Reflections on Intellectual Loneliness
this is my first time doing smth like this, blogging or interneting or whatever. Im starting cuz I looked up "intellectual loneliness," and that led to find this thing on here called "Garden of Eden" with one of the few times this phrase explicitly appears. I then read through their stuff, and tbh it felt almost exactly like what I wanted when I looked that up.
But before i start yapping about that, wtf is actually intellectual loneliness? Well to me, its the feeling of having a mind and internal reality that feel disconnected from the external world. Im a mathematician, so i like to think of it as having an internal world that is orthogonal to the space my external world spans. In other words, I just feel so fucking different and disconnected sometimes. Ill obsesses over numerical methods and mathematical structures (cuz thats what i do), but also be occupied by completely random things like physics-grounded philosophy that i try to reduce the world to, political and social observations, an obsession with nuance and understanding phenomena deeply, and god knows whatever else I stumble across.
Many ppl tell me that im just rly smart. I mean, I had excellent grades and test scores and academics and whatever, which is what ppl rly refer to when they say that. Frankly, that misses the core of who I am. The ppl around me, and honestly the social structure and expectations too, dont have frameworks for the person who obsesses over understanding partial differential equation solvers or philosophy grounded in physical biological or even just a capacity to think with the kind of depth that I cannot give up. Thats what I mean by feeling so different.
Frankly its not even rly about intelligence. Imo what makes me different is intensity. Intensity in thoughts, intensity in obsession, intensity in obsession, intensity as the way i experience the world. I discovered the world of numerical methods completely by myself and became obsessed with it, and that obsession (plus luck tbh) is the reason that today i get mistaken for a phd student when I havent even started college yet. Its the same obsession that I have just with thoughts in general, no matter mathematics or philosophy or politics or even emotions. And thats rly what ive been talking about this whole time, because very few ppl live with that kind of intensity. I say intellectual because its the most obvious to someone who does mathematics, but i think its also emotional too. I can talk for hours about all the ways this has influenced and shaped me, but in short sometimes its a big gift, and others its rly fucking painful. The former is because of how im able to see the world, the intellectual intensity that comes with it. The latter is that im still a human, and being like this sometimes makes it hard to be.
More than just discussing specific intellectual topics, its finding ppl with this kind of orientation towards depth. Im not rly antisocial anymore and so my broader social world is large enough, but the social world i care for is deliberately small and fittingly intense. The connections I keep close, I keep with the same intensity that I pour into numerics. I love my core friends, I love my parents (unconditionally but rly because of reasons that come from the sociobiological drive of all humans driven by the laws of physics, see this is the kind of shit I think about), and I love my mentors. But honestly, a part of me always feels alone. The part that obsesses over all those things, the motor behind that intensity. Because those people satisfy different needs, but honestly they can't truly see me. They cant understand the intensity that drives me. And thats painful because it means even to the people i love, im different.
My personal most painful experience comes from romantic love. I unfortunately allowed myself to fall deeply in love with a person, the same intensity driving that too but this time with emotional intensity and stakes. It led to the most unstable, tragic relationship you could think of that i eventually ended despite deeply loving them still. And now I saw that intensity play out emotionally, because after I ended it I was in genuine distress for months. This is a story for another time but this experience rly changed who I was, and made me reflect on this intensity.
Its not even rly being egotistical, I dont think im better just because im intense. Tbh i dont think ive emphasized how painful it can be, i sometimes genuinely feel so disconnected from the ppl and environment around me. And just because i do some intellectual shit doesnt mean im not a human who doesnt need connection, which i also cant have without this depth. Sometimes I do wish I was just normal. But then I remember all that this intensity has given me, and I realize that it is a blessing maybe more so than it is a curse.
Psychologically, you could call this something like extreme intellectual asynchronous development, profound giftedness, overexcitabilities, maybe twice exceptional. Whatever. That's just whatever clinical explanation is there, the reality is that living with this kind of intensity is weird. And thats where this blog i found comes in. I am lucky that I have a world that satisfies me, that I have close relationships and can pursue my mathematical obsessions freely, even with the pain of intellectual loneliness at a core level. My writing even here and now is fairly polished and tame (tbh im literally just writing my raw thoughts I just happen to think somewhat "sophisticated"). This blog contains a raw perspective on what its like to be like this. It contains a collection of thoughts i find to be surprisingly representative: sometimes short personal notes, sometimes questions on philosophy and society, sometimes just random topics, and sometimes a reflection of a similar experience of being so different that you feel that you have little overlap with society. Reading it made me realize that, for how different I am, there are others in some way like me. Now frankly, idk who this person is, idk if we'd get along, idk if id like them or not, idk if we'd agree at all. But it inspired me to come here and write this (i dont think ive done enough justice to it by only mentioning it twice. But i dont want to relate it to much to my own experiences because i think its a unique experience too).
And so that's where I'll end my little yap session for today. This idea of intellectual loneliness as a consequence to people who have some kind of intensity. I hope the way ive written here isnt too off putting or something, im just weird as ive been tryna say this whole time lol. Tbh this is a bit surface level for me cuz if I wanted to explore all the things I've talked about in adequete detail, we'd be here forever. So maybe that's what writing more is for. My goal of writing this is to sort of be a beacon for ppl like this on this weird corner of the internet, maybe to find others like me who have this kind of intensity or just provide a place for some raw thoughts to surface. If you do feel like you wanna connect or talk about this please do so, or feel free to just move on with these thoughts.