was, but I have always felt as if I were suffering in hell. It has seemed to me in fact that those who called me lucky were incomparably more fortunate than I... I simply don't understand. I have not the remotest clue what the nature or extent of my neighbor's woes can be. Practical troubles, griefs that can be assuaged if only there is enough to eat—these may be the most intense of all burning hells, horrible enough to blast to smithereens my ten misfortunes, but that is precisely what I don't understand: if my neighbors manage to survive without killing themselves, without going mad, maintaining an interest in political parties, not yielding to despair, resolutely pursuing the fight for existence, can their griefs really be genuine? Am I wrong in thinking that these people have become such complete egoists and are so convinced of the normality of their way of life that they have never once doubted themselves? If that is the case, their sufferings should be easy to bear: they are the common lot of human beings and perhaps the best one can hope for. I don't know. What kind of dreams do they have? What do they think about when they walk along the street? Money? Hardly—it couldn't only be that. I seem to have heard the theory advanced that human beings live in order to eat, but I've never heard anyone say that they lived in order to make money. No. And yet, in some instances. . . . No, I don't even know that. . . . The more I think of it, the less I understand. All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it?—I don't know."

 

[come to dust]

As someone who got top grades at school, learnt a lot, and went to a world leading university, let me tell you that knowledge doesn't give you any more happiness. Now I'm just depressed at how ignorant the average person is.

 

[whatevs]

The only thing you have to concern yourself with is being serene, lucid and happy. Intellectualism is just vigorexia for the mind. If you scoff at bodybuilders know that intellectuals often are after the same thing in a roundabout way.

 

[jandek]

Having intellectual interests can be a nice way of coping, but it's pretty desolate if you can't connect or relate to others. And it certainly doesn't pay in today's world... I sometimes envy people who just flip through life like it's some kind of picture book and never feel the need to ask how or why.

 

[Al Cappella]

Me too. I've always felt—and have been told, more than once—that I'm stupid. And of course having anxiety makes that worse. My memory is rubbish, and so reading dense text is nearly impossible. Math, forget it. I literally see nothing. If there's one disappointment in my life, that's it. That I just never got any brains…