The Curse of the High IQ

Great, Real Advice, Holds No Punches

This is not a book for the faint of heart, Aaron tells it like it is. If you are highly intelligent and frustrated with life, you will find this book eye-opening. Personality tests, self-help books, spiritual practices are ways to cope with not fitting in, and ways to adapt better to a world where you do not and will not ever fit in. However, reading this book will help you realize exactly WHY you don't and will never fit in and how to make practical improvements...and hopefully stop beating yourself up.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Visionary

This book may help you to think about and plan for the future in an intelligent way, by understanding why you think the way you do and why others misunderstand you.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Aarse-hole!

Perfect! Worth EVERY penny...and honestly I will be buying some paperback copies to shove in the face of a few loved ones that struggle with "the curse"

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Genuinely Horrible

Let me summarize this book in a few lines. "I'm a lonely, anti-social douchebag who blames my inability to connect with anyone on this planet on my fictional high IQ, and to prove it I'll refer to all people as being inferior to me, while at the same time offering nothing more than condescending and purely anecdotal evidence to try to convince you that this is the case". I cannot emphasize enough how terrible this book is. I was hoping to find something I could relate to. This tripe failed as miserably as the author has clearly failed in his life. Move on.

7 of 10 people found this review helpful

The Captain nails it once again

What made the experience of listening to The Curse of the High IQ the most enjoyable?

Humorous and insightful take on the pitfalls of being more intelligent than most of the people around you. Really hits home.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Must Read!

Aaron Clarey hits it out of the park with his Curse Of the High IQ.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

I'm not crazy, I'm just cursed

This book explains the reasons why I have felt the way that I have for so long. It helped to bring sanity to a world that frequently infuriates me and I have all but lost hope for.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

More like "The Curse of Being Autistic"

The author basically spends the entire time pessimistically pointing out the problems he sees in society while offering no solutions. Instead, he just hopes his readers will find solace in his explanation that society has these problems because we are forced to cater to the majority of people who have average IQs and we just have to accept that. It's literally just an endless list of complaints and the author comes off very whiney and arrogant. Very disappointing overall. This book should offer advice on how to relate better to people in order to fit in, have greater influence, and ultimately be happier. Instead, he just complains the whole time.

It is my opinion that the author has severe autism as it doesn't seem like he is able to relate to people he deems of average or low IQ. His endless rants also don't seem to serve any constructive purpose other than to show how awesome he thinks he is. It becomes painfully clear that he thinks he should be worshipped for his "high IQ," and doesn't understand why he can't get along with most "average IQ" people. He 100% attributes this to the fact that their lower IQ renders them incapable of comprehending what it's like to be him. This general lack of social awareness is a textbook autistic trait.

Don't waste your time with this book. I'm pretty sure he wrote it to try to get validation/prove that he has superior intelligence.

7 of 10 people found this review helpful

relateable. although solutions are vague.

I related a lot and got a few nice ideas to solve my problems. Thanks!

2 of 3 people found this review helpful

Paranoia and the Dunning-Kruger Effect

I've never taken the time to write a review on Audible, but I genuinely felt that I had to in this case. I wanted to like the book. I REALLY wanted to like this book. But I couldn't even finish it. After a couple of hours, I could no longer subject myself to the egotistical ranting that constitutes the bulk of its contents.

I was looking for realistic and thoughtful strategies on dealing with the unfortunate side effects of high IQ. I do not consider myself a genius by any stretch, but I am a card-carrying member of Mensa and my IQ has been measured to be 3-5 standard deviations from the mean, depending on the test and the day.

This book is basically every basement-dwelling rant about genius and high IQ that you've ever read on UseNet or an internet message board. It offers few solutions and promotes the worst possible strategies to deal with high intelligence. The author scoffs at the prospect of honing "soft skills" and promotes that any genius should just power-through and persevere. Unfortunately, geniuses are susceptible to being wrong, just as anyone else. The Dunning-Kruger effect is in full bore, and there is a lack of willingness to accept personal responsibility or the possibility that any negative situation may be the fault of the author, or the genius who finds themselves in a bad spot. A better strategy is to be self-aware. Know yourself, your biases, what you're good at, what you're not (believe me, it's almost a certainty that you're not great at absolutely everything) and how to respond to people. The author presents a paranoid view that if someone disagrees with you that they are out to get you. This is not a realistic view of the world. Does it happen? Sure, but not as often as you might believe.

By the author's standards, I'm abnormally intelligent, and because selection bias is a thing, I have worked with, worked for, managed, and am friends with many individuals whose IQs are in the 130 - 180 range. They're all human, and they all make mistakes. From tons of personal experience, the worst people to deal with are the inflexible Howard Roark types who believe that they are always right and incapable of being wrong. When they are wrong, they blame other people, and those they consider less intelligent for their own shortcomings. Those that are completely inflexible tend to believe that they are the most intelligent person in the room, building, state, continent, or whatever graduation it takes to justify their own unwavering confidence in the face of myriad evidence against. These people literally appear delusional, and often are. This is not the way to respond to criticism or disagreement.

One thing that I can say is that the narration perfectly captures the flights of grandiosity and ego-centric blindness presented in the book. This is one of the few audiobooks where I forgot that the narrator and author were not the same person.

I'm left to believe that the positive reviews this book has earned are likely due to the confirmation bias of the listener, as even abnormally intelligent people want to fit in somewhere. Having lived in the real world for the last twenty years, the difference between someone with an IQ of 115 and 145 isn't that big of a deal, unless you make it one.

6 of 11 people found this review helpful