My Dad once told me being smart was a curse. When he was stationed abroad with a load of meatheads, they would be happy spending their down time drinking beer

My Dad once told me being smart was a curse. When he was stationed abroad with a load of meatheads, they would be happy spending their down time drinking beer and getting a tan. He would miss libraries of home. When people around him didn't care about the problems of the World, he saw the intractable nuance of the World's problems and felt a deep helplessness. Some of this was clearly depression, but I have to admit, 30 years after he shared those stories with me, there have been times I've been jealous of people who did not think through the detail and nuance and see the risks and lack of mitigations in so many circumstances. I'm not exceptionally smart, but I do seem to be a step or two ahead of ~30% of my colleagues and friends, and that seems to be enough to make life feel quite sad, quite a lot of the time.