Is intellectual activity merely compensation for physical deficiency?

Well, yes. SICK LIKE DOG.

Example: Hollywood film-makers, Aaron Spelling, etc, provide a 'plot', but also include the baseline 'story' of physical attractiveness, for the stupid or lazy - good people are attractive, bad people are ugly. People who aren't stupid or lazy can ignore the 'attractiveness' plot if they choose to, as you could ignore subtitles for the deaf.

This example is really an analogy - it could be true for social interaction in general.

Is all of western civilisation compensation for inadequacies? Of course it is, what a silly question.

I was always a bit fascinated with the kids who were smart and athletic in high school. Sport takes a lot of time.

Then I grew to 6' and found out I could run faster than a lot of people and do lots of pushups and situps and have sex for very long periods of time. Now I just read comics and watch action films.

(I also compose the occasional 15/4 drum and bass tune but don't tell my girlfriend)

^very secrete insight into innner Tombot workings here

OP was an ignorant question, based on crap stereotypes. Luckily, it elicited better replies, and we now know TOMBOT can have sex for long periods of time. Or could, once.

i love tombot and i strive to be more like him every day.

Nevertheless, it does appear to be possible in Germany for a man to point to fixed bayonets and say, "These are my authority," and yet to convince ordinarily sane men that he is a soldier. If this is so, it does really seem to point to some habit of high-faultin' in the German nation, such as that of which I spoke previously. It almost looks as if the advisers, and even the officials, of the German Army had become infected in some degree with the false and feeble doctrine that might is right. As this doctrine is invariably preached by physical weaklings like Nietzsche it is a very serious thing even to entertain the supposition that it is affecting men who have really to do military work It would be the end of German soldiers to be affected by German philosophy. Energetic people use energy as a means, but only very tired people ever use energy as a reason.

http://www.readprint.com/chapter-20038/All-Things-Considered-Gilbert-Keith-Chesterton/3

Although I have not grown to be 6' and tend to have sex for only average periods of time, I have found that at my advanced age I am less intellectually interested and simultaneously more physically active than I used to be. But some of this might just be that I'm a law student, which kills pretty much any desire I would have to go read in an exploratory way and makes me want to just run around and lift things instead.

Having stumbled upon this thread in the midden heap, I am inclined to ask, whither Luke? Assuming Luke yet lives and breathes, what further wonders occupy his mind these days?

Also, does Tombot disavow his stellar contribution?

the mind / body split doesn't do anyone any favors. hatred of the body by supposed intellectuals is bizarre imho.

but understandable considering how power in society developed.

haha i've been thinking about this thread too much. sure there is something to be said for a lack of "the goods" in one area to put someone on a path that doesn't so much require them, but believing that people end up in a life of the mind purely as a compensatory move for lack of physical prowess or good looks is pretty impoverished. this kind of tale is a sad male ego thing afaict. some dudes just kind of live their life in this zone, attached to their insecurity and trying in vain to fill it with praise and status. i'll be the first to admit that i've lived a fair amount of my life in that zone, and that it still shapes my actions. i will say that a drive for excellence or beauty is maybe a different thing than chasing praise. which is a drive i have whether i like it or not, and i celebrate that. a related thought is that when the body and mind are in harmony, the best of both is activated.

Mens sana in corpore sano. Smart people live longer and healthier but you have to define smart - I assume it only partially overlaps with "book smart" or "nerdy smart" if you can't find happiness and fruitful activities, if you can't solve problems, if you're emotionally and socially inept or vulnerable. Many attitudes and virtues have a strong physical component - assertiveness, confidence, empathy, being considerate. It's in the way our bodies function, memorize and learn - our bodies contain as many neurons outside our brain as an octopus has. It's in the way we take decisions by taking into account our moods, desires, instincts and other unconscious processes. It's in the way we perceive others: how many people have you met that you remember first and foremost for their brilliant minds?

I have been absorbing some more Indian and Buddhist philosophy lately through my yoga practice. I've been in a monthly yogic philosophy group on and off for years but its only accelerated recently.

