How You Can Be Too Clever

It might strike us as odd to claim that a person might be ‘too’ clever. Yet excessive intelligence can blind us to some of life’s simplest pleasures — and most important truths.

FURTHER READING

“It is hard to imagine that there could be any such thing as excessive intelligence. After all, most of the problems of the world and of individual lives clearly come down to a shortfall in cleverness – and a surfeit of impulsiveness, self-righteousness and cruelty.Yet it seems that there could still be a way of using our intelligence that cuts us off from necessary encounters with simple truths about us:
With humdrum facts
With down-to-earth ideas and appetites
With unglamorous impulses and naive yet profound speculations”

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CREDITS

Produced in collaboration with:

Natalia biegaj

Title animation produced in collaboration with

Vale Productions

[R]

"Those who are properly intelligent can accept that there are central truths about every life that can and should be expressed in the language of a child".. well said

[indriananda]

I always believe that cleverness are those who can simplify complicated things, not the other way around ❤️

[DRGN-TYPE]

High intelligence is like a double edge sword.

I was called gifted at a young age, but I was unfortunately hyper aware of everyone and everything. Due to this, I was diagnosed with depression at 7.

[aksy]

This problem of 'too clever' simply boils down to an inflated sense of arrogance. A truly intelligent/clever person would be one who realizes that everyone they meet will always know something that they don't, which is why it wouldn't be beneath them to have a conversation with a 6 year old since that child could give them a perspective that they have never before thought about.

[pancholopezpaz]

I always saw as a child that too intelligent people were in a way missing important and fun parts of life. But in my family there was so much pressure to be clever that I became an intellectual without really wanting to. But at the age of 30 I stopped with books and theories and gave priority again to what I care which are sports and relationships

[AuditOurPublic]

Thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I got through high school because of this YouTube channel. If I didn’t find a way to educate myself outside of the class room I would not have graduated. I wasn’t able to learn in a class setting, But I learned a lot on my own.

[dailydoseofmedicinee]

Being clever was when you looked at how things were and used the evidence to work out something new. Mark Haddon

[sisfantasto]

The definition of being smart or clever changes constantly and is seen differently in different social or cultural communities.
I would never call myself clever or smart. I always thought being clever should feel light and easy.
But my head feels so heavy and full. Too many memories, too many ideas, too many visions and all at the same time. I would like to empty it somewhere, wipe it clean and just chill out for a while.

[WhiteSpatula]

This reminds me of a distinction I’ve long heard as the difference between “book smart” and “street smart”. Being very erudite or knowledgeable in a specific field at the expense of gaining human social experience can lead to a misdirected negation of the goal that triggered the quest for knowledge in the first place: social acceptance, recognition, and inclusion.
“Cleverness”, personally, I use only when describing animals or the simplest of human tricks. Basically, it’s a mastery of small quick deceptions. Any person or beastie that behaves with survival as their primary goal uses cleverness regularly —and while doing so, sends a message that all other goals (secondary, tertiary, and so forth, downstream of survival) can be disregarded. A brain in fight-or-flight mode cannot be trusted to have any other intention but survival, and it will employ all the cleverness it can muster to achieve it. Once survival seems to be secured again, and the heart returns to its resting pace as the bloodstream empties of frenzy inducing hormones, the reins (as it were) are handed back to the creative and intelligent mind. In animals, however, this is typically still a part of the mind that dwells upon the stoop of survival. Only humankind, so far as we know, is blessed enough (whether intentionally or incidentally) to live appreciable swaths of our lives wondering free and far from the olly-olly-oxen-free call of that most primitive and urgent imperative called survival. Only humans are free to downgrade survival as a goal and pursue other quests for their own sake. For these reasons, in my opinion, animals can only ever be clever, at best, while humans can be both clever and smart. And the smartest move we could ever make would be to tackle survival collectively, thus downgrading it as a goal planet-wide, and subsequently allowing us to assume that the primary goal (at very least) of any and all persons we may meet is a worthy and respectable human endeavor such as scholarship, athleticism, efficiency, innovation, creativity, etc., and not that most primal one which automatically negates all others downstream. The stupidest move we might make, on the other hand, is to remain satisfied with cleverness.
Cheers! -Phill, Las Vegas

[veronikatheoutsider]

This is not being "too clever", it is arrogance and being a snob.

[nias]

Thank you for speaking to our inner child! Hearing the presentations by other students of university I become increasingly suspicious if they use very complicated language to sound professional.
I hope Alain is well.

[afreen]

I have been told that I'm "too smart for my own good." I've come to realize that it is my overthinking and constantly analyzing everything (in fear or anxiety) that they're referring too, which in turn I miss out on feeling anything other than extreme and overwhelmed feelings. I've lacked an appreciation for the simple, for the beautiful, the emotional. Instead, I've been too afraid of the unknown, and unable to relax in it -- instead picking every inch of it apart but finding nothing.

[PinkyPlayBear]

I am aware I shouldn't always intellectualize. I prefer small talk honestly. It is relaxing. But I am simply not good at it.

[coolcatb]

Refusing to discuss with a 6-year-old or the lady who stopped her studies at 16 is called being PEDANTIC, not overly intelligent. A truly "nerdy" person would love to discuss any topic with anybody equally interested.

[a_d_a_m]

This video is tied to the idea of "lines of development, " in other words, the same person can be really advanced in some ways, while immature or even arrested at very undeveloped levels in others. We see this again and again in gurus that turn out to be sexual predators, brilliant scientists that work on war machinery, and also in high school dropouts that are wonderful caring people.

[BigHenFor]

There's a difference from being knowledgeable and being wise. Knowledge without Wisdom denotes a mind that's like a garden planted over time with beautiful flowers and left to run wild and become full of weeds. Wisdom tempers knowledge by increasing its utility, as an edged tool to cut down and prune what doesn't sustain our contentment or survival. You need to develop a clear vision of what you want to grow.

[bethtrautmann]

I have six years of college and have lived a sheltered life, but some of my best teachers have been those who never stepped a foot inside a college. They taught me how to forgive; how not to be so judgmental and how to appreciate the beauty of nature among other things.

[mrflinstone]

I've actually written about this idea a lot in school! I majored in graphic design, and there was this one booklet I wrote called "Reading on Accessibility".

Essentially it was about this idea that we are constantly getting bombarded with information, but rarely does the voice of the author come through. It seems as though they are writing in a vaccum since there is this preconceived notion of what "academic writing" is meant to be. However, what we truly learn from, is experiences. This is why I believe experiences need to be at the center of how we communicate and transmit information, not through scrutinizing academic langauge.

The fault of the academic is 1) that they lose track of their audience ; their goal should be to communicate with everyday people as opposed to elite bubbles, and 2) that they are so lost in their field they become blind to what is right in front of them: themselves, their lives, their experience of the world.

Imagine if writing was simple. clear and concise, yet powerful and profound.
Imagine if in the middle of a textbook, the author veered off into talking about how his day went, or something that's been on his mind.
Imagine how much more of an authentic learning experience that would be.

[arlanda]

I often think that true intelligence is shown in not having to prove yourself that you are clever… almost as if one does not know that he or she is clever. But it is obvious in how one adapts and responds to the world and around him or her.

[evolarity]

Perhaps 'cleverness' is merely circumstantial. We've probably all met people who are incredibly 'clever' about some things, but utterly ignorant about other things. What I noticed about such people is that they freely establish the boundaries of cleverness on the things they understand. What they understand, everyone should understand, otherwise they're dumb. However, the things they don't understand, they summarily reject as non-essential.