IQ is one of the most overrated trophies modern society polishes. Sure, it’s pleasant when the machinery in your skull runs a little smoother than your peers’. It’s flattering to imagine your brain as a shinier model with extra horsepower. But raw computing power doesn’t liberate anyone from the gravitational pull of stupidity. I’ve met genuinely brilliant people in my life—men and women whose intellect left me staring from a respectful distance. I remember one man in particular, whose mind was so ferociously capable that I simply surrendered any hope of fully understanding what he did. He was dazzling. And yet, in the face of simple, painfully obvious human realities, he was like a helpless child. He couldn’t process stupidity. He couldn’t stomach irrationality. Genius doesn’t grant immunity from human frailty; sometimes it only magnifies it.
Our stupidity isn’t accidental; it’s fed by fear. That little almond-shaped relic in our heads—the amygdala—still pumps out primal dread like we’re standing naked in tall grass waiting for predators. Back then, it kept us alive. In modern, layered, hyper-complex societies, it misfires spectacularly. It overreacts. It panics. It distorts. We mistake fear for insight and anxiety for wisdom, and then we make “rational decisions” built entirely on emotional tremors.The hardest task in life isn’t thinking; it’s stripping fear away long enough to see reality as it is. Anyone can do it, regardless of their supposed intellectual horsepower. But almost no one does. Most people choose comforting fantasy over uncomfortable truth because fantasy doesn’t bite back. If you manage to see the world without the flattering filter of your illusions, you become something rare—dangerously rare. Because very few humans ever meet reality without trembling, let alone accept it.