Every now and then I browse scientific journals, just for the fun of it. I know, I know! I need to get out more! Nevertheless, from time to time, this browsing produces some interesting thought processes. There was an article recently published in Scientific American, which noticed that clever people tend to worry more than people who are not clever: not necessarily dull, stupid or foolish, just not so clever.
I suppose that the results of the study, which, by the way was originally published in a journal called Intelligence, need to be viewed with a little caution. However, there appears to be a correlation between intelligence and a propensity, amongst other things, to worry about stuff. It’s not cause and effect, you understand; it isn’t suggested that you worry because you are clever. No, it’s just that you seem to worry more if you are clever.
On the one hand, I imagine it makes sense. The more curious you are, the more you want to know and the more you end up knowing. I’m not sure how closely curiosity and knowledge acquisition are related to intelligence, but I reckon there’s a connection there somewhere. So people who are curious and find out more must have more to worry about. It makes sense, at least to me. It explains why student doctors are often a little hypochondriacal and why they self-diagnose as they learn more about a whole host of maladies.
On the other hand, it appears daft. Surely clever people would be able to rationalise away their concerns and worries, if they have them? If a bright person is anxious, wouldn’t you think that they should be able to think things through and trace the source of the anxiety and even find a solution for it?
In any event, it seems that there is a relationship between worry and intelligence. A corollary of the relationship must be that stupid people don’t worry so much, surely? This explains a lot. Dull-witted, dozy and daft someone might be, but often they are unconcerned about things. The smiling, smooth-faced village idiot image comes to my mind at this point.
We have all used expressions like ‘a sandwich short of a picnic’, or ‘not the full shilling’. We have spent time with someone, only to conclude that they are ‘not the sharpest tool in the box’. However, and this is the thing: these people are genuinely blithely unworried about things. As they paddle through life, probably with only one oar in the water, the issues of the moment fail to wrinkle their brows or ignite passion within them.
Not for them deep concerns about religion or politics. Brexit concerns them not. Getting irritated with Trumpian (is that not a word yet?) idiocy is absent from their daily lives. Hot under the collar is not a displayed behaviour. Deep discussions regarding the issues around the rights of the unborn child remain unexpressed. Not for them the fingernail-biting of tense Agatha Christie thrillers, as they simply do not follow the story, with all its twists and turns. Hence the expression, ‘they’ve lost the plot’.