Be Happy AND SMART

I want some:

[from Science Daily] Antidepressants increase the presence of a growth factor in the brain, which then leads to a proliferation of new cells, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
New cells, huh? Does that translate as the more you have the smarter you are? If it helps memory, I'm likely to benefit.

However, "Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know." Or so says Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961).

Thus, we might ponder why "adults tend to believe that intelligent kids can deal with anything because they are intellectually superior. This inevitably includes situations where the intelligent kids have neither knowledge nor skills to support their experience. They go through the tough times alone. Adults don't understand that they need help and other kids don't want to associate with kids the social leaders say are outsiders.

As a result we have many highly intelligent people whose social development progresses much slower than that of most people and they have trouble coping with the stressors of life that present themselves to everyone. It should come as no surprise that the vast majority of prison inmates are socially and emotionally underdeveloped or maldeveloped and a larger than average percentage of them are more intelligent than the norm."

I've never thought that criminals were smarter than the average bear....at least not the ones that get caught. In fact, we probably have all concluded that a life of crime is S-T-U-P-I-D. Maybe they are all depressed and need antidepressants to be smarter and happier and find a way to live within society with, say, more concern for the welfare of others and not so much their narcisstic selves.

Narcissistic individuals, those who live as though the world revolves around them. Infants and young children understand the world in this way, but they are young. As they gain more experience and begin to realize the self as separate from the ego, poof: the world begins to turn in another direction, one that involves others. One that results in relationships, healthy ones.

The neurotic tendencies of those who have not passed successfully through the stages of [Erikson's] human development with a positive slant toward moving into the next stage, drive the rest of us nuts. Neurotic people drive other people crazy. Psychotic people go crazy themselves.

Some people benefit from antidepressants. Having come full circle in this post, what have we learned? Not much. Feeling the need for Paxil, Prozac, or Zoloft? Know someone who could use a few more brain cells? I do. But this is NOT the place to mention any names.