Post: #51

@Boschulus:

I agree with everything you said, chief. Everyone has to find the life that is best suited for them, and I'm not condemning anyone. It's just that for me, knowing my own personality, I need to be in the brick-fight. I am not suited to a life of Thoreau-like contemplation in the woods. I want to produce, to generate, to create. It's just a personality-driven thing.

And I really appreciate the great comments that guys have written here. I've learned a lot from them.

I guess what's really eating away at me are these difficult questions. I'm having a hard time answering them:

1. Can we call Langan a Wise Man? Is he living the life that is best suited for him--based on his personality, background, and emotional makeup--or is he simply squandering his unique gifts?

2. What really is "achievement"? Is it having an extensive resume, a large bank account, or bedding a lot of women? Or is it being a Good Man, or a Wise Man?

I think how we go about answering these questions tells us a lot about ourselves.

The best conclusion I can come up with is that it all comes down to personal choice. Some personalities, like Langan's, need to be in quiet, calming settings. They don't want to deal with the insanity of the world. Other personalities like the fight, the strife, the conflict, and the brick-fights.

It all comes down to personal choice.

But think about this: even if Langan's great ability does not "produce" anything, perhaps that very lack of production is a thing of beauty in itself.

Maybe it's like Rutger Hauer's final soliloquy in the original "Blade Runner." Langan has seen and imagined things that the rest of us will never comprehend.

And when he dies, all that knowledge will be lost...like tears in the rain.





.

Post: #52

AB Wrote:I find great peace in stillness, more peace and satisfaction than in any of my life's 'superficial' achievements that might impress others, none of which were really that hard beyond putting in regular work. The quieter I am, the more distractions are lessened, and the less I need to prove myself to the world, so the closer I feel to God.

Eckhart von Hochheim (1260-1328) Wrote:"Be sure of this: absolute stillness for as long as possible is best of all for you."

"Since it is God's nature not to be like anyone, we have to come to the state of being nothing in order to enter into the same nature that He is."

"Above thought is the intellect, which still seeks: it goes about looking, spies out here and there, picks up and drops. But above the intellect that seeks is another intellect which does not seek but stays in its pure, simple being, which is embraced in that light."

Post: #53

He seems like an interesting man. I hope that the theory that he is working on comes to fruition and helps humanity in some way.

After a certain age you quickly realize that superficial or material achievements do not lead to happiness.

That's why if you study the lives of very wealthy and successful men they tend to focus on philanthropy and altruism later in life. They may have been cutthroat to accumulate their wealth, but eventually it goes back to where it came from. Is this some type of universal law? I'm not sure.
I'm of the belief that we really never own anything anyway. We're just leasing everything we have, and eventually it goes back to nature where it came from.

We're on a travel and game forum, but if I'm honest with myself has bedding women brought me profound peace and satisfaction? I must say it has not. But you know a few recent things that have brought me happiness and contentment?

Giving to the victims of the LV shooting.

Standing next to an elderly woman in the line of the supermarket who just wanted a listening ear. Out of the blue she told me she had recently come up with some good jokes and asked if I was interested in hearing some of them. Of course I was. They weren't bad (I'm a harsh critic) so I told her about a local place that has open mic night and that she should sign up. She smiled and was thrilled, and said that her own kids and grandchildren haven't given her a word of encouragement in several years.

All this isn't to say one should be passive. There are many things in this world to fight for. I'm still motivated to achieve goals and complete projects, but the focus has shifted from external to internal. In the past I tended to do things because I wanted external admiration, now it's mainly to develop internal qualities.

And if you really look deeply aren't the internal conditions much stronger?

When I look at it in that sense, attempting to develop a theory that unites the mind, the universe, and may give us a glimpse of God seems like a worthwhile endeavor.

I think what's telling is the fact that his life is so confusing to so many people. It shows how deeply entrenched we are in the material and superficial paradigm, and how much spirituality has been lost.

Post: #54

(10-13-2017 10:01 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  Fortis:

Good point.

When you have that much ability, it almost carries with it a certain duty to perfect that ability, and to produce something of value for your peers and for posterity.

I agree with this.

It doesn't look like he's lived up to his potential.

But we should remember that this view is not shared by everyone. One could make a very convincing argument that his only responsibility is to himself: that he owes no one anything, and he is simply living his life as he sees fit.

It's not an easy question to answer. You get into philosophic questions about individual imperatives vs. duties to society.

At least it's something to think about.

There is at least some true to the idea that to whom much is given, much is expected. However, there are limits.

What about a man who decides the current system is fucked and therefore they will enjoy the decline? Are they shirking their moral obligation to make as much money as possible and thereby pay as much in taxes as possible? Obviously not.

