Intelligence is a puzzle-solving, dealing-with-complexity thing, the measure of how complicated a picture can be broken down to elements (understanding, analysis) and reassembled (model, prediction). At least this is how doing the Raven tests feels like. What puzzles me about intelligence-as-goal-achieving-ability is that is this really the bottleneck in so many goals? In my experience very few goals require dealing with complexity, and the most succesful people I personally know are rather simple-minded, their success lied in choosing a goal and then never, ever ever giving up, having a bulldog-like determination. Complexity was usually not a part of the picture.
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden see here
Did you know The surprising downsides of being clever? Is Happiness And Intelligence: Rare Combination? There are longitudinal studies which seem to imply this: Being Labeled as Gifted, Self-appraisal, and Psychological Well-being: A Life Span Developmental Perspective
I found these via slashdot.
As LessWrong is harbor to unusually high-IQ people (see section B in here). I wonder how happiness compares to the mean. What are your thoughts.