We intellectuals are a strange breed, and one of our foremost peculiarities is a tendency for neurotic self-doubt. Our restlessly inquisitive minds lead us to vistas unknown and give us wizard-like powers in the mental realm, but the other edge on that blade is that it leads us to doubt things that nobody else would even think of doubting.
One of those is whether or not we really are smart. The lack of relationship between intelligence and effectiveness in the world often leads us to question how smart we can be when we seem to have the damnedest time actually getting anything done, and the commonest solution to this conflict is to doubt whether we really are all that bright after all.
Smart is as smart does, after all.
In order to aid my fellow eggheads in their efforts to solve this problem by providing a more satisfactory way to measure one’s fitness for membership in the worldwide league of intellectuals, below you will find a list of some of the common characteristics I have observed while traveling in above-average IQ circles, and if you truly are one of us, I hope that you will find them comforting and reassuring.
As long as the following apply to you, you are an intellectual.
1. Intellectuals have a great deal of mental energy
Of all the common traits of intellectuals, the most defining is their abundance of mental energy. This surplus of mental energy is at the core of what it means to be an intellectual, and drives the rest of the characteristics that we will be discussing today. Deep inside the psyche of every intellectual, it is as if a switch had been thrown that diverts the lion’s share of bodily energies to the mental as opposed to the physical processes of the human body. This inherent prioritization automatically leads to a great deal of mental energy being produced, and whether it is expresses as a manic mental running and leaping about, or something more like a vast and stately mansion of the mind, it is this abundance that underlies it all.
This leads directly to our next observation :
2. Intellectuals are easily bored.
The vast surplus of mental energy with which an intellectual must deal on a day to day basis leads them to have an enormous appetite for mental stimulation, and when, as often is the case, this need is unmet, the result is often boredom. This boredom is particularly difficult to endure for the younger intellectuals, as they are both filled with youthful energy and as yet have not found their particular ways of satisfying their mental needs.
This mental restlessness leads to our next point :
3. Intellectuals are very curious.
Curiosity is, in a sense, the opposite of boredom. It causes intellectuals to explore, whether in their physical environment or the world of the mind. Curiosity takes passive boredom and turns it into an active search for that all important mental stimulation that absorbs that overflowing mental energy and keeps it from spilling over into boredom.
This curiosity leads to things like this :
4. Intellectuals love to learn for its own sake.
Learning new things is inherently pleasurable to intellectuals, and therefore requires no other goal or end. The subject matter has to be of interest to the intellectual, but otherwise the simple act of adding to their sum of knowledge about the subject and about the world is very enjoyable to an intellectual.
Similar to that :
5. Intellectuals love to think about things.
Processing all that learned information in order to integrate it into a larger picture of the subject or even the world is another thing that intellectuals enjoy. Their mental muscle allows them to process information on a deeper level, and this process itself leads to a specific kind of new knowledge, derived knowledge, so in effect it also provides the aforementioned pleasure of learning as well.
It is hardly surprising, then, that :
6. Intellectuals love to apply their minds
The richest and most rewarding form of mental stimulation for intellectuals is to apply their mental muscle to a problem, whether that is a head researcher trying to cure cancer or a high school teacher relaxing with a crossword puzzle. Puzzles and games are quite popular with intellectuals precisely because they can absorb all that thinking energy and give the intellectual something to keep the wild horses of their intellectual minds fully occupied, leaving the rest of their consciousness time to rest.
Intellectuals are as human as anyone else, though, and they don’t operate in a social vacuum, so :
7. Intellectuals like to show off and be praised for their mental abilities.
Even the most bookish and mild-mannered intellectual still seeks a spotlight under which they can shine. Nearly every intellectual got praised for their intellect for at least part of their school life, and that leaves a strong impression on intellectuals during some highly formative years. So whether or not they are conscious of it, all intellectuals crave that experience of being valued and rewarded purely for showing of how bright they were again.
And finally, as we are dealing with social issues :
8. Intellectuals, as a group, tend to have a lower than average social IQ
The thing about intellectuals is that whatever their specialty, their talents, or their interests, all of their abilities come from a core set of extremely powerful abstract reasoning tools. Complex recall, pattern recognition, anomaly detection, symbolic logic, and so forth all allow for an amazing ability to do a wide variety of things.
But they are all based on the same circuit of the brain, the cold and calculating one. And there is another circuit, the warm empathetic one, and that is the one all social skills are derived from.
So by strongly emphasizing the calculation circuit, an intellectual diverts resources from the social circuit, and this makes it hard for them to understand the nuances of social reality.
I hope this little guide has given you some kind of understanding of all that you share in common with your fellow intellectuals, and given you some peace of mind about your place among them.
I will talk to all you nice people later.