Is it inevitable for every intelligent person to be an edgy, depressed teenager...

"People always ask me if I was funny as a child. Well, I was an accountant."

Of course not. It is what is expected from them, though. What a stupid question.

>the world for what it is

Please enlighten us

The crisis of death, coming to the realisation that my life was actually going to end, that there was no "waking up" to the real world, and eventual acceptance. Only once had I accepted death I began to enjoy life. If I were to die right now I would be satsified.

Furthermore being a socialist is an easily acquired skill. There are no checks and balances in the world, someone who has an easy time picking up anything will have an easy time adapting to any social climate.

No, I've been surrounded by intelligent people for most of my life (I went to nice schools) and sure there were a few "suffering edgelords" who later grew to be very intelligent, though most did not have to go trough this.

They weren't actually intelligent and neither are you

edginess and depressions are milestones of adolescence, they have nothing do with intelligence

>accept the world for what it is

are you one of those people who thinks that the world is a "cold, cruel" place just because you found out that bad things happen to good people?

This post thinks of "reddit pseud teenager that is socially awkward and gets bad grades so rationalizes that into simply being TOO intelligent for his own good"

And for the record, no.

>tfw everybody thinks I'm super smart even though I'm average at best
>tfw friends, acquaintances, family members, and teachers unironically think I'm "smart but lazy", "cynical", and "too intelligent for my own good"
>tfw I will never be able to live up to their expectations
>tfw all my creative aspirations will never go anywhere no matter how hard I try because I simply lack the raw intelligence to make something good
Just fuck my shit up

>being a socialist

Sounds familiar

Don't be so hard on yourself, dipshit. You're probably smarter than you give yourself credit for.

Suffering is inevitable if you're a human being, but the meaninglessness of suffering hits intelligent people harder, and the meaninglessness of pleasure can hinder pleasure for intelligent people too.

Only Atheists get like that because it leads to Nihilism. You're not as intelligent or unique as you think you are and if you're lucky you will grow out of it.Just be careful not to surround yourself with a lot of people that think like you.

Intelligence is a secondary characteristic. More important are motivation and discipline. You can make up for a lack of brains if you have motivation, but if you don't, no amount of intellect will save you.

This is way too accurate

Even worse for me is that I sometimes by into the narrative of people saying I'm a Von Neumann-tier genius, and then when I inevitably fuck up whatever intellectual thing I try, I always blame it on an external factor rather than my own non-uniqueness

Mediocrity fucking sucks, man

True, but in the end it's better than actual horror, like needing to survive mass genocide.

This is what I am desperately telling myself to stave off the void, at least.

If I were to be, say, the edgy and depressed teenager OP is referring to, how would I go about
>accepting the world for what it is
Is there some sort of revelation at the end of the puberty tunnel?

Why?

Finding comfort and fulfillment through the simple interpersonal connections you have with other people on a day to day level. That's a good place to start.

Anything else more abstract than that will be dictated by your sensibility.

*sniff*

The smarter you get the sadder you get, until one day you reach a point where it all just reverses itself and you can't even tell who you are anymore, you feel like you lost your knowledge but it's actually still there just in some strange other form, it feels like your soul is perpetually burning but oddly enough it only gets better from there.
You learn to stop living to die and start dying to live, and then time begins to move slowly again like it did all those years ago.
Once here, nothing in the world is good enough to make you happy, but you're happy by some other power external to yourself, you become totally transparent, and when it comes time to die, you will only have to fade away, into that other power what remains of you that isn't there already.

>cynical
Funny, because I typically see that as an obvious sign of a pseudo-intellectual and more of putting on a show.

I think you're right, user. If you get called "cynical" from others, then they probably do think you're smarter than you actually are.

It depends on how physically attractive you turn out.

That's just the role we're expected to play. It's not a straightjacket.
I find it makes people less judgmental of my creativity than my friends, which can be a huge plus.

If you're a person who has never been this kind of edgy teenager character, how do you know that you're not actually just too stupid to be depressed?

I think it has to do more with neuroticism than intelligence. There really is no correlation.

I meant a socialite and also the ability of a man to empower his countrymen, swaying the vote of the people and using your newfound power to put into place policies that allow the government to seize the means of production.

/thread

being edgy and depressed has way more to do with excessive isolation than it is to do with intelligence. with that said, if you're intelligent and you don't know how to deal with idiots you'll probably end up edgy and depressed too.

So if you go through this depressed phase you are not intelligent ?
And what if you learn to accept the world you can get out of it ?
r-right user ?

Anyone else go through a "I'm gonna join the Kurds" (or equivalent) phase? Where you try and give yourself meaning by doing something monumentally stupid?

