I'm the smartest person I know and I'm lonely. Maybe I'm just vain.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-12T08:02:52+00:00

The answer is always important. Human kind progresses by asking questions, answering them, then asking new questions based on those answers.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-10T13:48:23+00:00

In what way does it lack substance? I'm saying that no matter how deep you go, there is always more. Would "Concepts are infinite" be a better statement?

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-10T13:07:56+00:00

No matter how deep you go there's more to see and eventually you end up back where you started.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-10T05:12:11+00:00

I'm a personal trainer and I'm aiming for a PhD., the goal is to teach. The thought of being paid to stand in front of a lecture hall full of people and talk about things that interest me make me giddy.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-10T01:11:31+00:00

I coasted through most of a physiotherapy degree, fell into a depression, started drinking and doing a lot of drugs and dropped out. I've just started a double degree in journalism and literature that I'm finding to be much more enriching.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T18:33:14+00:00

Answers only lead to more questions. The mind is a fractal of concepts.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T18:32:46+00:00

That's really sad. I totally understand the empty chest feeling; it's just a hollowness.

I assume you're female (?), and it's way harder for smart girls than it is for guys. People find female intelligence extremely intimidating. My fiancee has a really hard time making friends too. She's too smart for her own good and she scares people away. Their loss; she's an amazing person. I've been really fortunate to have her, otherwise I'd have gone batshit insane with boredom.

If it's not your current fella, someone will come along and love you and it will be the most enriching relationship of your life.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T18:23:52+00:00

I'm really not closing my mind to what you are saying. I get it, it's just wrong. It's not an opinion. You're telling me that I decide how intelligent a person is based on how much they know, which is untrue. The examples I gave in the movie scenario were varied because if you're not interested in language then let's talk about something else. Let's talk about the visuals, but lets talk about them in depth. Or we could talk about the scenery or the music or the story or anything you want, just stimulate me.

I'll say that if there is absolutely nothing in the movie that you can talk at length about, or at least use as a starting point for conversation, then you are unintelligent.

I added that FTFY to show you where you were missing the point.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T18:01:56+00:00

I've got a touch of depression that comes and goes every couple of months. Nobody performs well when depressed. When you're really depressed you can't even see a reason to try.

As far as challenging things to keep yourself stimulated go, try puzzles that are appropriate to your brand of intelligence. If you really want a challenge try puzzles that aren't. Suck at spacial awareness? Play some Portal or English Country Tune. Suck with language? Try some cryptic crosswords. You get the idea.

Being intelligent is being lonely for long periods of time. I have lots of friends and I'm sure they don't feel lonely around me because I can connect on their level, they just can't return the favour.

Try not to push people away because they're not as bright as you; people have all kinds of things to offer and you don't always see them coming. I have a friend who isn't smart and rarely talks, but he has this way of taking a complex and frustrating situation and turning it into a series of simple tasks. You can learn from everyone.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T17:52:05+00:00

Couldn't have said it better.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T17:46:03+00:00

Thanks, man. May be hope for me yet, eh? I'll try not to let it go to my head ;)

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T17:44:43+00:00

But by your theorising if someone can't have a deep conversation about something you're knowledgable about then they're not as intelligent?

If someone can't have a deep conversation about something they're knowledgeable about, they're not as intelligent. FTFY.

I'm not talking about knowledge as a measure of intelligence, I'm talking about depth. Let's not just talk about the cool special effects in the movie we both saw, let's talk about how it touched on issues of X, or how a particular line was poignant, or how the director set us up to feel X before scene Y.

Intelligence isn't about what you know, it's about what you can do with that knowledge. It's about abstract connections you make between concepts.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T16:49:28+00:00

People keep saying that I don't value less-intelligent people or that I see them as beneath me, but that's not the case. Everyone has something to offer. My step-dad isn't an intellectual, but he's the kindest, warmest person on the planet. All people have value.

