Philosophy Discussion Forums

Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

PuerAzaelis wrote: ↑September 6th, 2022, 4:10 pm Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

Sounds like Hemingway had little experience with intelligent people.

PuerAzaelis wrote: ↑September 6th, 2022, 4:10 pm Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

Looking at the more negative aspects of life, there are things that, once we know about them, might worry us. They might make us sad, or anything other than "happy". Perhaps intelligent people are more likely to be aware of these things-to-worry-about, and this makes them less happy than some who is, in the words of the highly apposite saying, in "blissful ignorance" of them?

I think it depends both on luck and quality of coping mechanisms you can deploy. Similarly I'm sure intelligent people get treated in a wide range of ways, not necessarily always outcasts.

What I do feel like can happen is if you're intelligent but born outside of a good patronage network it's a bit like not having been launched by five or six into hockey in Canada to get on one of the A-series teams and get exponentially more attention for your effort (tradeoff being - almost single-focused life). I still have Malcom Gladwell ringing in my ears a bit but yeah, you can feel rough about having had surroundings, family, friends, whole set and settings that assisted in squandering your potential, and you may not have had a realistic way out or perhaps more importantly a better 'where' to go to even if you could have gotten away.

The other bitterness I could see hitting people is if they start realizing that their love of wisdom, science, spirituality, poetry, etc. might have consoled them and made them feel richer but it also made them lose the financial rat race and put them under (in perhaps both wealth and status) what in many cases what seem to be overgrown children with adult-weaponized tantrums. At that point the joy you've taken in peace, in high-mindedness, etc. gives way as you realize that you had a self-delusion that just being the best you would save you in the end and, perhaps, that notion was an incredibly dangerous illusion the whole time - as you consider, worst case scenario, you never be able to retire and you could be living under the thumb of hypercompetitive idiots for the rest of your life. I'm hoping the later definitely doesn't find me (perhaps it could have if I hadn't gotten wise sooner) but that's also quite a bitter pill to swallow, ie. if you come to feel like this stuff - and a fascination with truth - actually made you lose the race, helped cut your genetic line off, etc.

LuckyR wrote: ↑September 7th, 2022, 3:18 am

PuerAzaelis wrote: ↑September 6th, 2022, 4:10 pm Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

Sounds like Hemingway had little experience with intelligent people.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ford Maddox Ford, Proust, John Dos Passos were all dumb ****? I'm not saying they were company I'd choose. But I'd say none were unintelligent. Their failings lay elsewhere.

PuerAzaelis wrote: ↑September 6th, 2022, 4:10 pm Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

I'd say intelligent people (in the West at any rate) are more susceptible to whinging and self-pity. My guess is the socialization process that goes on the universities: intellectuals tend to get cast into angsty roles. In the Army, I was fairly happy. As an undergrad, then grad, and finally lecturer I was a morphed into a doosh. Around age 30 I got a job on the Bering Sea fishing---bliss, or near 'nuff to it. Went on to better things than faux Faustian posturing.

Aspiring to be an intellectual when you're not is a curse. I went to an old book market, and saw heaps of volumes with undiscovered titles, by authors whose names did nothing to alleviate their anonymity; masses of individual volumes, each a struggle to demonstrate intellectual prowess, united in their unhappy destiny - a pencilled in fraction of the original sale price!

Intelligent v intellectual. A cleaner might be highly intelligent in how they organise their work, selection of products etc. No one thinks that is a curse.

The latter, intellectualism, refers to more abstract interests. No one has ever been loved by abstract concepts. Abstract concepts won't come to help when you are in trouble. Abstract concepts won't relax with you over your preferred poison for a laugh. They usually don't make money either, and they very rarely attract mates. Papus above touches on how it can be easy for complex thinkers to lose their way, committing to dead end ways of operating.

Still, I think the main reason that intellectuals struggle emotionally is a principle that every mechanic and engineer knows - the more complex the machine, the less robust it is. The more interdependent mechanisms there are, the more a mechanism can go wrong and send the whole machine off kilter.

Complex machines are harder to run and control. If we we consider the remarkable lunacy of human beings from antiquity onwards, it's clear that many billions of humans have struggled to control the powerful and complex mechanisms in their heads. Who can blame them? It can be like trying to tame a bucking bronco with one hand tied behind your back.

Xenophon wrote: ↑January 18th, 2024, 8:38 am

LuckyR wrote: ↑September 7th, 2022, 3:18 am

PuerAzaelis wrote: ↑September 6th, 2022, 4:10 pm Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

Sounds like Hemingway had little experience with intelligent people.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Ford Maddox Ford, Proust, John Dos Passos were all dumb ****? I'm not saying they were company I'd choose. But I'd say none were unintelligent. Their failings lay elsewhere.

Exactly my point, thanks for that. He obviously knew folks with happiness problems unrelated to their intelligence.

Hi all's!

"The more you know, the more you realize you don't know" is attributed to Socrates. I think that is troubling for some.

PuerAzaelis wrote: ↑September 6th, 2022, 4:10 pm Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

I love Hemingway's writing, but I wouldn't take life observations from him.  Stein called his group of American writers who hung out part of 'The Lost Generation', who'd been damaged by war. 

The ordinary blokes who'd been damaged in the trenches returning to their jobs in the factories and pits don't get quoted on the matter.

ilnurbeggins wrote: ↑September 22nd, 2024, 1:10 pm Hi all's!

Hello! Welcome

Mo_reese wrote: ↑September 22nd, 2024, 3:53 pm "The more you know, the more you realize you don't know" is attributed to Socrates. I think that is troubling for some.

Troubling, yes. But one of the first major discoveries on the path toward wisdom?

PuerAzaelis wrote: ↑September 6th, 2022, 4:10 pm Ernest Hemingway wrote: "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know".

I'm wondering why this is? Are intelligent people more susceptible to depression?

Gertie wrote: ↑September 22nd, 2024, 4:15 pm I love Hemingway's writing, but I wouldn't take life observations from him.  Stein called his group of American writers who hung out part of 'The Lost Generation', who'd been damaged by war. 

The ordinary blokes who'd been damaged in the trenches returning to their jobs in the factories and pits don't get quoted on the matter.

Intellectuals "more susceptible to depression"? Isn't the explanation just a matter of reversing the old proverb, ignorance is bliss?