When is Smart too Smart?

Question

Greetings:

I've been wondering if being smart just makes you isolated from people around you? I like philosophy and I like science, but finding other people who like both seems hard. Anyway, is being smart a bad thing? Can digging your books isolate you from the rest of the world?

Need to know...

All of your responses made me feel So much better. Thanks. Picking just one response is not fair. I think each one deserves to be 'the best one.'

Thanks

Answer 1

If you're surrounded by people who don't respect knowledge, having knowledge could make you isolated. If you're surrounded by people who respect knowledge, having knowledge could make you accepted.

It all depends on the people around you.

Answer 2

If all you do is dig your books, and you don't recognize the contributions of others around you, you could certainly become isolated. It's important to stay in touch with the rest of the world. I worked my way through grad school in the dietary department of a nursing home. Many of the lessons I learned then are things I still use in teaching on the college level. It was physically the hardest work I have ever done, my co-workers made no secret of their expectation that I would be too much of a lady to pull my weight, and it was the proudest day of my life when the head cook finally called me "girlfriend."

Answer 3

Smartness doesn't doom a person to become socially isolated. Sometimes, though, a poorly acculturated person or a person with social phobias might become a heavy reader and scholastic overachiever -- and I'm sure this is why the "myth" of the socially-isolated brainiac is so pervasive.
However, such people rarely make it to the tops of their fields, because they lack the interpersonal skills necessary for effective collaboration and cooperation.

Truly smart people have a wide variety of interests, and can have good friends from many different walks of life.
Visit the home of a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and he might feel like talking about the challenges of growing fruit trees.

Answer 4

I think in special cases there is a *range* of intelligence that could be bad for you. If, for example, you're a teenager that's smart enough to hide your drug use from your parents, but not smart enough to know that the drugs are bad for you, then it would be better to not be so smart.

In your case, you're just hanging with the wrong crowd. There's a old Saturday Night Live skit in which an intelligent cave man suggests that he lead the next hunt and switch to more sophisticated hunting techniques like surround and ambush instead of just trying to just run down game like they had always done before. The current leader, though, eloquently argues that he should remain leader because he is "swift and strong" and clubs the smart guy to death.

Answer 5

no, being smart is a good thing. ^-^
and no, digging you books does not isolate you from the rest of the world. Reading is a very good thing.
if you are in school, and your class is full of people who are like smart, then they won't isolate you. If there are punks, and stupid people around you in your life, then you will be isolated.

Answer 6

You can probably qualify for membership in Mensa. If you live near a major city, Mensa can provide frequent opportunities for you to interact with you intellectual peers.

I am a member of Mensa, but I live in a small town where intellect is a four letter word. Am I am isolated; you bet I am. Why do you think I spend so much time on this board?

Answer 7

Being smart in and of itself is not responsible for isolation. Mindless TV watchers and video-gamers can be loners too.

True, it is harder to find people who have the time or the inclination for "deeper" subjects--but that is one of the benefits of the Internet to find and converse with those who share ones interests--however obscure!

Being smart should be used as a tool to expand your horizons.

A book is a monologue from a single (sometimes multiple) author(s) to you. It can take one to another time or another place one would not have access to otherwise. One can get to know and learn from the person or characters therein. One can expand ones mind. (I like when I come across an idea that has not occurred to me before, like "light-centuries" in place of "hundreds of light-years").

Answer 8

When you become a smart-a**. Why would intelligence be a bad thing? Our country needs better schools, not worse. The only thing that can isolate you is you.

Answer 9

What are you saying that I can't say things like the bulk brane travels accross the fifth dimension and collides violently with the visible brane, and not have friends.