Am I stupid?

[Anamarija]

I have noticed that this 'feeling' or opinion is very often in newcomers or people that don't write much on forum. Also, this is my problem all my life. Because of this feeling I always feel like I'm on beginning.

...I am envy when I read your posts guys, because I see that you guys posses a lot higher intelligence then I do, it makes me feel like I am stupid...

This is not related only with forum, this is program follows me all my life. It is very hard to get rid of it, even I know that this is connected with my ego. Also, it is STS way of looking. Logically, as much as you collect and input knowledge in your life there will be always someone smarter then we are. I don't like competition, cannot see anything productive about it, but why I still think of my self most of the time like I'm stupid?
Contrary, I found my self that I see many people so stupid, naturally If I see someone else dumber then me, there will be always someone smarter than me. But this doesn't help me to pass this lesson?!

So, here some questions that I would like to ask you:
1. How common is this program of stupidity?
2. Is there way to get rid of this?
3. If you learn, study and explore ever day is it possible to stop thinking like that?
4. If you think about yourself like this, do you feel that this feeling/thinking is draining you?
5. If you are in Work for so long, do you still feel this, sometime?

 

[Aiming]

1. How common is this program of stupidity?

Probably pretty common, especially among those who keep learning about new topics. Einstein for example said: "The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know." On the other end of the spectrum we have the Dunning Kruger Effect, i.e. those who know so little they think themselves competent.

What this boils down to is your attitude to it: Do you use your realization of how much more there is to learn in order to feed into self-defeating narratives, or do you 'channel' it into the attitude of curiosity and joy of exploring and knowing that there's a path of life that's never boring, because each day brings the possibility of more knowledge and insight? See the difference? :)

2. Is there way to get rid of this?

See above and below.

3. If you learn, study and explore ever day is it possible to stop thinking like that?

I think that just as with every program, it's like practising a muscle, i.e. when you catch yourself falling into this thinking pattern, try to stop it and redirect your thoughts to a more constructive thought; for example something like: 'Yes, I know how little I know, but I'm grateful for every opportunity of learning something new'. (You might find much better examples at redirecting.)

4. If you think about yourself like this, do you feel that this feeling/thinking is draining you?

Yes, along with demotivating, frustrating, and thoughts along the lines of 'Will I ever get it', 'Why am I so slow', etc. And again, following this approach is quite unhelpful and self-defeating, as it is a fundamental judgment of yourself based on standards you'd want to question, since every one of us has their own speed and way of learning - so making such a judgment just doesn't make sense. Plus, it actually hinders your learning, because it's shutting you off from above mentioned attitude of exploration.

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=Dakota]

So, here some questions that I would like to ask you:
1. How common is this program of stupidity?
[/quote]
Quite common it seems, from anecdotal evidence.

[quote author=Dakota]
2. Is there way to get rid of this?
[/quote]

Yes.
[quote author=Dakota]
3. If you learn, study and explore ever day is it possible to stop thinking like that?
[/quote]

It depends on what we are learning. If by the above you mean we can drive out this notion of being stupid by a notion of being smart, and the more information we gather, more smart we become - then I do not think it is the most optimal approach.

Here are some questions to consider:
- if I do not understand something, does it make me stupid?
- if I do understand something, does it make me smart?

Also, regarding behavior:
- if I make a mistake or do something embarassing does it make me stupid?

Stupid/smart are labels which we learn through social conditioning. We learn early on, from our parents/teachers that smart=good and stupid=bad. We faithfully carry these equations in our heads, despising those who are "stupid" and admiring those who are "smart". Usually, we do not stop to ask ourselves "are the people I consider stupid/smart always so" - that is do their apparent stupidity or smartness come out in all that they do? Does "stupid/smart" define who they are?

So the next time
[quote author=Dakota]
Contrary, I found my self that I see many people so stupid, naturally If I see someone else dumber then me, there will be always someone smarter than me.
[/quote]

go a little deeper. See if you can find something more to them than their "stupidity". If you can find that in others, you will be able to find it in yourself also. So in essence, every time the word stupid/smart jumps up in your mind, try to ask "what else is going on with this smart/stupid person". And then, maybe, the labels of "stupid/smart" would start becoming less important in your vocabulary and gradually, if you consistently practice this, they may lose any hold that they once had on you.

 

[Kay Kim]

When I post, or reply somethings, I never think about myself as smart or stupid.

Because when I read or found something that encouraging or inspiring, only thing I think about is wanted to share with other members, and probably some people already knew it, but for someone who need it.

And if I don't know some meanings, when somebody talking, I always ask that person right away, and I never felt/feel any shame about asking, because knowing/discovering/learning is more important to me!

 

[kalibex]

Because of this feeling I always feel like I'm on beginning.

