Smart and dumb

So, I like people. I love socialising, chatting, interacting. I try to surround myself with persons of different classes, ethnicities, socio economic levels, ages, and gender, in an effort to make me more balanced and better rounded.

I am not saying it has worked. I am just saying the effort is there. I especially like to interact with smart people.



They are the more interesting and they are usually intelligent in very specific areas so they would give me a deep dive in aspects and areas that I never considered, to make me go ‘whey’! The thing about smart people though is that they are not usually the more successful ones. Sometimes the ones who are more famous, or financially successful or more popular are definitely not the smart ones. The persons who are more successful are usually the smooth talkers, the good looking, the well connected, the ones with the famous family names, the ones with dumb luck, the buttock tongue adjacent ones and a small percentage are the hard workers who burn the midnight oil.

Even in organisations, the smart persons are not the ones who are moving up the ladder. Aside from the above list the ones who succeed in the corporate world are the schmoozers, the ones who understand organisational culture, the narcissists, the opportunists, the calculating, the sociopaths. In fact, some would say that smart people sabotage their success.

They may over focus on intellect and ignore organisational culture where networking is regarded as a main constituent. So, they may for instance think that being kind and interacting with co-workers is not necessary and that what they bring to the table in terms of ideas and intellect is enough. They could not be more wrong.

They may also hate working in teams and thus don’t delegate and instead do everything themselves since they do it better anyway. No matter how smart they are, that method of doing everything themselves would not promote high production and would always cap them in terms of output. A lot of their self-esteem is also tied up with being smart.

So when they are in areas or sectors where the other persons are more skilled in that field, they may feel threatened and avoid those areas or projects. Smart persons also get bored easily and may want to move on to the next challenge. But some things require hard work and persistence to make sure there is full implementation and uptake, to make sure it sticks.

To build, sometimes you require an “ideas” person at the start, but you really afterwards require a plodder, to persist and continue with something day in and day out until completion. Smart persons also sometimes over think an issue and waste brain power trying to over analyse and understand. Sometimes an issue is just black or white, sometime a thing is just a thing and nothing else.

Similar to how women sometimes over think what they presume their guy may be thinking. Sometimes, guys are literally thinking about nothing. And they could do that for a long while.

In fact, in communities, organisations and general life, smart people are surprisingly dumb in significant other life areas. And of course, they suck in relationships. They sometimes have ridiculously high standards in relationships, making it difficult for them to settle down.

They want significant intellectual stimulation with their spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. Since when is that an absolute life rule. You can choose your love partner for a variety of different separate reasons and smart persons have not been able to understand that.

And even if they do, they want more. It seems that although they may be at high levels in terms of IQ, they may be lower in terms of emotional intelligence (EQ) and lower in the more advanced form of assessing intelligence, adaptive intelligence (AQ). Also, IQ tests capture analytic intelligence and do not assess creative and practical intelligence.

Creative intelligence is our ability to deal with novel situations. Practical intelligence is our ability to get things done. Sometimes a person can be smart but uncreative and practically, a waste of time.

Some studies have found smart people to be weaker in social environments, less able to deal with heavy emotions, less adaptive and less able to pivot when the circumstance demands. The also seemingly have less common sense. It is like over focussing on a particular muscle at the gym.

You may have large biceps and look great in a tight shirt, but your abdominals are far from a six pack, and your legs may be skinny and underdeveloped. Some go even further and suggest that smart people can be extraordinarily naïve with social environments, relationships, organisations, and general life. They sometimes lack street smarts after an over reliance on their intellectual abilities.

Going even further, the data also shows that smart people are prone to depression and anxiety. Since they overthink and deep dive for everything, there is often information overload. Could you imagine thinking everything about everything all the time.

Egad! The best thing is probably to be smart adjacent. Lime with smart people and soak in their intellect. But also go lime with some funny people, talk some crap, lime on the block, shoot the breeze, watch a sunset, have some intimate time with your love partner.

Living and loving is probably the real intelligence. —Dr Joanne F Paul is an Emergency Medicine Lecturer with The UWI.