A fixation on trying to “solve” yourself is part of the problem, at least in my experience. What would it mean to accept that you might be lacking skills in the EQ area, or more generally, are unhappy right now? And instead of immediately trying to change it, just sitting with it? Does it terrify you to sit with the possibility that this unhappiness may never change, that this might be who you are?
I think for people who are used to using their “intelligence” to move through life, the real change comes from moving slower and accepting, or at least not rejecting, uncertainty. And then seeing what emerges.
Agreed, starting from the premise that 'you are broken and need fixing' on one hand lends itself to negative emotions that contribute to misery in a self-defeating way - but on the other hand can be a realistic recognition of your issues and the first step towards taking responsibility and making a change. A bit of an unresolved contradiction for me.
Why do I recognize problems and choose not to solve them immediately? Habit maybe? Choosing what's easy over what's difficult? Emotional skills exhibit reinforcing feedback loops - when things go wrong it's easy to spiral deeper into self-sabotage. But it also works the other way: when you improve the small things in your life (meditate, clean your room), it gets easier to work on the bigger problems.
Does it terrify me that I might never change? Absolutely haha. When I'm down in the dumps I sometimes picture myself at 30, 40, still struggling with these feelings. But I've been through enough personal change in my life to recognize I don't have to identify with the misery, that one day I'll look back and the emotional turmoil of today will feel like a half-forgotten nightmare.
Moving slower and developing acceptance seems like a great place to start :)
this is a brilliant perspective, and one that really spoke to me as someone who essentially had the "gifted kid" role forced onto him throughout my elementary and middle school years and never wanted it in the first place. really, really enjoyed this one
“I’m realizing I’m unhappy because I overvalue IQ and achievement, and undervalue EQ and the components of happiness — connections, contentment, purpose.”
This. This part right here. Sure, you (the general you) can memorize facts in a textbook. You can recite them no problem. And heck, you can do really well on tests. But what does that get you in the real world?
It’s not a “you” problem so as much as it’s a societal problem. I see in corporate every day. We overvalue technical skills and undervalue intangible ones, so much so that we demote intangible skill to “soft” skills. But no one is going to care about someone’s ability to code or their MCAT scores in the apocalypse.
tl;dr: This is great self-aware, self-reflective essay.
I love this essay. Honestly it's so true, I see it so much in Gen Z and first generation people. It's what has pulled me down too. Thank you for sharing this 💜
Long comment ahead, but I wanted to try recording my thoughts for the first time.
Great writing—you put into words what took years of school for me to understand and appreciate.
If intelligence is the ability to get what you want out of life (e.g. the correct answers on a multiple-choice test, and deriving fulfillment or meaning out of relationships), then a lot of these metrics show their shortcomings in external validity in becoming context-dependent.
I liked your breakdowns of happiness, as these definitions coexist even if some parts are seemingly contradictory. The idea of the 3 S's in college (studying, sleep, social) parallels Blackburn's definition (achievement, health, happiness). Unlike the S's, I don't think you're limited to only 2 of the 3 in life of course.
Cate Hall's article was great too; it's so important to take time to reflect on whether you're approaching your problems the way someone else would. I'd imagine the eudaimonia follows naturally as you see your students grow.
All interesting to think about while preparing for the MCAT now. (Reading Substack is CARS practice, no one can tell me otherwise.)
I'd forgotten about the 3 S's - a good way to illustrate the tradeoffs in values. When you value one thing higher (study or sleep), you automatically devalue the other (socials). Personally, I believe it's possible to achieve a balance, but it's extremely individualized - what works for someone else will not work for you.
Reading Substack is absolutely CARS practice. Good luck!
The main problem is that conscientiousness is negatively correlated with intelligence. Also emotional intelligence is mostly g and personality. It's sad but IQ sometimes is not enough, but it's highly necessary for success in american society. The only exception is maybe show biz
Thanks for sharing the article in the other comment. For sure, personality and g play a large part in EQ but I would make the points that:
1. Ability EI can be classified in the narrower strata of g in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model, as specific skills that need to be developed independently of g
2. Personality can be intentionally modified, which is an important emotional skill and complicates the picture.
this was an awesome read, and a lot of it resonated with me - even the happiness parts. have you tried a daily gratitude practice? i’ve found that much of the time i thought i wasn’t happy i actually *was* happy, i just didn’t appreciate the things around me. starting a gratitude journal changed a lot for me
Yes I've tried daily gratitude - it's part of my nightly routine but has fallen off lately. I guess part of 'better decision making' is to keep up the practices that keep me grounded i.e. meditation and gratitude
Gifted kids are usually pretty emotionally healthy. It's the environment that isn't. The problem isn't with the high IQ people; it's with the average people who are envious and petty. It is *they* who cannot handle their own emotional lives, and so they create a delusion and live in it together. Crabs in a bucket.