This guy was in the rat race and had his fill, so he got out. I think that's his right. Also, if he is trying to figure out the mysteries of the universe, and comes up with some ideas of value, then shares them, he's providing value in that way. Even if he doesn't, and he just lives a quiet life that he prefers, his is fully justified morally.

Post: #55

With the draw of physical and non-intellectual pursuits, the shunning of traditional measures of success and the commonalities with spirituality, especially eastern spirituality, I recognise so many parallels between this man and myself, even though my IQ is probably only 2/3 of his.

I skipped a year of school, I probably could have skipped a few more and the work still wouldn't have been any tougher. The expectation others had for me was that since I found book-learnin' so easily, I'd just move onto ultra-high-level book learnin. But what happened in reality was that I wanted to fit in with my (older) classmates and not seem like a "square", so just skated over whatever learning was necessary to get a ~60% grade with 0% effort, and got back to my musings. While the "smart kids" were cramming for exams, I was getting wasted and staying out all night - 2 very different approaches, but the results were the same in the end.

Contrast this with the effort I poured into physical pursuits - from kickboxing and weightlifting at 13 through til today, these are pursuits that you can't take a shortcut on. You put 0% effort into these, and you get found out real quick. I think the reasons for getting immersed in what normies think of as "meathead"pursuits are 2 fold - 1) to ensure I wasn't fucked with by my older and bigger classmates and 2) Because they were the only things that were challenging. In the same way a hot chick longs to be known for her brains not just her body, I wanted to be known for my body, not just my brains. But to be honest these are just rationalisations many years after the fact - at the time, the reason I got into them was just because I wanted to, it just appealed to me. I noted that Langan got heavily into the weights too, I wonder if it was for similar reasons.

5 or 6 years ago I left a good paying job in a "smart" industry to retrain at a trade level. Society would consider this a regressive step, but I've never been happier. I too have an overarching affinity with nature and desire for self-sufficiency rather than the rat race. Although I haven't moved out to a farm (yet) , my suburban block is about as close as I can get to it right now. While my neighbours are paving everything in sight or putting down shitty artificial grass because it's "less maintenance", my block is as practical as I can get. (Real) Grass for the chickens to scratch on, Almost every plant/tree is edible or has some practical use - nature gives back the effort I put into tending it. Far from being the chore my neighbours see it as, I like the maintenance a garden requires. It's early springtime now - I love just meandering around, seeing the new growth grow from day-to-day. This seems like it could well be the same feeling that drove Langan to forego the trappings of wealth and move to the farm.

The other parallel is the formulation of a personal theory of everything. I started writing little snippets and observations that fit together in my early teens, and for the last god-knows-how-long I've been "meaning to" collate them into something more coherent. The problem is that while they all make perfect sense to me, understanding it would require all the unspoken pre-requisite knowledge that I have. Where do you start explaining the sum-total of your lifes experience? Couple the grand scale of the subject matter with the atrophied communication skills of someone with half a lifetime spent thinking "ahh fuck it, you wouldn't understand anyway, so I won't bother explaining" and it's very likely my own theory of everything is never going to see the light of day, but hopefully that of Langan, or another like him, does. On the other hand, he is twenty-odd years older than me, so there is still plenty of time.

Such a theory wouldn't be for everyone though, the reader would need to have some degree of "wokeness" to start with, otherwise their shallow, superficial understanding will just insulate them from the deeper truths contained within. You gotta go in with an open mind, maaaan, and if you've ever tried to "red-pill"someone, you'll know that an open mind isn't all that common a thing. If he ever does get his theory squared away in a palatable format, don't expect it to see mass-circulation. That's one work you'd need to actively seek out.

Post: #56

Let's not forget that when you have an IQ that's capable of changing the world you have to make a serious decision about whether you're willing to piss off the very powerful people who don't want the world changed.

The shadowy powerbrokers of the world take high intelligence very seriously, and I'm sure they keep tabs on guys like this. In a world of algorithm based stock trading and world-wide-web destroying viruses, men like this fellow are literally capable of bringing the world to its knees if properly motivated.

Post: #57

(10-14-2017 01:09 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  an the absence of stress--i.e., the absence of pain--really be called happiness? Can this man be called a Wise Man?

These are the questions that interest me.

Depends what you consider painful. For me it's painful to sit indoors for too long and not venture out into the world. I get physically restless and feel absolute misery being cooped up. A book, a video game, or some physical exercise at home give me only an hour or two of relief(unless I've exhausted myself the previous day and I have to stay in to recover).

What is painful for one is not painful for the other. Discipline in the traditional sense never worked for me. I only got it after being unable to tolerate sloth.

