00:00I'm going to say something a bit controversial. I think we should all aspire to be dumber.
00:04Let me explain. In the book Not From Underground by Dostovsky, he writes about a man who is
00:10very intelligent, very self-aware, but also very miserable. He wants to be seen and valued for
00:16his intelligence, but yet he is lonely and humiliated in his real life. At one point in
00:23the book, the protagonist talks about how when you're very smart, you overanalyze every single
00:29move to the point where you're paralyzed to ever act on anything that you would. But people who
00:34are less self-conscious or dumber would just go out and act because they don't have anything to think
00:40about. So ultimately, he blames all his failures in his real life, his lack of relationships,
00:46his lack of friendships, and everything else that he had failed in on his intellect. I saw a similar
00:53idea when I was reading about Schopenhauer. I want to make you listen to a sentence that he said.
00:57A man of genius can hardly be sociable. For what dialogues could indeed be so intelligent and
01:03entertaining as his own monologues? Do you see the parallel here? Both of these men put themselves
01:09on a pedestal to the point where they do not want companionship. They just want validation.
01:15They just want somebody to recognize how elevated they are compared to other people around them.
01:20And this makes them miss out on so many ordinary human things, which is essential for survival
01:27like community. Made me think about how dangerous it is to over identify ourselves with our good
01:33qualities, intelligence, self-awareness, depth, to the point where we become self-centered and we lose
01:40the people around us. Maybe the problem isn't even being about intelligent or being dumber. I think it's
01:46about not knowing the concept of Sonder that everybody around you has a life which is complete and full
01:53and you are not always the main character.
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