People jeer and thrill inside when they read that a gifted kid has had a hard time. Gee whiz, who wouldn't thrive in a world like that? The targets of the green eyed monster.
Those of very high intelligence know better than to think that becoming some whitecoated brainwashed Rockefeller fake-medicine creep equals success. Whitecoats are actually failures. They failed to self-actualize. They failed to get out of that high school headspace where all they care about is getting to feel superior at the class reunion. They failed to see that they are ruled and led by their overblown egos, and that they have sacrificed their true selves on the altar of feeling "better than". Ironically, this automatically makes them worse than those who've figured it out when they refused to.
The highly intelligent do what it takes to gain independence from the system, often by working for themselves or finding some unorthodox arrangement. A job is a job, but the high IQ person is a philosopher, an artist, an oracle, an iconoclast, an open end.
The average and the dull can pump their fists, feeling vindicated that the gifted kid they envied never became a vassal, and instead struggled financially. Those people are pathetic, mean-spirited, and total wastes of life. They are nothing and no one, and they will be forgotten the moment they die. They know this, and they hold tightly to anything that makes them feel better for a second ..because that takes far less persistence than working on their own character. Mention to them that many of our most loved historical figures spent the majority of their lives unknown and destitute, and they glitch glitch glitch like the short circuited robots they are.
They'd be flabbergasted to know just how many opportunities to make big skrill the highly intelligent turn away due to their MORAL FORTITUDE, their refusal to sell out their own values for some paper. The one who says NO to stepping on heads is the one who is more likely to have a hard time of things.
Let the whitecoats prance about the halls of the sick care centers. Have a laugh at their expense. They fell for the faustian deal. Silly lemmings.
I might have been like you, but less extreme...the cognitive stuff seemed effortless, the social stuff seemed hard and confusing and I was "bad at it", and I didn't even try anything athletic for the first 22 years of my life.
I had a deeply profound experience when I was 23 - I signed up for a free intro Tai Kwon Do class. The instructor got me a uniform and showed me how to do a riding stance punch...you slide your left leg out into a horse stance and punch with your right fist while bringing your left arm back for balance. For anyone who has done any martial arts or dance, they could do this seeing it once...it's the martial arts version of writing your name in large block print letters.
It took me...forty five minutes to get the basic motions. Moving all four limbs in different directions...I had to learn each limb one by one. Slowly. I was really, really incompetent.
And the life changing part of it was: I *didn't care*. I realized that I was *deeply enjoying* learning a totally new, alien skill, and that while this was totally foreign and I had no aptitude or past ability, the motions themselves felt good and were a new and interesting experience, and I was getting some mastery in going from "can't do this" to "can".
Until then, I had somehow picked up from the ether this idea that there were things I was good and bad at, and my life was going to be mostly spent doing the things I was "good at", and not the things I was "bad at".
After the lesson, I realized that I could work on a skill in any domain, learn, and get enjoyment, and I didn't have to treat "natural aptitude" like some kind of prison.
I share this because, reading your post, I wondered if the *activities* you need to participate in to *change* your behavior are going to feel really foreign, alien, and new.
It's okay to be a white belt - you never learn any faster than at the beginning of that steep learning curve. When you look at what you have and have not _done_ to try to change your life, I wonder if you are the economist looking for his keys under the lamppost of "things people with high IQ can do quite easily". Time to fumble in the dark a bit?
A fixation on trying to “solve” yourself is part of the problem, at least in my experience. What would it mean to accept that you might be lacking skills in the EQ area, or more generally, are unhappy right now? And instead of immediately trying to change it, just sitting with it? Does it terrify you to sit with the possibility that this unhappiness may never change, that this might be who you are?
I think for people who are used to using their “intelligence” to move through life, the real change comes from moving slower and accepting, or at least not rejecting, uncertainty. And then seeing what emerges.
Agreed, starting from the premise that 'you are broken and need fixing' on one hand lends itself to negative emotions that contribute to misery in a self-defeating way - but on the other hand can be a realistic recognition of your issues and the first step towards taking responsibility and making a change. A bit of an unresolved contradiction for me.