I choose trying to achieve greatness because I am mentally and physically unable to be complacent. Hell I know I'll die on my feet in some far off land chasing a 1 in a million chance at great success.

It's only a matter of when.

Edit: And I honestly don't know what greatness is. My theory is that if I keep interacting with the world physically and experience new things about humans constantly I'll figure out what it'll be. Perhaps it'll be one great moment or it could be some long drawn out project. I figure I'll only figure it out if I just keep moving. The only thing I'm certain of is that I still have something waiting for me where I am right now. Even when I travel I always feel like going back where I am currently.

Post: #58

(10-14-2017 07:18 AM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  Work steadily towards a desired goal based upon your own Free Will and you'll eventually get exactly what you thought you always wanted. That's when you'll discover it's never what you actually need.

This brought a tear to my eye. Thank you for that.

Post: #59

(10-14-2017 06:55 PM)king bast Wrote:  5 or 6 years ago I left a good paying job in a "smart" industry to retrain at a trade level. Society would consider this a regressive step, but I've never been happier.

Post: #60

This is a great thread, my take is that Chris's high IQ made him an outcast everywhere he went except ironically at the lower ends of the IQ spectrum. He is a man of God and found the humbleness of the ordinary worker to be far preferable to sinful arrogance of the so called elites.

Langan's expulsion from the university world, a world that should have accepted him with open arms, was just a precursor of the political correctness to come. At first they could not accept a 200 IQ individual, then as diversity politics and affirmative action sunk in the threshold for untolerable IQ became lower and lower. Nowadays any White man with an IQ over 120 will be killed in any department outside of STEM, and even that is being destroyed as I type.

The natural outcome, of course, for the intelligent to be excluded from the university doesn't mean that intelligent men disappear. It means they go elsewhere, and begin their own studies and theories, which is of course how we got men like Socrates, Augustine, Descarte, and so many others. Our civilization was literally created by genius outcasts who devoted their time and efforts towards solving the most complex problems they could approach, and Chris is carrying on this wonderful and holy tradition.

His life quite reminds me of Kant. Kant did not start his best work until the last 20 years of his life. Chris is in his peak of his philosophical years, as I once outlined here:

http://www.returnofkings.com/2859/when-a...best-years

This is a good case of "wait and see." Chris's theory sounds a lot like Kant's, trying to explain the relationship of the mind to the world, and Kant's achievement was so profound virtually 200 years of science following the Critique of Pure Reason were developed on his philosophical insights. Including men like Einstein, Faraday, and Bertrand Russell.

And even if he fails, he is still a noble man for undertaking such a task in the first place. Failure is not the embarrassment, inaction is, and this man is putting his mind to work despite having no obligation to a society that ostracized him.

Post: #61

(10-14-2017 07:18 AM)AnonymousBosch Wrote:  This will be a ramble, so I'll apologise in advance as I can see even QC doesn't understand my current life choices.

Post: #62

(10-14-2017 11:44 AM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  I want to produce, to generate, to create. It's just a personality-driven thing.

Does art need an audience or is the creation all that matters?

I went to a Funeral last week. A good mate's Grandfather died at Ninety-One, leaving behind his wife of Seventy-Four years. My mate is Forty, and has never experienced Known Loss before, so I was ready to catch him in his grief.

After the Funeral and the Wake, in a quiet moment, he commented to me that he'd spent a lot of time with his grandfather over the last few years, and because of that, he wasn't sad about his passing, because the man was genuinely-happy with the life he'd lived.

He'd had a conversation with him about two weeks ago where the grandfather laid it all out for him. He had eight children, twenty-grandchildren and twelve great-grandchildren. He and his wife had lasted almost three quarters of a century together, and despite ups and downs, still loved each other deeply. He told my friend he had no real regrets, and there wasn't anything left he felt he needed to do.

"I think he knew he didn't have long," my mate said, "... and he wasn't scared or unhappy. So, I'm not sad for him."

I've seen other people near their end, and have seen the fear and regret that can set in, so I understood what he mean.

My mate continued: "It's funny, I was looking around at my family here. It's the first time all of us have been together in a long while..."

They're very spread out across the entire country.

"... and it struck me that, my family are good people, and how lucky I am for that. I mean..."

He motioned silently to me, knowing my family history on all sides was full of criminals, narcissists, psychopaths, drug addicts, child abusers, shut-ins and, on my mother's side, genius-level women whose genuine high intelligence (not 'modern uni degree intelligence') should have set them at odds with society, but they flourished. (My great-grandmother was a Doctor, with her own Practice - not a Nurse - in 1912, even though third-wave Feminists would tell me that 'couldn't be true' because 'everyone knows' all women were trapped at home until the 70's).