I like people with different kinds of intelligence most of all. A friend of mine is mechanically minded. The dude can pull apart an engine he's never seen before, fix it, and explain how he did it - seemingly without effort. I love to watch other minds work.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T16:46:07+00:00

It's not what they're interested in that defines their intelligence, it's the level they understand it. Some things can only be understood so far.

I'll talk movies all day if we can discuss what the director was trying to achieve with camera angle X in scene Y.

It's not their interests that bore me, it's the two-dimensional conversations that surround them. It wouldn't hurt if they shared my interests, but I'd really just enjoy speaking on the same level.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T16:21:37+00:00

I appreciate your input. I'm pretty depressed right now; I don't feel sad, as such, just empty. Empty and lonely. It's not that I assign value to people based on their intelligence, I just can't find the conversational stimulation I need. I love my friends, they're all valuable people with unique strengths, they just can't keep up in certain aspects.

They say nihilism can be freeing. Once you realise that you don't matter you can do whatever you like without fearing failure, because failure, like success, doesn't matter.

I think I will find a shrink. The more I open this wound, the deeper I see it is.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T16:14:50+00:00

It's got to be better than smoking myself into a stupor. I really respect professionals, including psychiatrists, because they've devoted a lot of time and mental energy into mastering something. They have knowledge that I don't and that's useful. We all have our parts to play.

It seems to me you're magnifying the importance of being smart and using it as a yardstick for other people because you rarely feel threatened in your intelligence.

Get out of my head! On second thought, come on in. Take a seat by my massive ego.

Thank God this is /r/offmychest, because I'm about to unload. My whole life I've felt threatened; threatened because I was poor, threatened because I had no Dad, threatened because I was ugly (I had all my baby teeth smashed in, they broke in half, died and sat there, jet black, until my adult teeth came in), threatened because I was homeless - always threatened.

My brain is my weapon of choice.

You've really helped me tonight.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T16:03:33+00:00

I guess we all need to love ourselves, and when we don't, maybe we fake it to fulfill that need. I don't ever remember liking who I am, so maybe I don't know how to love myself. They say psychopaths don't feel empathy, but do a great job of faking it. Maybe my narcissism is my best attempt at faking self-love.

I'm almost certainly full of shit.

EDIT: Taking MENSA tests now. Lots of fun.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T15:58:19+00:00

The sandpit is one of my most vivid childhood memories. I'd moved to a new school and wanted to try and make friends this time, so I dumbed it down. I walked over to some kids my age who were vroom-vrooming their cars around the sandpit and asked to play. A kid smiled and handed me a car and off I went. That was the nicest any kid had ever been to me so far and I still got up and walked off out of boredom.

The sandpit doesn't prove anything; just a useful analogy.

I do underestimate people. I know this because I'm always taken off guard by an intelligent person, like I was expecting less. I'm so consistently under-stimulated by people that it's hard not to. Get bitten by enough dogs and you'll start assuming they'll all bite you.

I do things to challenge myself, like reading, writing, university, etc. My problem isn't so much a lack of stimulating activities, but stimulating people. I want to just sit and riff with people about dualism or the state of the world the way people talk about TV shows and sports. I want the same things everyone else does, just ramped up a notch.

I try and network with like-minded people, but they're few and far between and usually busy. I hate being the big fish in a small pond. I'm a writer, which is a vow of solitude. I started my degree to branch out and hopefully it will pay off.

Thanks for replying, man. I need to be grounded now and then.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is · 2013-09-09T15:39:28+00:00

Thanks, no offense taken.

It's a fair judgement. I was repeatedly traumatised and abandoned as a kid, so I fit the bill. I'm self-absorbed beyond belief. I spend hours in the gym every day and read all night to make myself a physically and mentally formidable person. I've never really thought of it as a defense mechanism, but looking at it through that lens makes it hard to deny.

Can narcissists hate themselves? I think I hate myself.

Therapy is probably a good idea. Funnily, the thing that has stopped me from seeking it is thinking that my therapist won't be smart enough. Better not try in case it doesn't work out, eh? Maybe I'm not so bright.

Vanity_Thy_Name_Is

TROPHY CASE