Also watched a lot of people wrestling with this stuff who don't have the aptitude for book learning, and its been interesting to watch what ppl who are good at the physical activity learn and apply these metaphysical models to their physical practice. When you don't necessarily need to.

ive been trying for a long time to minimise the importance of quick-grasp speed in my understanding of "intelligence" and to acknowledge more and more all of the measures of contextual ability and application towards goals (including the ability to identify and maintain good goals) that over a lifetime look more and more relevant to me as a fuller description of what i used to think of as a very simple function.

that said lord help me there's a lot of people thick as posts. i do think of that as a tragedy for them these days however and am less quick to judge.

there's no correlation between intelligence and physical capability that I've ever found but im sure that's been well discussed upthread

I have two children: one is 18, a high school valedictorian now in a university honors program and studying pre-med/psychology.

The other is (as you may be aware) profoundly intellectually disabled, due to a rare genetic condition called KDM5C.

His IQ is maybe 60? No fault of his nor of ours. No number of flash cards or whatever is going to make him able to independently function, much less excel or succeed. He is 14 and nonverbal and has never tied a shoe; he cannot tell you his full name or address.

Now.

There is (itt and elsewhere) a standard 21st century snark alt-online attitude - roughly, I/we/people like us are in the group "smart people"; you/they/people like them are in the group "dumb people." And my wife and I aren't immune. A few minutes of Facebook or whatever and we'll be saying the standard things: people are dumb and wrong, Trump is an idiot, etc.

But I do find myself bifurcated when I think of my son: he's not charmingly neurodivergent and kooky, or high-functioning autistic, or "just learns differently." He is not bright. Kid is dumb, and we must love him not just because he's ours and we made him. But because I still feel the pull of a non-snarky vision of the inherent dignity and human worth. Each life has its place.

Anyway, that.

I have a lot of ambivalence around talk of excellence and achievement and success, especially as they function in current society.

Here's an analogy: I value self-sufficiency and resilience. It is right to praise people for these qualities. But turn it a few ticks of the dial further and it becomes "blame the victim" when someone doesn't prevail.

If you "beat cancer," hooray. Brave fighter, overcame the odds. But the flip side of that coin is to imply that when someone dies of cancer it's because they weren't a "brave fighter" who "beat cancer." I don't know if/how this analogy applies but it's on my mind.

I don't think anybody uses wording like beating cancer to imply that the people who failed to beat cancer are losers, but on your larger point YMP, I think plenty of people weaponize their intelligence much more easily than they would weaponize their physical strength, because it's somehow accepted as civilized. I greatly admire people who are able to go around without ridiculing others or being constantly snarky - imo it's the mark of truly gracious people. I don't always live up to it myself, but I try. It's a question of context though, I could be relatively harsh with a colleague who is repeatedly failing at basic tasks (due to not applying themselves), but I am never going to feel superior to someone who is disabled or dropped off from school or some other unfair comparison. Finally, I think "people are idiots" is always acceptable.

i also think that what ymp is saying about how we single out positive character traits in order to affirm a person's value is that basically any time we do that we're attaching something (inherent value) to an external thing that is a false measure. a being eludes dualistic thinking.

Maybe? I'm just trying to square the online rhetorical stance of hating stupid people* with the emotional weight of loving a specific not-very-bright person.

* discuss, if you like, the conflation of "I hate stupidity" with "I hate stupid people." Perhaps you can separate these, like "hate the sin, love the sinner." But in my experience, people are not good at that.

As James C. Scott might say, prizing the legibility of achievements and missing all the stuff that’s not readily measured/normalized/etc

also I do not disavow my ridiculous posting from my twenties and thirties on here; how could I? It’s part of me - but boy howdy am I a different person now

I don’t even like being called tombot anymore, need to fix that

Except if people want to say “tombot otm” that’s still fun

I'm reminded of this classic appearance by Crispin Glover on the David Letterman show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jm2CbuTdTtE

I was trying to think of someone who was both intellectually and physically gifted, and that's the first example that comes to mind. Apparently it was a bit done as a tie-in for Rubin and Ed, which came out a couple of years later and is probably boring as heck, but funny in tiny bits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEIDfHZf9kI

Crispin Glover is still around. He's not dead or anything. Can he have sex for long periods of time? Probably. My second thought was of Theodore Roosevelt, who never appeared on Letterman but was both a man of letters and also a burly guy, something he apparently cultivated because he was a sickly child who had asthma.