That was a very helpful question. Incidentally, it was the exact opposite of 'stupid'.

 

[Buddy]

I have noticed that this 'feeling' or opinion is very often in newcomers or people that don't write much on forum. Also, this is my problem all my life. Because of this feeling I always feel like I'm on beginning.

...I am envy when I read your posts guys, because I see that you guys posses a lot higher intelligence then I do, it makes me feel like I am stupid...

Hi Dakota. I think everyone has very good answers to your questions, so I'll say something different.

You've been speaking from your heart ever since your first post on here. I always read yours when I see them because of that reason as well as your humor.

Sometimes I think our mind tries to use the emotions of the heart to feel proud of itself...self-important and proud of all its fancy words and it's intelligence and wants to think it is the only important part. The heart doesn't care about any of the fancy words and thoughts and the never-ending words other people like to use to look important and to sound smart.

Don't get me wrong, knowledge is very important and can protect us, but the heart is expert in relations and relationships and that is the main knowledge it wants and uses. The heart has it's own I.Q. as emotional intelligence. It speaks simply and usually gets right to the point. You seem to be good at that, so I wouldn't worry.

In fact, if you can find a "should" that's hiding in a feeling of "stupid", like "I should be smarter", or "I should know that already", or "I should be able to talk like him/her" or something like that, then you might already be a winner. Because then you might be able to connect it all back to an earlier memory and feel better:

'FORGET "I should", forget it all. Replace it by "I LOVE TO DO ...." and skip completely the TIME issue. If you need five lives to accomplish what you WANT, let this be the first of those five. And then, without any "time obligation" or "should stressing" - start it. First step first. And ENJOY it. And LOVE yourself - take care of yourself.
This is the only thing that the Universe (God?) wants from you, I think.' Arkadiusz Jadczyk

This sounds so comforting. I should light up on cigarette in that name ;).

 

[denekin]

First thought that occurs to me when you ask, "am I stupid?", is that stupid is a horribly imprecise word. I spent the first 35 years of my life browbeating myself for being stupid. I was "stupid" because I didn't understand things as efficiently and thoroughly as I expected myself to. I seem to have believed that I should be able to pick up a volume of Jung, or on plasma physics, or music theory, read these and come out with complete and immediate understanding. My error was not in thinking myself stupid, but in an almost insane, certainly an unreasonable, expectation that I understand things immediately. My advice is that try to see exactly what your supposed stupidity is.
This Forum is a great place to get our "stupid" buttons pushed as we will - thank goodness- always run into someone on every thread who knows more than we do, or knows more deeply than we do.
My second thought is how is your stupidity self sabotage? How does judging yourself as stupid shut you down? What exactly are your expectations of yourself? That I know more about Corsican History than you do, that I understand the impact of the Second Treaty of Westphalia on British Maritime Law better than you, that I can lecture for hours on the Proto Platonic Origins of Neo Dravidian Hinayana Buddhism, certainly doesn't make you stupid. I'd suggest you look at exactly what being "stupid" means to you, and what it's opposite means to you. No one is stupid because they have less knowledge than some one else. That is a different issue. The world is filled with utterly empty headed well educated people.

 

[3DStudent]

I don't think it matters if we have less knowledge than others. If we're on the same path, then it's just different levels of the same thing. The C's said that you could make jumps along the path and sort of catch up to others. And elders can learn from new or less experienced members too! Learning goes both ways.

I've had some of this kind of struggle in early life too. Initially in school I was shy of others and didn't want to associate with them or do any cooperative activities. But then I was pushed, so I started to be a good student and got good grades. But I don't think this conception of myself as a smart person reflected an inherent intelligence, as I still have difficulty with some things like math. It was more like something that I worked for and just by studying and completing assignments. I think school pigeon holes us into these categories of "smart" or "stupid". People learn differently and it's getting even worse with this common core stuff.

 

[luke wilson]

School of life did an interesting video on what success is and in the video they showed that usually we define success in narrow terms. They should do one on this subject.

Are you stupid? First of all, do you mean

- You are dumb through low intelligence?
- You just don't know as much as you feel you should?

Secondly, from what vantage point are you judging yourself from

- From a personal ideal?
- In contrast with others?

Thirdly, what's the scope?

- Do you feel stupid in one or a select set of things?
- Do you feel stupid in everything?

Are you stupid? I would say, from the top of my head, you aren't one thing. In terms of stupid/clever, I would say you are stupid in some respects and clever in others. You surely cant be good in everything or bad in everything.

 

[Alada]

No one is stupid because they have less knowledge than some one else. That is a different issue. The world is filled with utterly empty headed well educated people.

Ain’t that the truth, there’s no shortage of very intelligent people who can do the dumbest things, lack ‘common sense’, or any consideration at all for others.

