Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

- Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)

Hemingway, who took his own life in 1961, knew his share of both intelligent
people and of unhappiness. He lived through two world wars, the Great Depression,
four wives and an unknown number of failed romantic relationships, none of which
would help him to develop happiness if he knew how.

As Hemingway's quote was based on his life experience, I will base the following
speculation on both my personal and my professional experience as a sociologist.
Not enough study exists to quote on this subject.

Western society is not set up to nurture intelligent children and adults, the way
it dotes over athletes and sports figures, especially the outstanding ones. While
we have the odd notable personality such as Albert Einstein, we also have many
extremely intelligent people working in occupations that are considered among the
lowliest, as may be attested by a review of the membership lists of Mensa (the
club for the top two percent on intelligence scales).

Education systems in countries whose primary interest is in wealth accumulation

encourage heroes in movies, war and sports, but not in intellectual development.
Super intelligent people manage, but few reach the top of the business or social
ladder.

Children develop along four streams: intellectual, physical, emotional

(psychological) and social. In classrooms, the smartest kids tend to be left out
of more activities by other children than they are included in. They are "odd,"
they are the geeks, they are social outsiders. In other words, they do not develop
socially as well as they may develop intellectually or even physically where
opportunities may exist for more progress.

Their emotional development, characterized by their ability to cope with risky or

stressful situations, especially over long periods of time, also lags behind that
of the average person.

Adults tend to believe that intelligent kids can deal with anything because they
are intellectually superior. This inevitably includes situations where the
intelligent kids have neither knowledge nor skills to support their experience.
They go through the tough times alone. Adults don't understand that they need help
and other kids don't want to associate with kids the social leaders say are
outsiders.

As a result we have many highly intelligent people whose social development

progresses much slower than that of most people and they have trouble coping with
the stressors of life that present themselves to everyone. It should come as no
surprise that the vast majority of prison inmates are socially and emotionally
underdeveloped or maldeveloped and a larger than average percentage of them are
more intelligent than the norm.

Western society provides the ideal incubator for social misfits and those with
emotional coping problems. When it comes to happiness, people who are socially
inept and who have trouble coping emotionally with the exigencies of life would
not be among those you should expect to be happy.

This may be changing in the 21st century as the geeks gain recognition as people
with great potential, especially as people who might make their fortune in the
world of high technology. Geeks may be more socially accepted than in the past,
but unless they receive more assistance with their social and emotional
development, most are destined to be unhappy as they mature in the world of
adults.

People with high intelligence, be they children or adults, still rank as social
outsiders in most situations, including their skills to be good mates and parents.

Moreover, they tend to see more of the tragedy in the communites and countries
they live in, and in the world, than the average person whose primary source of
news and information is comedy shows on television. Tragedy is easier to find than
compassion, even though compassion likely exists in greater proportion in most
communities.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,'
striving to make the difficult problems easier to understand so someone can change
the system.
Learn more at http://billallin.com