I nodded, taking no offense in his implication.

He continued: "I mean, my sister has her issues, but we all care for each other. Even my Dad..."

...currently in Jail...

"... he can be useless at times, but he does try."

I've always seen his father's sins as recognizably-human ones, and easily-forgivable, and it seems healthy that his children can overlook his repeated fuckups, rather than carrying long-term grudges about them, (aside from the Lesbian sister, who would find an unforgivable offense in a blank sheet of paper).

As such, are the familial bonds of compassion and care any less of an Art than the traditional considerations of Art? If an Intelligent Person chases their personal desires for glory and praise to the neglect of their own familial connections, whom then scatter and have little to do with them as they eventually die alone, isn't it, in its own way, a failed work of creation? A misshapen statue. An ugly, out-of-perspective painting, A song no-one wants to sing along with.

----------

Quote:But think about this: even if Langan's great ability does not "produce" anything, perhaps that very lack of production is a thing of beauty in itself.

I really need to send you one of the outtakes from my last album, mate. You'll get the song.

When I originally approached my collaborator, I'd completed the music for a good eighteen tracks by myself. I hired him as a paid singer and producer, and was quite blunt about what I was doing. I said, I didn't care if anyone else heard it, and genuinely-meant it. I've done the Music Game. This was just, finally, for me.

When I started, it was still cheap to press vinyl, because the resurgence hadn't yet happened. I laid out my plan. I was going to pay two grand and get two hundred copies made, and then, whenever I traveled in the world, I intended to take a copy or two on each trip, and drop them into a second-hand record store, so they could sit unnoticed amongst the Plastic Bertrand, Fairfield Parlour and Bananarama records, until, eventually, someone would chance it for two bucks, take him home, and, hopefully, their jaw would drop over how good it was, and they'd wonder how they'd never heard of this band.

Then they'd go to the internet, look it up, and... nothing. No-one would know who did it. No-one would know anything about it. It would be their own discovery, a private universe, unbeknownst to everyone else.

The idea took me back to my childhood, when your favourite album was an identity that separated you from others, especially if no-one else knew about the band. I said, 'Somewhere out there, there's a teenager who feels out of place for his intelligence, and the accidental discovery of this album could be his refuge.'

The idea simply struck me as both pure and beautiful.

The problem, of course, being I was always serious in my intention, whereas my collaborator, not understanding that someone could attempt to create something great only for it to be thrown away, though he could talk me out of it, seeing dollar signs, personal praise and career advancement for himself, none of which could ever hope to fill the void I've since seen yawning in his soul.

In the end, I relented, just hoping it would get the work done faster, but I still stand by my original idea. Sometimes beauty is a private thing, and exists without the gaze of an observer.

-------------

One night recently, I woke up in the middle of the night and walked out onto the balcony of my new property, and saw how the pale moonlight threw the fields into sharp relief. I ended up taking a walk in the quiet night air down to the mailbox. There's an short avenue of trees flanking the end of the drive, the filtered light falling through them was beautiful.

I wondered on how many nights that beauty had existed, but was unobserved by human eyes.

--------------

I used to jog in the summer evenings with a mate along the steeper streets across the valley in my last town. All the big houses were there: large and pretentious, where you could see people had enough excess money to start furnishing their front yards, like they were rooms. There was a fire trail behind the highest ones, and the views there at sunset were incredible, and would take my breath away.

Evening after evening, the pair of us would comment on the sunset, and the view across the valley, and how stunning it was.

Evening after evening, the balconies and entertaining areas of these big houses that faced the valley were completely empty.

After a while, I commented on how it seemed like such a shame that the occupants were missing the beauty in front of them. That town always had incredible sunsets.

My mate grunted. "They're probably still stuck at work, so they can afford to pay for their damn houses. We get the same view, and all it costs us is a little sweat."

-------------

I have had stillness on my mind, since my first post. As usual, if I ask for information, it is delivered. There's a direct indirectness to this pattern, so I know when something seems small and insignificant it's worth looking closer.

Cleaning out some old boxes from the barn, I found an old book of devotional sayings, and it fell open on a page as I flipped it. Broken spine probably. A common thing for books.

I looked at the page.

It was a quote from Exodus 14:14: "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

Post: #63

Fascinating post. I can't really judge Langan because I don't have enough context and some of the criticisms seem to say more about the commenter than Langan. To really understand whether Langan has taken the right road in his life I would need to understand at least whether his low key personality is a sign of someone at peace with himself and happy with life or a symptom of someone stunted due to some inherent personality quirk or aspect of his upbringing.

