"Too much intelligence eats your brains"

[Colditz]

I was discussing this last night with my intelligent misfit friends (and some of my intelligent normal friends too). We came to the conclusion that if you have a high IQ, far from saving you work, it actually causes you work. You are unable to be contented with repetitive work without talking to yourself, spreading malicious gossip or keeping Gin in your pocket, and getting away from boring work takes EFFORT at a young age, when many people (especially very intelligent ones) may not be emotionally mature enough to realise that they will not be 15 for ever and need to pull their finger out.

I came to this conclusion after realising that NOBODY who was a particularly high flier in my classes (which were some top sets) is both happy and successful. The two people who have been successful in their chosen careers (archeologist and hedge fund manager) were, I know, bullied systematically by their parents, one had a nervous breakdown and the other is anorexic. Then there's the scores who never got that far, three bar staff, 2 factory workers, 2 care assistants. All going quietly nuts, drinking too much, staying up into the small hours bickering about the nature of intelligence when they have a 6 am start on a Sunday morning, drugs, ohhhh the drugs these clever people take.

And then there's the people I know who were bright, but not in the top top sets. They almost all "succeeded", or are at least happy with what they're doing. They are living happy, calm, cheerful normal lives, without the screaming angsts of 3am and no sleep and 6am start and your head won't SHUT UP. They are running offices, and going to the gym, and managing pubs, and working as nurses, and vet nurses, or depo managers ... they all have good jobs, and seem mostly really happy (these are the people I know from the classes I was in that were middle ability classes).

There seems to be a much higher degree of conventional success from the people who were not in the top 5% for everything, is what I am saying. And there seems to be a greater degree of happiness too, and fewer social and mental health problems. SO why?

Is it a failure on the part of the education system? Is it an inbuilt neurological imbalance? Is it because the very very clever never really have to work at school, and coast until they hit the real world where coasting doesn't cut the mustard? Any other ideas? Criticisms?

A hopeful bump? We found it interesting....

I was top in most subjects at school, and I pretty much fit your description to a tee: very much underemployed, have suffered from depression and do take drugs. I'm not sure it's because of my intelligence though- I think I'm just lazy and have very poor self-discipline

DH and I were just discussing a possible negative correlation between high IQ and happiness.

Like you I have found my happiest and most "well-adjusted" friends are never my cleverest friends.

If think very intelligent people tend to over-thnik things. They ruminate and ruminate and never take things at face value. This means they are quickly aware of the problems with things and are rarely happy to just bob along accepting simple explanations. As you say they also bore easily and need more stimulation. Stimulation often involves risk and so things can often go wrong for them.

I do have quite alots of very clever friends who are very successful. I think that is a feature of my work environment. However, even though they are successful they are not often happy and they certainly do not fit neatly into society (i.e. they are all total weirdos, clever and nice but very weird ).

This is a really interesting idea and I want to do big post but dh is hogging pc to watch man u and I don't have the patience to type on the ipod.

Hmm, I tend to agree. I was pushed a lot at school but didn't really have to work to do well (I know that sounds like a contradiction!). Any ambition I had was really my parents' ambition for me.

Got to university where suddenly I had to work independently and find my own self-motivation and discipline and I tanked.

Have flitted between various jobs in admin/customer services, never staying in any company much longer than a year because I would work it out, refine the 'system' to be as efficient as possible then got bored when I ran out of challenges.

Still haven't worked out what I want to be when I "grow up".

Ahhh but spacewaster - being lazy and having poor self discipline seems to go hand in hand with being hyperintelligent and not being a roaring success.

There's nobody I know who is hyperintelligent with just a good job. The sort of job that makes your parents proud without them worrying how you will cope. They are either doing something insanely successful/educated/difficult or they have washed their hands of the whole idea or financial success and live alternatively, working to buy oil paints or french horn valve oil or a particular type of exhaust for a 1970s Mini Cooper.

Yes my brother is very very intelligent, scholarship at private school and now doing a phd.

Angsty as hell, took loads of recreational drugs, mostly in part to get OUT of his head, and AWAY from too much thinking all the bloody time.
But now very sociable thank goodness, nice girlfriend and pretty happy.

The big problem I think for the super intelligent people I know is they wanted to change the world. Brother, as a maths expert would rather do anything than do something like work in the City and earn loads of money, or work in research for big corporations, or work for ministry of defence, this in effect puts him on a path slightly at odds with the world.

Everything for him is hard work, but then his choices were always left of centre.

I think that very very bright people (ok, I admit that I was classed as one as a child ) can sometimes do terribly compared to other children.

