People With Unusually High Intelligence Almost Always Do 7 Things When They're Alone
Krakenimages.com | ShutterstockThere are many traits that set highly intelligent people apart from people with average minds.
Sometimes, people with the highest IQs are the ones who notice these differences the most, because many of them are actually about what happens inside their heads. They tend to do several things when they are all by themselves that less brilliant people don't give much thought to at all.
7 things people with exceptionally high IQs do when they’re alone that an average person doesn't:
1. They sit with uncomfortable questions
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There are some questions we don’t have the answers to, or at least the answers aren't readily available. What people do when they have these seemingly impossible questions on their minds is really telling.
Most people don’t like uncertainty. Our brains can’t handle the stress of not knowing, so we search for any possible answer. It might not be entirely correct, but they’re happier with that than with accepting they don’t know.
Highly intelligent people care about getting to the truth, even if it takes extra time. When they are alone, they will often sit and ponder unanswered questions the way people sit with physical puzzles.
2. High IQ people are even known to argue with themselves
Some people feel like they always have to be right. This seems even more common now that the world is so divided and full of arguments. They could be presented with evidence that tears their argument to shreds, and they still wouldn’t back down.
On the flip side, people with high intelligence don’t want to prove themselves right. They just want to understand the facts, even if they don’t match what they expected. That’s why they direct their arguments against themselves instead of against others. They have no problem coming up with a counterargument to their own opinion. And, if it feels more valid, they’ll change their mind. They don’t hold their beliefs so rigidly that they can’t challenge them.
3. They try to figure out where their emotions are coming from
Emotions are powerful, and most of us get caught up in feeling them so deeply that we don’t really think about them. That can turn bad quickly when someone lets their emotions control them instead of the other way around.
The most intelligent people don’t really struggle with that. Instead of just recognizing what they’re feeling, they go a step further and figure out what caused that emotion in the first place. This helps them become more self-aware and improves their mental health at the same time.
4. They give new meaning to old nostalgic memories
If you’ve ever remembered an embarrassing moment from a decade ago and suddenly realized that there’s a lesson to learn from it that you totally missed, you’ve basically had a peek inside a super intelligent person’s brain.
They’re always reflecting on the past and seeing it through a new perspective. Instead of writing some experiences off as useless, they revisit them later when they can understand them better. Just because they interpreted something a certain way when it happened doesn’t mean there isn’t more to think about later.
5. They spend time learning about impractical things
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It’s a lot easier to put in the effort required to learn something new when there’s some kind of payoff, like success at work or school. People who want to learn about random things that aren’t actually going to help them in any way are usually highly intelligent.
These people have a high level of epistemic curiosity, which basically means they want to learn because they love it. Researching some obscure fact probably isn’t going to change their life, but it still feels worthwhile to them because they want to expand their knowledge.
6. Highly intelligent people often edit their thoughts in real time
Just like most people don’t like to be wrong, they also usually don’t like changing their minds. Part of this comes from the fact that being sure of one thing and then changing directions takes real effort that’s not comfortable.
But part of it’s also because they just don’t want to. They think admitting they weren’t right to begin with makes them look weak, so they do pretty much anything they can to avoid it.
Highly intelligent people are the opposite. They don’t need someone to confront them with new information to convince them to change their minds. While they’re thinking, they wonder about other possibilities and rethink their original assumptions so they can get to the bottom of things.
7. They usually find their own thoughts highly entertaining
Not many people can say they enjoy being alone with their thoughts with nothing else to distract them, especially when we’re used to being distracted all the time. It can feel unsettling to have nothing for company other than your own mind.
The average person would go to pretty great lengths to avoid that, but not really intelligent people. They think their mind is an interesting place where they don’t mind spending time. They don’t need to doomscroll when they can use their own thoughts for entertainment.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
