Intellectuals suffering from a crisis of meaning should ask themselves a sincere question: do I rely on relative intelligence as the core of my identity? When you frame the question that way, a number of obvious problems with that identity come to the surface:
- You will never be the smartest person in the room in every subject. There is simply too much to know, you'll never know it all, and others are better at learning different things.
- Being smart is no guarantee of success. To be successful, it's more important to learn how to interact, influence, delegate, etc.
- Any kind of identity based on comparison with other people is doomed. You will age, your ego will take a hit when someone else seems better, etc.
Everyone needs a stable identity. A more sure identity for intellectuals is to define yourself as someone who cares. As an intellectual, you probably enjoy solving problems and you are probably capable of great empathy. Build up those qualities in yourself without comparing yourself to others. That's a way to happiness.
You will never be the smartest person in the room in every subject.
If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. If you seek to always be the smartest person in the room, you have a personality problem which is holding you back.
> If you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
Or you're simply alone. There may not be an "i" in "team", but there's two of them in "thinking".
> The salvation of the world depends only on the individual whose world it is. At least, every individual must act as if the whole future of the world, of humanity itself, depends on him. Anything less is a shirking of responsibility and is itself a dehumanizing force, for anything less encourages the individual to look upon himself as a mere actor in a drama written by anonymous agents, as less than a whole person, and that is the beginning of passivity and aimlessness.
- You will never be the smartest person in the room in every subject. There is simply too much to know, you'll never know it all, and others are better at learning different things.
- Being smart is no guarantee of success. To be successful, it's more important to learn how to interact, influence, delegate, etc.
- Any kind of identity based on comparison with other people is doomed. You will age, your ego will take a hit when someone else seems better, etc.
Everyone needs a stable identity. A more sure identity for intellectuals is to define yourself as someone who cares. As an intellectual, you probably enjoy solving problems and you are probably capable of great empathy. Build up those qualities in yourself without comparing yourself to others. That's a way to happiness.
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