If he is happy and at peace then, from a Buddhist or Stoic outlook, he has taken the right path, or at the very least one of them.

I also have no idea whether his big idea is intellectual masturbation or a truly groundbreaking one. If the former, then it may be a loss for society. I write "may" because a lot of brilliant people have used their brains to build businesses (e.g., processed food or advertising), wage war or gain power that can be said to have made life worse.

Take Steve Jobs who in many ways typified what most people value - he was a fabulously wealthy visionary who built an empire and great products that people loved. On the other hand the iPhone and its ilk can be said to have made life worse for people and society by shortening attention spans and isolating people from one another. Jobs was also a miserable excuse for a human being in how he treated people especially his oldest daughter.

If Langan's idea is truly a groundbreaking one, maybe he was freer to pursue it by working jobs that weren't mentally taxing allowing him to use his mental powers on his idea. Maybe not. Beats me.

For me Langan's life ultimately raises two big questions:

1. What is the definition of a life well lived?

2. How much or little do we owe society?

Post: #64

Men as smart as him are best suited for research academia. They have a heavily philosophical mind rather than a practical mind. His underachievement is living proof that it's possible to be "too smart". Put him consistently in situations where he needs to make important decisions under pressure with money on the line and he'll overthink everything and ultimately fail in his role. Seen it with plenty of very smart people before. Smart people make the world go round, but once intelligence reaches a certain point (outliers like him) it definitely becomes more detrimental to personal success.

Post: #65

Being very intelligent and very good with people is the best combo. That's probably around the 130 level, methinks?

Post: #66

From esoteric studies I have done (specifically I nvolving the multi-dimensional human design system) and from observing various people (modern and historical), it seems that there are different personalities among highly intelligent people, just as with those of average intelligence. It seems fairly universal that Nature is a genius's best friend and Time their jealous lover.

I believe personality differences plus upbringing are important factors in when / how / if the work of such as individual appears in the world. Barely detectable patterns, momentary flashes of delightful insight, and appreciation for the sublime are available to all of us but often only arise when we limit distraction which requires solitude and often when pain from past experiences is processed and released. There may be periods of inner reflection and outer expression, with healing and growth (and trauma) occurring in fits and starts; no one but the creative person can know what is the proper balance between outer and inner expression as the cycle of life pulls them along. Often an excess of one (external expression) provokes a strong pull to the other. It can look very chaotic even to the creator but they are working with Nature's rhythm which only someone also in tune with Nature could possibly understand.

We all can discover the root of our own genius ('Is Your Genius at Work?' by Dick Richards) and see how we express it, as opposed to only believing genius is limited to other special people. There are degrees of course and Chris is at the far end of the bell curve. External understanding or acceptance may play very little part in the life of the creative person except as a reminder that, 'this above all - to thine own self be true.'

Regarding outer expression, I can relate this anecdote. As I began to spend more time in quiet and meditative self-reflection, a shift in perception occurred. I had noticed, after some prompting by a spiritual teacher, that instead of the sense of me as a body moving through the world, that I realized that a more fundamental aspect of me, my awareness, was ever-still and unmoving. It is the world that moves within your awareness - not that we 'own' awareness but rather it possesses us.

This surprising but deeply-felt shift made the world feel far more intimate than before, as all the people and things within it are actually within me, in a deeper sense of what 'I' am. It doesn't mean everything is bliss bunnies and rainbows, but I could now viscerally know that any real sense of separation is only an artifact of the mind attempting to create a division where none actually exists. I mean, how can you truly understand or relate to someone or something that feels aliens and outside yourself? It would be a sham, a lie. Intimacy with whatever compells us is a prerequisite for our genius to express itself. The mind can be a useful tool in service of our goals or feel like a cruel master yanking us around on a barbed wire chain. So I believe for any degree of genius to be displayed there is an interplay between sensory intimacy and the role of mind.

I think that even and perhaps especially among the very very high IQ, coming to a clear understanding of one's relationship to mind, body, soul, and Spirit / Universe is essential to not go mad. And by no means do I believe understanding resides solely in the mind. The mind is the smaller part of our entire being and freedom is seeing our totality of Self in relation to otherness. It is the external dance of One and Other, Space and Energy, Shiva and Shakti, Creator and Creation.

I'd say if Chris lived a few hundred years ago his lifestyle would be more the norm and, as several have said, any fruits of his genius meant for public viewing would arise in their good time. I've read that excessive conscience is a hallmark of genius - one cannot ignore his fellow man's suffering except at the cost of great heart pangs, though it can take time to become clear on how to best influence and impact the world. A redwood doesn't provide shade but for the passing of many years.