/lit/ - Literature

>>8718755
nah.

>>8718755
>accept the world for what it is?

Pure Ideology

I was never a teenager.

>>8718755
I think so, but I might be wrong.

>>8719214
exactly

>>8718755
can't called a person intelligent if they are edgy and all that stuff. Intelligent people will passed through this but later on will have a well social life, not lacking motivation and having a purpose.

>>8719226
why do you type like your brain is 90% tumour?

>>8719242
I think you already answered your own question.

>>8718755
>Is it inevitable for every intelligent person to be an edgy, depressed teenager
Some intelligent people never go through that phase, mostly because they do accept the world for what it is

>until they finally accept the world for what it is?
If you go through that phase I'm afraid there is no recovery. You are gonna feel depressed all your life. You can still have some anti-depressant to make you artificially up, or have a passion like writing or even reading, watching series, sports or stuff that makes you feel a bit better, or have drugs, which are gonna make you feel better for a while but are gonna destroy your life in the long term...

>>8719217
"People always ask me if I was funny as a child. Well, I was an accountant."

>>8718755
Of course not. It is what is expected from them, though. What a stupid question.

>the world for what it is

Please enlighten us

>>8718755
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.

>>8719791
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.

>>8719867
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?

>>8718755
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

>>8719794
>being a socialist

>>8720020
Sounds familiar

>>8720020
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.

>>8720020
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.

>>8720020
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

>>8720656

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?

>>8719225
Why?

>>8720676

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.

>>8719214
*sniff*

>>8718755
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.

>>8720020
>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, anon. If you get called "cynical" from others, then they probably do think you're smarter than you actually are.

>>8720676
It depends on how physically attractive you turn out.

>>8720020
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.

>>8720297
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?

>>8718755
I think it has to do more with neuroticism than intelligence. There really is no correlation.

>>8720165
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.

>>8722237
/thread

>>8718755
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.

>>8719312
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 anon ?

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?

>>8718755
No, intelligent people are depressed in perpetua.

>>8718755
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.

>>8720020
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.

>>8722447
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?

>>8720690
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.

>>8722717
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.

>>8722730

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

>>8722732
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

>>8720020
read vv
>>8720618

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.

>>8720618
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.