I was going to say intelligence instead of number of thoughts, but it’s a subject way too big to be fitted in a simple post. I’ve heard in many places that dumb people are happier. Is that true? If so, why is it true? What defines a person to be dumb? According to The School of Life (more specifically, in this video), “in the mind of a genius we find, once more, our neglected thoughts”, so if a genius pays more attention of the thoughts he/she has, those thoughts create more thoughts about them so they have a higher number of thoughts (I think!?).
If this is true, why the number of thoughts we have would be related with our level of happiness? Shouldn’t be the quality of our thoughts influencing this? Well, yes, but the higher the number of thoughts, the more perspective that person has about a certain situation. I think that this is why there is being told about some people that they are limited… actually, they have a limited perspective about things. A limited perspective means that they see the situation in one way thinking that it’s the only way that situation can be and they move on. A more complete person tries to see that situation from every possible angle so he/she can have a more complex vision about that situation. By doing this, the number of thoughts he/she has is higher that the number of the other people, right?
The problem with having a more complex vision about a certain thing/situation is that you can find opposite opinions and you might not know which one to think so you wouldn’t know how to feel about that certain situation so you’ll have mixed feelings compared to the person which has only one vision, felt something and then that person moved on with his/her life. Probably having one opinion might bring the sentiment of being right and it’s a good feeling. Having multiple opinions and not knowing which one fits the best, might create a feeling of being insecure and this is a bad feeling. Maybe that’s why they say that dumb people are happier? Just because they don’t ask so many questions?
Of course, asking questions is not a bad thing if you know how to separate the thoughts from feelings and if you have an overall objective view. This can be achieved by training your mind to treat thoughts just as they are… thoughts… ignoring the emotional charge they have.
What’s your opinion about this?