Why do I recognize problems and choose not to solve them immediately? Habit maybe? Choosing what's easy over what's difficult? Emotional skills exhibit reinforcing feedback loops - when things go wrong it's easy to spiral deeper into self-sabotage. But it also works the other way: when you improve the small things in your life (meditate, clean your room), it gets easier to work on the bigger problems.
Does it terrify me that I might never change? Absolutely haha. When I'm down in the dumps I sometimes picture myself at 30, 40, still struggling with these feelings. But I've been through enough personal change in my life to recognize I don't have to identify with the misery, that one day I'll look back and the emotional turmoil of today will feel like a half-forgotten nightmare.
Moving slower and developing acceptance seems like a great place to start :)
this is a brilliant perspective, and one that really spoke to me as someone who essentially had the "gifted kid" role forced onto him throughout my elementary and middle school years and never wanted it in the first place. really, really enjoyed this one
“I’m realizing I’m unhappy because I overvalue IQ and achievement, and undervalue EQ and the components of happiness — connections, contentment, purpose.”
This. This part right here. Sure, you (the general you) can memorize facts in a textbook. You can recite them no problem. And heck, you can do really well on tests. But what does that get you in the real world?
It’s not a “you” problem so as much as it’s a societal problem. I see in corporate every day. We overvalue technical skills and undervalue intangible ones, so much so that we demote intangible skill to “soft” skills. But no one is going to care about someone’s ability to code or their MCAT scores in the apocalypse.
tl;dr: This is great self-aware, self-reflective essay.
the r in perma worked, i restacked this essay.
I love this essay. Honestly it's so true, I see it so much in Gen Z and first generation people. It's what has pulled me down too. Thank you for sharing this 💜
Long comment ahead, but I wanted to try recording my thoughts for the first time.
Great writing—you put into words what took years of school for me to understand and appreciate.
If intelligence is the ability to get what you want out of life (e.g. the correct answers on a multiple-choice test, and deriving fulfillment or meaning out of relationships), then a lot of these metrics show their shortcomings in external validity in becoming context-dependent.
I liked your breakdowns of happiness, as these definitions coexist even if some parts are seemingly contradictory. The idea of the 3 S's in college (studying, sleep, social) parallels Blackburn's definition (achievement, health, happiness). Unlike the S's, I don't think you're limited to only 2 of the 3 in life of course.
Cate Hall's article was great too; it's so important to take time to reflect on whether you're approaching your problems the way someone else would. I'd imagine the eudaimonia follows naturally as you see your students grow.
All interesting to think about while preparing for the MCAT now. (Reading Substack is CARS practice, no one can tell me otherwise.)
Thanks for engaging with the ideas!
I'd forgotten about the 3 S's - a good way to illustrate the tradeoffs in values. When you value one thing higher (study or sleep), you automatically devalue the other (socials). Personally, I believe it's possible to achieve a balance, but it's extremely individualized - what works for someone else will not work for you.
Reading Substack is absolutely CARS practice. Good luck!
The beginning of this essay pulled me right in - I feel like you have such a talent for that as I’ve read your other pieces. I love it!
thank u!
“For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.” Ecclesiastes 1:18
The main problem is that conscientiousness is negatively correlated with intelligence. Also emotional intelligence is mostly g and personality. It's sad but IQ sometimes is not enough, but it's highly necessary for success in american society. The only exception is maybe show biz
Thanks for sharing the article in the other comment. For sure, personality and g play a large part in EQ but I would make the points that:
1. Ability EI can be classified in the narrower strata of g in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll model, as specific skills that need to be developed independently of g
2. Personality can be intentionally modified, which is an important emotional skill and complicates the picture.
Also I'm finding basically no correlation between conscientiousness and intelligence according to the source given in the article:(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/365125703_Personality_and_Intelligence_A_Meta-Analysis)
My bad on the IQ and conscientiouness, I misread the article by Seb Jensen.
I have linked a paper in another comment about how much g and personality correlates with the EI.
Now, I'm not an expert but personality is quite heritable
Definitely heritable. Nature + nurture. I'll also have to read more on EQ to get a better understanding
Well written and relevant to so many of us. Thank you.