I never studied, never revised, everything just came to me - so then I became lazy...never prepared to work at anything, relying on my brights to get me through, learning through osmosis or something ! Well, as you know, in adult life that just isn't enough to succeed. If something doesn't just fall in my lap, I won't work for it. If it's hard, I move on. I'm just so conditioned to be able to do whatever, that I won't make any effort. I know this about myself and I try to change, but I keep slipping back to my default setting

As a result of this, I have not achieved as much as the children who worked, who put effort into what they were doing. They tried, persevered, I lose interest in things, can't be bothered to work at things, still looking to sail through.

I admire effort more than braininess, iyswim.

I totally agree with Colditz that hyperintelligent either work in an insanely successful field and or live in Devon, wear Birkenstocks and send their kids to Steiner.

I think it's more to do with personality than brains per se, maybe.

"If something doesn't just fall in my lap, I won't work for it. If it's hard, I move on."

I can completely relate to that.

Actually, my childhood experience is why a) I don't push my kids and am really wary of putting them under too much pressure at school and b) I always praise them heavily if they try really hard at something they found difficult, even if they still fail in the end.

I can relate to all that Hecate, and I was also a leading member of the SWP- god, I am a walking stereotype, it seems

I was in the swp too - is that significant, you know, in relation to my flibbertyness?

Must be, Hec, must be...ah, them were the days!

Really? you must have been a different type of swp member. All I remember is being a bit of a twat.

have just read OP
and think it explains my lack of career nicely
seriously, dunno why, but i was always way ahead at school, never had to try, and the big wide world was not a place i found particularly easy for a decade or so of adulthood.
i took lots of drugs. i had SHIT jobs. well, i had alright jobs sometimes but everything i did was just for the money to survive, NEVER what i wanted to do or remotely stretching. i went quiety (or not so quiety) nuts for about 6m in each and then left when could bear it no more.

have to say, i rather LIKE the thought that my brightness might be why inm such a fuckup! not that i have any sodding intelligence left thats particularly visible ...
i like you colditz

Ahem. What's the SWP?

I left school t 16 y'know. Intelligent but very ignorant

Hehehe- but we were right all the time

Think my DH breaks your rule, Colditz - absolutely brilliant at univ, now a very successful academic, but good at considering it a job, coming home and watching football and being unangsty. He doesn't think he's brilliant, mind, despite evidence to the contrary. He is very disciplined and self-motivated, however - again - he doesn't think he is!

I had a similar educational path to him, though I think he definitely has the edge on me, but am at a bit of a crossroads career-wise, so although I'm generally contented, I'm kind of waiting to see what happens next. I'm pretty happy with my lot, though.

spacewaster, your [first?] post could be my reply word for word! normally i think im lazy and have no self discipline. today must be a good serotonin day bacause i am rather liking the OP's angle today, bigheaded as that sounds (and who gives a toss about that, what with this being the internet and anonymous an all?)

oh i agree even more now have read thread. am EXACTLY same as you hecate, cant motivate myself to do ANYthing that doesnt just come really easily. and anything the does come easily bores the tits off me in seconds.
oh, the anguish of being so bloody clever eh?

I know the ultimate clever waster.

He's a barman. So angsty you can see him running through entire conversations in his head before deciding whether the outcome of opening his mouth will be worth the angst of waiting for the answer. So intelligent he runs absolute rings round ALL of us. Drinks heavily to shut his brain up. Has never had a proper boyfriend because his partner must be both gay and intelligent enough to hold his interest - and this is a small town. Inhales on cigarettes like nicotine has offended him, you can see replies fizzing in his head as if he resents having to breathe before he can utter them. Dips into deep deep funks without warning. I adore him, he's the most popular person I know (in a genuine, everyone adores him way, not aa American quarterback way) and he thinks himself utterly unlikable.

I don't really agree, I'm afraid.

I was in a special (top 1% theoretically - actually it was tighter than that, though) program for primary and secondary school. I went to a recent reunion, waaaay more than half of us are doing well or very well. Lots of lawyers. People working in TV or film, etc etc.

Maybe people who are bright, but never get sufficiently mentally challenged as kids, have this problem?

I think the OP is spot on - very few of the "very bright" kids at school (of which I was one) are especially successful. Some seem really quite unhappy. If academic work comes easily and you're a big fish in a small pond, then the real world can seem very very hard.

yes, thats it nqc - clever people who were failed by their educations... (yes, convenient that its Not My Fault, or am i overthinking this?)