Intelligence isn't wisdom
Learning the difference is crucial to long term happiness
JoeUser Forums
When you're intelligent, it can be very frustrating to recognize that one lacks wisdom. And recognizing that truism is the first step on the path to gaining wisdom.
When I was 17, I started keeping a journal of my thoughts and experiences. It was part of the whole internal conceit that comes with being young and assured of ones intelligence relative to others. I kept the journal for many reasons but one reason was because I wanted to remember what it was like to be 17-21 so that when I had children, I would be able to understand better. I was certain that as I got older, I'd lose touch with that "deepness" that only young adults seemed to possess.
It is amazing how time converts intelligence to wisdom through experience. It shows up in so many subtle ways. I used to run a BBS back during my late teens and have print outs of some of my more (ahem) profound writings. Re-reading them makes it pretty clear just how intelligence is no substitute for wisdom. For example, when I was a teen, my word choices were intentionally more flamboyant and intellectual than they are today. That is, my writing was more designed to impress my readers of my intellect than to communicate my ideas. Today, when I write, I intentionally choose plainer words. That's because, over time, I've become more concerned with communicating effectively than demonstrating my vocabular.
That also is true of debating. I used to really enjoy debating about religion, the after life, abortion, evolution, love, etc. I still maintain that these are good things to debate because they make you think about things in ways you may not have previously. But now, I rarely will debate those kinds of things. They're too subjective. I am not interested in convincing someone that evolution is true (though I don't mind popping in and briefly commenting on the subject). I don't really care whether someone thinks abortion is murder or whether a "cell cluster" is life. These are things that are simply too subjective and won't be resolved.
Reading through my journal I recognize a great number of fairly typical attributes that one can see in teens anywhere in similar circumstances:
1) Melodrama. Everything is important. It is the age of poetry. The age of passionate diatribes. Heart-felt feelings. Words like "soul" and "eternal" are the types of words teens use to describe relationships. By the time you're 30, these words get replaced by words like "gas" and "smell".
2) Insecurity. Intelligence in teens is rarely valued by ones peers. This leads intelligent teens to simply try to redefine what "cool" is. That's why so many intelligent teens are basically exiles amongst their peers. I must confess, high school left a chip on my shoulder that helped fuel my ambition later on. Never underestimate the power of "I'll show them!".
3) Certainty. Teens seem to be "certain" of everything. I was. And adults who thought I was being naive were simply not intelligent enough to recognize the truth in my considered thoughts. After all, I had thought about these "deep" issues at length while adults were too busy playing office politics or watching TV. Some dullard 30 year old can't possibly understand the truth depth of my "love" for <eternal love interest #5101>. And their foolish patronization of me only made me feel more contempt for these dollards.
Of course, time moves on and wisdom is slow to build but it does over time. The issues I thought for sure would be important turned out not to be important. What delivers everyday happiness is different from person to person but is almost certainly not the things I was so certain were the keys to happiness when I was 19.
As a 32 year old, my fear now is more that humans, psychologically, follow the same pattern.
At 19 some think "I wonder what I should do with my life?" Result: Deep thoughts and certainty.
At 30 some think "I wonder if this is what I should be doing with my life?" Result: Marriages fail, unrest, re-evaluation.
At 45 some start to wonder "Is this what I should have done with my life?" Result: Mid-life crisis, sports cars, 21 year old girlfriends.
Obviously most people don't follow the pattern I describe above. But observation shows that a lot of people seem to fit some derivative of those patterns in roughly those scales.
Which brings us back to the original point - intelligence doesn't equal wisdom. Wisdom is slow to build over time. All we can do is try our best to recognize how little we know so that our intelligence doesn't lead us to disaster.