Love this essay
ty :)
I hope your financial situation gets resolved soon!! You’re a talented writer 🥺
this was an awesome read, and a lot of it resonated with me - even the happiness parts. have you tried a daily gratitude practice? i’ve found that much of the time i thought i wasn’t happy i actually *was* happy, i just didn’t appreciate the things around me. starting a gratitude journal changed a lot for me
Yes I've tried daily gratitude - it's part of my nightly routine but has fallen off lately. I guess part of 'better decision making' is to keep up the practices that keep me grounded i.e. meditation and gratitude
it’s a hard habit to stick to! i used to do it on my notes app or journal nightly but kept missing days. having a dedicated gratitude journal with daily prompts really helped me - i use the cheap $10 one on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Gratitude-Journal-Affirmation-Productivity-Mindfulness/dp/B09NPVVKWR
"You're smart but emotionally incompetent."
Speak for yourself.
Gifted kids are usually pretty emotionally healthy. It's the environment that isn't. The problem isn't with the high IQ people; it's with the average people who are envious and petty. It is *they* who cannot handle their own emotional lives, and so they create a delusion and live in it together. Crabs in a bucket.
People jeer and thrill inside when they read that a gifted kid has had a hard time. Gee whiz, who wouldn't thrive in a world like that? The targets of the green eyed monster.
Those of very high intelligence know better than to think that becoming some whitecoated brainwashed Rockefeller fake-medicine creep equals success. Whitecoats are actually failures. They failed to self-actualize. They failed to get out of that high school headspace where all they care about is getting to feel superior at the class reunion. They failed to see that they are ruled and led by their overblown egos, and that they have sacrificed their true selves on the altar of feeling "better than". Ironically, this automatically makes them worse than those who've figured it out when they refused to.
The highly intelligent do what it takes to gain independence from the system, often by working for themselves or finding some unorthodox arrangement. A job is a job, but the high IQ person is a philosopher, an artist, an oracle, an iconoclast, an open end.
The average and the dull can pump their fists, feeling vindicated that the gifted kid they envied never became a vassal, and instead struggled financially. Those people are pathetic, mean-spirited, and total wastes of life. They are nothing and no one, and they will be forgotten the moment they die. They know this, and they hold tightly to anything that makes them feel better for a second ..because that takes far less persistence than working on their own character. Mention to them that many of our most loved historical figures spent the majority of their lives unknown and destitute, and they glitch glitch glitch like the short circuited robots they are.
They'd be flabbergasted to know just how many opportunities to make big skrill the highly intelligent turn away due to their MORAL FORTITUDE, their refusal to sell out their own values for some paper. The one who says NO to stepping on heads is the one who is more likely to have a hard time of things.
Let the whitecoats prance about the halls of the sick care centers. Have a laugh at their expense. They fell for the faustian deal. Silly lemmings.
Intelligence doesn’t cause unhappiness, but the heightened awareness of possibilities, risks, and complexities can make action feel overwhelming.
I might have been like you, but less extreme...the cognitive stuff seemed effortless, the social stuff seemed hard and confusing and I was "bad at it", and I didn't even try anything athletic for the first 22 years of my life.
I had a deeply profound experience when I was 23 - I signed up for a free intro Tai Kwon Do class. The instructor got me a uniform and showed me how to do a riding stance punch...you slide your left leg out into a horse stance and punch with your right fist while bringing your left arm back for balance. For anyone who has done any martial arts or dance, they could do this seeing it once...it's the martial arts version of writing your name in large block print letters.
It took me...forty five minutes to get the basic motions. Moving all four limbs in different directions...I had to learn each limb one by one. Slowly. I was really, really incompetent.
And the life changing part of it was: I *didn't care*. I realized that I was *deeply enjoying* learning a totally new, alien skill, and that while this was totally foreign and I had no aptitude or past ability, the motions themselves felt good and were a new and interesting experience, and I was getting some mastery in going from "can't do this" to "can".
Until then, I had somehow picked up from the ether this idea that there were things I was good and bad at, and my life was going to be mostly spent doing the things I was "good at", and not the things I was "bad at".
After the lesson, I realized that I could work on a skill in any domain, learn, and get enjoyment, and I didn't have to treat "natural aptitude" like some kind of prison.
I share this because, reading your post, I wondered if the *activities* you need to participate in to *change* your behavior are going to feel really foreign, alien, and new.
It's okay to be a white belt - you never learn any faster than at the beginning of that steep learning curve. When you look at what you have and have not _done_ to try to change your life, I wonder if you are the economist looking for his keys under the lamppost of "things people with high IQ can do quite easily". Time to fumble in the dark a bit?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0191886903004422