We suffer the after effects of an educational system that values and measures 'intelligence' / IQ score above all else. Even as children we begin to recognise that some are deemed 'better' than others, and we begin to devalue ourselves by comparison. But as Buddy referred to, there's 'intelligence' and there’s what Daniel Goleman coined as 'Emotional Intelligence'. In his studies he found that that was little correlation between those identified as having high IQs and their success in life in later years.

There’s an interesting lecture by him on the subject here, which also contains many useful clues as to what can be happening in us when we do get those "I’m this, I’m that, whatever" programs triggered, what is running in us that can can make us stop, shut down thinking, not speak or post when we might really like to, and, what we can do about it.

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I agree with what others have said about recoginsing that there will always be others that are more intelligent than we are ourselves, or have more knowledge. I can look around and acknowledge as a fact that there are people who are more intelligent than me, who can grasp concepts that I will probably never be able to grasp, that’s a fact. But that’s okay, our job is to do the best with what we have and that is enough.

Coming back to the idea of Emotional Intelligence, especially within the context of the forum, we can learn what has true value and where the gaps in our awareness are. Remembering that people aren’t 'judged' in the way that we are programmed to fear by our 'education'.

I don't think it matters if we have less knowledge than others. If we're on the same path, then it's just different levels of the same thing. The C's said that you could make jumps along the path and sort of catch up to others.

Exactly, it might be better if we consider it in terms of ignorance / awareness. The journey is our path along that scale from one to the other, yet there will always be areas where we lack awareness. They may be important areas in terms of knowing oneself too, but they may have very little indeed to do with 'intelligence', as it is traditionally measured. We can all be slow sometimes when in comes to learning some lessons, or leaning to see parts of ourselves that have remained hidden, I and should know! And I don’t think there’s a point where you stop feeling that (or at least certainly I haven’t reached it yet if there is), there’s always more we can learn about ourselves.

So in the context and aim of the forum and the members here, we can ask the question of ourselves: "Do others think less of me, or that I have 'lesser value' because I lack awareness in this or that area?" Would it ever be true for any of us to say that we don’t lack awareness? And at the same time, through the discussion we gain a little more awareness than we had yesterday. That’s pretty smart! :D

Sometimes there’s more joy in someone finally seeing and understand something that they may have been struggling with for a long time. Being able to 'get' stuff right away has little to do with the value of a lesson, just as 'intelligence' has little to do with Aim.

 

[obyvatel]

I am curious: does rumination on the "am I stupid" question go away by expanding what intelligence is - IQ, EQ, social intelligence etc? Definitely those concepts are useful to learn. But does that learning feed into building new sticks with which we metaphorically beat others and ourselves up?

Am I stupid?
No, I may not be book smart but I have social intelligence.
And look at what IQ has bought X; he is empty headed in terms of social skills and life skills.
At least I am better off than X

Do internal (or otherwise) dialogs of this form provide long term solution to the "am I stupid" problem?

In my experience, whenever I have looked at someone and branded him/her with some label, sooner or later I have had evidence to suggest otherwise regarding them or have had a situation which showed me how I may behave in certain circumstances would warrant the same label for myself.

Labels can pertain to "behavior", they are not and should not be all inclusive. So by all means observe and correct behavior that could be improved on. But branding someone as "empty headed" is likely to come back to yourself in some way or the other. Branding or labeling carry emotional charge and when it rebounds, it will most likely affect you. This has to do with empirically established psychological hypotheses, especially Carl Jung's theory of unconscious.

Also generally pertinent in this context is the cognitive/social psychology concept of the fundamental attribution error .

 

[edgitarra]

Don't worry! Things you know and experience might be accessed only by few and the same goes with everybody. Who cares if someone is more intelligent than others? Maybe when the intelligent post is being written by one member of the forum, you find yourself on the other corner of the planet maybe watching a sunset/ or a sunrise which brings you a very strong impression and makes you feel alive. How you weigh the centers? Are you a person that is inclined to developing the intellectual center? Or an emotional one? Or you put focus on the physical center?

1. How common is this program of stupidity?

It is pretty big - in societies that demand strongly this and exploit people to their last breath. This program was not made with the intent to bring something radical and beneficial to the humanity, but to strengthen the hierarchy, the elites. There are very few people in this world who really cultivated this intelligence to bring something for others, and they are mostly rejected because they took risks and they delved in deeper waters than they were allowed to. Others had to do it forcefully - like robots, never questioning authority. So feeling stupid is a program they wanted it in you, so you can self-blame more, and self judge more. In terms of mind, knowledge is infinite. Think of the unthinkable: you may see a post that shows a higher degree of intelligence, but there might be even higher, something you don't even imagine yet. So you still limit yourself by thinking that if you achieve that level of intelligence - you will ever stop.

