Do Intelligent People Know How to Have Fun?

During a Youth and Truth conversation, a student questions Sadhguru about the correlation between intelligence and happiness. For one who is enjoying the pleasures of intellect, Sadhguru says, the pleasures of parties and pubs may not make sense, but that does not mean they are not having fun!

ArticleSep 20, 2018

Q: Sadhguru, in my school and college days I have seen that a lot of highly intelligent people tend to keep to themselves. They tend not to do the normal things that people do to be happy. They don’t go out, they don’t chill, they don’t party – they tend to just concentrate on their work. But are intelligence and happiness tied in any way?

Get weekly updates on the latest blogs via newsletters right in your mailbox.

Sadhguru: There are many kinds of pleasure in life: physical pleasures, biological pleasures, intellectual pleasures, pleasures of deeper intelligence, pleasures of emotion, and enormous pleasures of consciousness. For someone who is enjoying the pleasure of their intellect or intelligence, what you think is enjoyable, such as chilling in a pub or whatever else, does not make sense to them because they are enjoying something else.

The kind of pleasure one is involved in can and should be different. If everybody is into the same thing, that is a dumb society.

For every other creature, their biology is the most dominant part of their life. But once you have come here as a human being, your biology is not the front end of your life. Maybe you think so when you are eighteen or twenty, but you will see it is not so. Once you come as a human being, there is an enormous intellect. There are other dimensions of intelligence, emotion, and consciousness. Some people can only enjoy what is physical. Some people have intellectual pleasures or other dimensions of pleasures. Just because they are not doing what you think is fun does not mean they are not having fun. You are playing chess, and somebody else thinks it is nonsense – moving pawns all your life. I am sure a whole lot of people think that. But you may be having a very intense level of pleasure in just moving a pawn in a brilliant way. So, the kind of pleasure one is involved in can and should be different. If everybody is into the same thing, that is a dumb society.

Editor's Note: Whether you're struggling with a controversial query, feeling puzzled about a taboo topic, or just burning with a question that no one else is willing to answer, now is your chance to ask! Ask Sadhguru your questions at UnplugWithSadhguru.org.