No, intelligent people are depressed in perpetua.

What a circle jerk. Some sounds fun, I'll play.

I wish I could give you a concrete answer, but I think living life in a constant state of cynicism and direguard for social etiquette, turns a person into a borderline sociopath. When you know how to play the game to get what you want, you learn to turn your abrasiveness off. I think that's the scariest- knowing your assholishness is ever present, but being able to hide it well when it suits your personal agenda.

I guess it also depends on what has shaped your views on life. For me, it was military service, and exposure to mortality and human nature at a relatively young age.

Now I work graveyards as an LEO, and on top of exposure to even more trash and "human nature," I've learned how to manipulate through conversation.

My wife is the first to call me out on my "roughness," but I think she finds it oddly attractive. I'm not overlay dominating or abusive or anything, just cynical about the personal motivations of others.

Sometimes I feel like being cynical can borderline into being self-riteous and prideful. Being prideful about being able to show false empathy is a slippery slope, me thinks. Sometimes I feel backwards.

similar to me, it's the Dunning Kreuger effect, but I range from both being too arrogant and to humble at times. I'm certainly lazy though, especially lately. I just have so much work to do lately and it's been getting in the way of everything else I want to do artistically. I need to keep up with my reading lit and creating things, otherwise there's a deep unfulfilled unmeaning to it all.

I think that's natural. In my opinion, even healthy.

I hate two types of people, really:

1. Liars who refuse to be personally accountable

And

2. People who reach a "comfort zone," and stagnate their entire lives

If you don't have personal drive to better yourself, to become more human and wordly (I think we do this through experiencing hardship and struggle), you stagnate. If you are stagnant, you are useless.

Aristotle would have everybody believe that you need to live your life in moderation. Moderation is for cowards, and the untested. If you never test your limits, how do you learn your abilities? How do you grow?

Yeah and don't start drinking at the bar with people unless they're interesting to talk to and you don't clash with them. politically this impossible to do for me right now, given where I live. I want to join Alcoholics Anonymous again just to have some interpersonal connections.

Why go through all of that. Why care about being better or worse when all thought is consumed by the inevitable nothingness that will become us all.

If life is all that you have, why squander it?

Well I wouldn't class being comfortable and enjoyong worldy pleasures squandering. Though I hate labelling myself and others based on their thoughts and feelings I guess you could say that in my Nihilistic mindset I've take a hedonistic approach to life

>be genius
>never live up to your own expectations
god damn it feels good to be average master race

read vv

The human mind will never be able to understand the world, so why do you think your depressed interpretation of it is any better than a happy one? You're just focusing on the bad parts.

This pretty much, you can stretch the abilities of your intellect pretty far if you are dedicated to the subject and willing to put all of your strength into pursuing it.

Smarter people with the same dedication and time investment will always outperform you though.

It's impossible to say. I think less intelligent have shallower existential crises, and whether they resolve it or not also depends on their intelligence. For instance, some get stuck at the "we're all going to die one day and so is the universe everything is pointless" stage. They might resolve it in time. Some get stuck at "experience is subjective, how can I know that what I do/say has any meaning to anyone else?" or "every system is taken on axioms, so we have to take everything on faith; how do we know what to believe?". Others get stuck at "why are there laws of physics? Can we get past the fact that it is a uniquely human way of understanding the universe? should I accept the fact that my chosen career only makes sense within the current societal structure?" kind of thing. And then there's the whole depressive "if I keep having existential crises, can I ever be satisfied with a life-trajectory? How do people become happy with their careers? Is happiness a myth? Some people seem to have settled; does adulthood involve deliberate shortsightedness? What if I lose all my friends and become lonely and depressed, fail my degree, and never contribute any knowledge or creativity to society? How can I know I'll even be the same person in a few years; I barely identify with myself a year ago?"

I might as well stop there. I'm just trying to illustrate how there are too many ways to question things you perhaps took for granted.

Yes, I'm drawing these from my own experience. I can't stop having existential crises from every angle I can think of. Not sure if it will stop; there's always more to learn and consider. It's kind of fun, and kind of exhausting, and it kind of makes pragmatic living very difficult (though instinctively I know what I need to do day to day, I'm simultaneously deconstructing it in my head. Meanwhile the cognitive dissonance threatens to reach the natural frequency of my skull).

It's probably not exclusively a matter of intelligence. Characteristics like creativity and openness must factor in. It takes some creativity to come up with an alternative perspective once a negative one has been found; uncreative but intelligent people might get stuck in negativity, constantly generating reasons to feel that way. I think I'm going on too much, you get the idea.