When Insight Becomes a Burden

[Monster Energy]

“The more you understand this world, the more you destroy yourself. That’s why fools are happy, and intelligent people live in loneliness.”

— Fyodor Dostoevsk

 

[Bjorn K Holmstrom]

While there is probably truth to this quote from a certain perspective, you could also use your insights for everyone's benefit, which will help make you less lonely. Unless you want to be lonely of course, destroying the self for self-realization.

[Carl-Richard]

Insight becomes a problem when not operationalized, integrated, accommodated. I.e. it only becomes a problem when turned into an unsolved or unsolveable problem, a neurosis. And that's a question of attention and perhaps applying your intelligence in the right way. "Rationality" in the proper sense. If you cannot deal with your own "intelligence", even after trying, perhaps you're not that intelligent after all. It's one thing to haven't tried. It's another to have and failed or keep failing. Maybe you're only intelligent in a very limited and narrow way (e.g. "intellectually"/conceptually/linear-analytically and not emotionally, intuitively, self-aware-ly, recursively, relationally/systemically, integratively, holistically).

Edited 12 hours ago by Carl-Richard

[YIDIRYIDIR]

On 30/03/2026 at 11:04 AM, YIDIRYIDIR said:

i need help with some insights on this topic.

i believe "the more smart and aware the more depressed" is true until a certain point. and that certain point is what I'm trying to articulate.

here are my guesses so far: 

• the early version of smart is deconstructing everything, every illusion, every meaning system. that leads to suffering, but that suffering ends or gets better once you start conscious construction
• the more smart and aware you are, the more you move from Orange stage to Green stage, and the moment you jump to tier 2 in spiral dynamics, the construction journey starts
• before, everything was external to you, value system, motivation, meaning. awareness strips you of all that, you end up thinking "nothing is real, nothing matters, so what's the point?" thus leading to depression. you get over that once you develop internal systems of motivation, meaning and values

what are your takes?

Only to a certain point. read this post of mine, i included that quote in one of my replies as well. 

the title is "depression from being smart" i don't know how to put the link to the post here. 

Edited 12 hours ago by YIDIRYIDIR