Do you believe in the bell curve of intelligence and do you think it shapes whether people are happy?

The question was asked first on LinkedIn where other answers can be found. My answer was:

“Dear Ray,

Regardless of where we are on the bell curve of intelligence, we may still be as happy as we are capable of being because, as you correctly point out, being happy has little to do with what we have. From my experience it also has little to do with how much we know as well.

Both knowledge and ignorance may result in bliss. But bliss and happiness are not the same. Bliss is a form of exquisite contentment. Happiness, on the other hand, is best acheived by making a decision in the face of our acknowledged ignorance to take a future course of action, the outcome of which we can only hope for.

The decision is based on our trust of something that or, better, someone who, encourages us to move forward.

As Abraham Lincoln put it: Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. (See the LinkedIn members' discussion of success or happiness.) In some profound way, then, happiness defies intelligence because it is a form of wisdom that is neither rational nor irrational, but rather non-rational. The position we may be in when we first discover intellectual happiness is the laughter we enjoy when we reach in all seriousness an unsolvable paradox.

For example, consider for a moment the following sentence and see what it means: "This sentence is false." If it's true, it's false. If it's false, it's true. In this way, happiness, on an individual basis, will take us off the intelligence curve at almost any spot along it.

When it happens, it is a knowledge that cannot be taken away from the knower, nor explained to another who hasn't been there or who doesn't "get" the joke and the profound reason why we laugh.

In this regard, you may want to take a look at The Laughter Is on My Side by Soren Kierkegaard or Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book about Everything and Nothing by William Irwin.

The unique character of risibility in humans has baffled many rationalists, so much so that men and women of common sense often laugh at their frequently observed predicament.”

What do you think?

Please include your comment here or contact me to discuss.

Thanks.

John Darrouzet