I want an IQ of 180. But all the studying in the world won't get me there. Sadly... tell me about being brilliant!

Lost

“Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It just lets you get lost in more remote places.' — Garrison Keillor"

No-Faithlessness5311

Mastery

"The smarter you get, the more you realise you don't know."

Crafty-Ambassador779

"I've noticed there's something weird with this, though. If someone hits a certain level of mastery in one area, they seem to think they can easily be an expert in all areas."

"As an example I used to be a professional carpenter that did work on mostly high end builds. The amount of Doctors and Engineers that were suddenly master plumbers, finish carpenters and electricians and 'knew' more than me after a few days of research was infuriating."

TheIowan

"facts and logic"

"They have no effect on dumb people's opinions."

theboomboy

"Persuasion (like teaching) is definitely a separate skill from intelligence. You can throw around 'facts and logic' all you want, but humans aren't robots. And what you/they consider factual and logical, may not be so."

ncnotebook

"I’ve found that people don’t like to be persuaded by logic and facts if they don’t have any logical facts to back their stance to begin with. They much rather go off hysteria and what they believe rather than what reasoning led them to that belief."

Vaxtin

Crushing

"Our school system (Australia) isn't built to deal with them. It crushes bright kids down to everyone else's level. The usual solution is just to give them extra work to do on top of the assigned work, when they finish that too fast. But to a kid, that's a punishment. In this way achieving beyond a certain accepted parameter is quietly discouraged."

theexteriorposterior

fools and fanatics

"They are full of doubt compared to people who are not smart."

F**k-Reddit-Mods69

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -B. Russell"

Paddlesons

So brains don't automatically equal brilliance and happiness... Who knew?

I Know what I Know

"Being smart enough to know you're right while dealing with people too stupid to know they're wrong is soul crushing."

Stryker2279

"smartness"

"There's different levels of 'smartness' and different smart people go about life in different ways. But, I think universally young prodigies are typically isolated. They are at a level far above children their age, but are far younger than the people that match intellectually with (lacking life experience). Either way, a young prodigy can't connect with either group."

Firamaster

Potential

"They don't always find ways of living up to their potential."

Immediate_Aioli342

"To add to this, they're often told they should live up to their potential simply because it exists. The number of times myself and some of my current MSC colleagues have been told we are wasting our potential by not being physicians is soul crushing."

"And demeaning because it implies that pursuing anything other than the hardest, highest paid disciplines is a waste of you, regardless of what makes you happy. Truly sad to see smart people in careers or lives they hate because they did what other people told them they should do."

TinyBabyAlli

I should probably go back to therapy...

"Expectations. Never learning to study until it is too late. Being forced to learn outside of your age related interests. Being terrified of failure. Not being able to balance ambition and said fear of failure. Once again, expectations. My mother put so much pressure on me at such a young age I couldn't handle it. I have done well for myself as an adult, but will never be able to live up to those expectations set by her and others. I should probably go back to therapy."

Putty119

Levels

"There are different types of intelligence. Being good at physics doesn't mean that you should manage people."

oliverismyspiritdog

Well I'm glad to only have average level intelligence. Who needs the stress.