“If you’re so smart why aren’t you rich” is in fact a fascinating trap of a question — if you’re really smart in the way that matters, you’ll realize that being ~rich~ isn’t necessary and you can just focus on whatever it is that you were hoping money would buy you

I’d reframe the question to something like “If you’re so smart, why aren’t you happy”, (happiness including things like pleasure, purpose, kinship, joy) and the bottleneck there for most smart people is courage

systemic issues run in parallel to this, are intertwined with this

procedural intelligence; the ability to use your mind to alter and modify reality https://twitter.com/abuutyshake/status/1391931621499195400

some call this executive function

you could also frame it as project management

at the core of it is managing your own psychology, which involves storytelling https://twitter.com/visakanv/status/1057601960163991552

worrying about being smart at all can also be kind of a trap. If you subconsciously buy into a hierarchical model of the world where smart people are on top, deserving praise, and fools are below, deserving mockery... often you will police/bully yourself and be miserable for it

some people are chronically ill, sick, poor, etc, this thread is not about them, this thread is mostly for the bored and depressed upper middle class dudes who DM me all the time