He had a perfectly normal upbringing for children in the mid-1800s. "His lifelong interest in zoology began at age seven when he saw a dead seal at a market; after obtaining the seal's head, Roosevelt and his cousins formed the "Roosevelt Museum of Natural History". Having learned the rudiments of taxidermy, he filled his makeshift museum with animals he killed or caught."

And yet nowadays if you try to educate children by showing them your collection of frozen animal heads the local education authority gets annoyed, and you end up having to take up a less well paid job at one of the local free schools where the commute is longer. I remember arguing that the animals would defrost during the commute but the educational authority said "no". They will regret that.

oliver sacks, my husband

rip

This question is absurd on its face imho. There is no such thing as the mind/body split. Physical activity is intellectual, it’s just often not intellectual in the ways that are prized by “smart” people.

Thank you for your posts here, YMP.

And for what it’s worth, Naledi, a huge number of people with cancer and cancer survivors (myself included!) loathe the way cancer is framed in bellicose terms, for exactly the reasons that YMP outlines

nowadays if you try to educate children by showing them your collection of frozen animal heads the local education authority gets annoyed

You know there's a story about Charles Darwin's son going to a friend's house. The son says to the friend, "Where does your father do his barnacles?" Because he just assumed that all Victorian dads would naturally be classifying species of barnacle.

(There is a bit of intellectual history and class stuff in there, and this is probably not the thread for it.)

the mind / body split doesn't do anyone any favors. hatred of the body by supposed intellectuals is bizarre imho.

― map, Monday, November 24, 2025 6:28 PM (one week ago)

these days i don't hate my body (and all that it requires in this world). yeah, i hated my body growing up, but i don't believe gender dysphoria has nothing to do with intelligence.

at the same time, i'm physically dyspraxic. that wasn't a word i knew growing up. best i can figure it, that means in physical terms, i'm "stupid", i have a "learning disability". it was frustrating and i got bullied a lot growing up.

there were complicating factors, a lot of them. i think that i would've been bullied just as much if i'd been intellectually disabled. i don't think it did me any favors to be treated like being smart makes me better than other people. intelligence... well, i think being _curious_ is good, but intelligence isn't morality.

perhaps to some extent i've pursued intellectual pursuits to make up for my physical limitations. i think there are far more important and immediate factors - i grew up in a home environment where intellectual curiosity was strongly encouraged. but yeah, i'd go to school and they'd give the president's physical fitness test and i'd think "you must be fucking kidding". i was a regular D student in gym class. no point in failing me. i could retake the class but it's not like i'd ever get any better. there wasn't any such thing as "remedial gym", haha. i wouldn't have minded if there had been. it probably would have benefited me.

just like i was born "dumb", in physical terms, i was born "smart" in intellectual terms. like most people, i respond well to positive feedback. i'd push myself to my utmost physically and get ridiculed. i'd put in the bare minimum of effort intellectually and get wildly praised, called a "genius". i think framing my intellectual curiosity as "compensation" for my physical deficiencies is a fairly ridiculous framing.

the main thing that frustrates me about my body these days is that it limits my ability to have extended, vigorous sex. that said, my ability to have satisfying sex is more limited by the material realities of living in a dystopia, so it's not an overriding concern.

incidentally, said material realities mean that i'm less intellectually astute than i used to be. the necessities of survival get in the way of my ability to pursue intellectual interests, even though there are no more obvious barriers to it than there used to be. for one, it was easier to be "smart" when i was perceived as a cis man. i was encouraged more and rewarded more, and more _consistently_, than i am now. i find that i'm also judged a lot more on my physical appearance, which is that of a fairly unremarkable middle-aged white woman, than i am on my abilities or accomplishments. yay, patriarchy!

in addition, it's not just that the mind/body split isn't a thing - it's that the physical/emotional split isn't a thing. i spend a lot of my time grieving. i struggle a lot with despair. this limits my ability to learn and my ability to think.