If someone is intelligent but chronically unhappy are they still intelligent?

[Bozo Erectus]

What is your definition of wisdom?

Piercing the illusions we all treasure so much. Seeing oneself, and others, for what you, and they, really are.

 

[Narz]

Piercing the illusions we all treasure so much. Seeing oneself, and others, for what you, and they, really are.

And why is that be bad in your eyes?

 

[bhsup]

I really am usually a pretty happy guy, and I don't consider myself stupid. I'm not Teller or Marconi, but I'm not the town dunce either. You all are starting to depress me, though. I didn't realize that I was supposed to be depressed all the time.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

And why is that be bad in your eyes?

Well, what do you think we are?

 

[Narz]

I really am usually a pretty happy guy, and I don't consider myself stupid. I'm not Teller or Marconi, but I'm not the town dunce either. You all are starting to depress me, though. I didn't realize that I was supposed to be depressed all the time.

You're not supposed to be depressed all the time. It took years of cultural conditional, unnatural lifestyle and somewhat negative parents to create my depression, and it still didn't overtake me perminantly. Happiness is our natural state.

Well, what do you think we are?

Well, some of us are evasive.

In answer, we are intelligent creatures trying to survive, be challenged, grow, enjoy ourselves & each other and gain comfort. In absense of this we may resort to desperate measures (just as chickens packed too close together will go insane) but ultimately our nature is to get along, to cooperate, to survive.

 

[Bozo Erectus]

In answer, we are intelligent creatures trying to survive, be challenged, grow, enjoy ourselves & each other and gain comfort. In absense of this we may resort to desperate measures (just as chickens packed too close together will go insane) but ultimately our nature is to get along, to cooperate, to survive.

The last one. To survive. Cooperation is just a more logical, efficient way to survive. Its not what we are. In periods when violence and "might makes right", apply, we employ those with just as much enthusiasm.

 

[Narz]

The last one. To survive. Cooperation is just a more logical, efficient way to survive. Its not what we are. In periods when violence and "might makes right", apply, we employ those with just as much enthusiasm.

We also have the power to choose. We can choose hate or we can choose love.

And what is wrong with being logical and efficient anyway?

 

[puglover]

Mental illness and bouts of depression aside.

If someone is a genius but can't successfully maintain a positive emotional state at least some of the time would you still consider them smart?

Wisdom brings sadness. The more you see and know about the world, the more you know it is corrupted and sinister.

 

[Kyriakos]

So what?

It seems more likely that depression is about feeling that you are limited, rather than having a 'correct' understanding of how bad the world is.
People tend to care about if they themselves are bad, and not so much about the world in general. Often someone thinks that he is bad in some way, and then goes on to focus on how the world can be seen as bad, because it appears to be so much more noble to be miserable because the world is bad, and not you.

But in reality what you feel about you/the world/anything, is your own view, and as such it can be changed

 

[Bluemofia]

Of course. Depression does not alter your intelligence at all.

I'm really really depressed, although I'm used to it, so I display a blank look pretty much all day. And if you would ask any people in my science classes, they would say I'm intelligent. Even the ones that know I'm depressed.

 

[Narz]

Wisdom brings sadness. The more you see and know about the world, the more you know it is corrupted and sinister.

I disagree wholeheartedly. The more of the biggest picture you can see the more you realize how beautiful it is and more than that that it is just a game. A game with much suffering certainly. But much beauty also. It is more painful to suffer in darkness than to struggle in the light.

 

[CaptainF]

This is sort of an analogy to asking who the truly successful man is.

If a man has a burgeoning professional life, yet has a ruinous personal life, is he truly successful?

If a man has a blessed personal life, yet a professional life in shambles, is he truly successful?

I see this whole discussion as being connected with that one.

 

[Mise]

Put it this way, I'd rather be happy than sad, regardless of how clever I was.