2. Is there way to get rid of this?

Yes, acceptance. Being aware and accept this is a program. You are constantly learning something, and you will be better. You are good at something other people are not. Of course that does not mean you just have to stop. You will always acquire knowledge, and you will always exercise your mind if that is what you want.

3. If you learn, study and explore ever day is it possible to stop thinking like that?

YES! :D But then don't start looking at yourself as being intelligent - it might feed the predator. Just study and explore ! Focusing on something keeps you away from something else:)

4. If you think about yourself like this, do you feel that this feeling/thinking is draining you?

YES, thinking requires energy so pretty much anything you think will drain you. But it is worse if you fall in a vicious loop, when you stop doing anything new and fall in the same thinking as you say. It is more thinking in terms of waste, and what is valuable. Time is passing, think about how you can appreciate the time and the health you've got!

5. If you are in Work for so long, do you still feel this, sometime?

I am aware of the Work for a pretty long time now(3 years), it would be a lot to say I am Working. But I am aiming to be close to that:). Everybody here is human! The Work aims to make a unchangeable I, not something different or alien to this world. People here are very helpful and nice, no matter their degree of intelligence. I think that is more important IMO.

Take care now!

 

[casper]

this is my problem all my life. Because of this feeling I always feel like I'm on beginning.

Did (parents, children in school, ...) called when you were a child, stupid?
I ask this because it knows very affect the life of an individual later

 

[Anamarija]

1. How common is this program of stupidity?

Dunning Kruger Effect, i.e. those who know so little they think themselves competent.
What this boils down to is your attitude to it: Do you use your realization of how much more there is to learn in order to feed into self-defeating narratives, or do you 'channel' it into the attitude of curiosity and joy of exploring and knowing that there's a path of life that's never boring, because each day brings the possibility of more knowledge and insight? See the difference? :)

First of all, thank you for the links, I tried to find about 'stupidity' on forum before I post my topic, but I couldn't find the right thing.

3. If you learn, study and explore ever day is it possible to stop thinking like that?

I think that just as with every program, it's like practising a muscle, i.e. when you catch yourself falling into this thinking pattern, try to stop it and redirect your thoughts to a more constructive thought; for example something like: 'Yes, I know how little I know, but I'm grateful for every opportunity of learning something new'. (You might find much better examples at redirecting.)

Last night, after I wrote this post I told my self: Oh, it was so stupid to post topic 'am I stupid', but than again what can I loose. This is not ordinary forum (place) where you gonna get negative feedback if you open yourself. I have witnessed so many time of this. So, I'm feeling sad when I see that someone doesn't see that (like the one 'why you deleted my post?'). But this is they way and they choice.

I must admit, before I open my self with this issue on the forum, I didn't think about it clearly with my self or study the subject. And first time in my life I have become aware that this feeling bothering me for so long.
Thank you for your advice, I will try to change this thoughts in the moments when they arrive.

I have observed my self and I realize that this moments come to me (in bigger wave) between to spots. When I feel that my energy is drooping from high level, also in PMS and when I have financial problems or just in the moments when I can't solve my problems (probably logically).

4. If you think about yourself like this, do you feel that this feeling/thinking is draining you?

Yes, along with demotivating, frustrating, and thoughts along the lines of 'Will I ever get it', 'Why am I so slow', etc. And again, following this approach is quite unhelpful and self-defeating, as it is a fundamental judgment of yourself based on standards you'd want to question, since every one of us has their own speed and way of learning - so making such a judgment just doesn't make sense. Plus, it actually hinders your learning, because it's shutting you off from above mentioned attitude of exploration.

Exactly, and thank you for notify all those feelings that also came with feeling/thinking of stupidity. Just because of that, because I'm not efficient and productive in those days I think that this is a problem, and I would like to solve it.
Above that, I'm aware that this shows that I still own some form of narcissism that I thought that I don't have it. Just another side of a coin. Petty me, I am stupid :(. So stupid, right? Because I can't really 'get' something with this ;). Also, this shows that I'm still impatient and restless. I'm thirsty for inner peace.

 

[Anamarija]

[quote author=Dakota]
So the next time

[quote author=Dakota]
Contrary, I found my self that I see many people so stupid, naturally If I see someone else dumber then me, there will be always someone smarter than me.

go a little deeper. See if you can find something more to them than their "stupidity". If you can find that in others, you will be able to find it in yourself also. So in essence, every time the word stupid/smart jumps up in your mind, try to ask "what else is going on with this smart/stupid person". And then, maybe, the labels of "stupid/smart" would start becoming less important in your vocabulary and gradually, if you consistently practice this, they may lose any hold that they once had on you.[/quote]
I have judge my self and others with this terms for so many years and didn't realize this. Thank you.