Is High Intelligence Ever a Disability?
I just came across an answer that I responded with last year on Quora, the Question-and-Answer forum. It was in response to a question about high-level intelligence.
I would love to hear from any of you who have opinions on this, that being the emotional difficulties of navigating through life with high or extreme intelligence. Below is my Quora answer—you do not need the original question to get my point:
“…I am so grateful for your extremely broad, yet balanced, description of high intelligence. It may be the first I have read that includes emotional intelligence as part of it, although I think you might agree that a person can have a “high EQ” without necessarily being of high cognitive intelligence, and vice versa. Nevertheless, I was pleased to see it. My favorite word in your piece is “nuanced”. Right after that is “multi-dimensional”.
I was thinking about this earlier today, in fact, and about the inadequacies of most IQ tests. I think one of the reasons that they are thus is because of the multifarious nature of deep intelligence. I think of my own intelligence as existing in multiple “silos”, over a pretty broad spectrum, whereas many other highly intelligent people, in my experience, tend to have one or a few silos. I suspect that these are the people who tend to score very highly on standardized IQ tests. But, can they function among many silos, with nuance and grace? Often not—based on my long life—and experience.
Unfortunately, extreme intelligence, as you described it, is typically not appreciated by society at large and can, in fact, be the subject of derision. Similarly, children born with it might not be understood even by their own parents. Having such high capacity is certainly a blessing, but it can cause much emotional hardship—simply because of its unique nature.
Getting from that awareness (or lack of it) as a child, and navigating through to adulthood, to the point where one can find similar adults who can understand and appreciate them, and perhaps even utilize their talents, can be utterly painful. Society is not gentle with those who are different—indeed, with any kind of “difference”.
High intelligence is but one.
Your thoughts, my dear Readers? What have been your experiences?
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