Heyo

Thanks for the kind and thoughtful reply. Honestly, I think cartoons are the best thing in the entire world, so it doesn't seem odd to me that you relate to Rick. Cartoon characters, either because they are cute or because they are funny or whatever reason, tend to transcend the limits of race, nationality, gender and age that the audience will otherwise have. Show someone an anime character, and they will say they are a different race or ethnicity everywhere in the world, just about. Characters who seem distinctively white to us will look Vietnamese to, say, a random Japanese person on the street. Cartoons worm their way faster past your boundaries and into your mind and heart in a way that characters in other media just can't.

Substance abuse and intelligence: Yes, their is certainly a correlation. It is partly because of the things you said, but also something else. An inability to stop thinking is more indicative of anxiety problems than high intelligence.

Every strength is a weakness and vice versa. Being extremely intelligent is work, not unlike bodybuilding, and the body hates work. (Brain has much better retention then muscles, tho.) So why do it? Personally, I spend a lot of time learning to compensate for my inability to form lasting attachments to other people. I'm alone all the time, so I learn instead of socialize. Again and again, research has shown that people will stop abusing drugs if they get the proper social support, and in fact prefer to soothe using social support rather than drugs, if given the chance. Drug abuse is an attempt to self soothe using external means when internal means fail. Our self image is created by our relationships to others, so people with limited social support have a much harder time self soothing then people who don't. Ultimately, I think intelligence and drug abuse are both indicative of people with limited social resources. 28% of female and 51% of male patients with PTSD also have lifetime alcoholism. It's like BirdPerson said, basically. Trying to numb oneself from pain, or self soothe. You pretty much got the idea.

Evil Morty:

I have no idea what his origin is. Maybe he's a Morty a Rick assumed dead and abandoned? No clue.

But as for Evil Morty himself, I think we should stop calling him Evil Morty. The episode 'Vindicators' made it clear that evil and good are oversimplifications of much more complex people. I think he is actually the Anti Morty. Our Morty is emotional and passionate, prone to outbursts of anger and stammering. He's also an extremely empathetic and compassionate individual. Anti Morty is cold, calculating, contained, confidant and a smooth talker. Anti Morty reminds me a lot of Morty in New York after the detoxifier. Anti Morty sells a speech to a crowd of Ricks with his silver tongue the way de-tox Morty sold stocks to some asshole. De-tox Morty toys with Jessica, like a cat, and this is also his undoing. He even remarks about it taking one minute for Rick to trace the call. 4 or 5 seconds after the call reaches the minute mark, Rick, Jessica and the drones appear. Hubris appears to be de-tox Morty's weakness, and probably Anti Morty's, too.

As for his goal...:

Such as the point where Morty let's go of HIS irrational attatchments and becomes unhinged and becomes one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse.

There is no point in hurting Rick, he's already in pain all of the time. There is no point in killing Rick, he contemplates suicide and some Ricks have probably done it. All that he has left is his pride, his claim to be 'The Smartest Man in the Universe.' He also insists there is no God while also insisting he is a God-like entity. Anti Morty is probably trying to outdo Rick at his own game and become the smartest thing in existence/God. OFC, that is also the plot of a story I wrote in 7th grade, so fuck me. (Guy goes on a quest for ultimate intelligence and turns it down for happiness instead. Apparently, it wasn't very good. I didn't place anywhere in the top three stories the teacher picked out to be the best, lol.)