veritas Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I've seen some highly intelligent discussions/posts on WellTrainedMind, and there are a lot of very bright people on this forum. In real life, are you able to have such conversations--at this level--with those around you? Or, is this your go-to place for self-improvement advice and thoughtful dialogue. Why or why not? I'll bite: For me, I wish that I could say that I had people around me who were like-minded. But, alas, most of my family & friends have little interest in intellectual endeavors--unless there's an accompanying immediate reward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excelsior! Academy Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 No. But then again, most people would on this board would say I don't have the logic skills to have an intelligent conversation here either. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truscifi Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 How do you define highbrow conversation? If you mean intellectual, then yes, that is something dh and I both enjoy, and we have several friends who do as well. If you mean "upper class" as in relating to the finer things...not so much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poppy Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I find most people are far more articulate in writing. I am really intimidated by people who can speak just as well extemporaneously! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 lol--not sure how intellectual I am, but I do get to have some wonderful conversations in my Education for Ministry class, and I have deep convos with good friends, too. I have one sweet woman who moved away some time ago who was my go-to "intellectual" friend. She had a mom who made them "learn things in the summer," and she can quote poetry, Scripture and literature like you wouldn't believe. She's not haughty, either. Fun to listen to smart folks like that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MelAR05 Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Only with my husband. Oh, how I wish with others as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 A very, very select few (2 people) and I rarely get a chance to see them. And when they talk I mostly listen because they're much smarter and more knowledgeable than I. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Only with my son and one IRL friend. I met her here though. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
regentrude Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 If you mean intellectual conversations about literature and history and current events and science - yes, I do, at most get togethers with our friends, who are all very well educated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Venia Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Outside of work, DH and I like to bore each other with intelligent lectures about our interests. DH loves history. I love science. So usually one of us is a victim, I mean active recipient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mergath Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I wish. My dh is happy to listen to me babble on about whatever, but to be honest the poor guy usually has no idea what I'm talking about, lol. And my RL friends in the area just aren't interested in stuff like literature, music, philosophy, current events, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trulycrabby Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 My MIL is quite intelligent and we like to babble on about science, medicine, and Chistiano Ronaldo. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abba12 Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 DH, his best friend, and a married couple we are close to, all homeschoolers which I don't consider coincidental. We are very lucky to have met people who value intelligent debate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NASDAQ Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 There's no topic here that I couldn't easily discuss with the five closest people in the rest of my life. Except for home school supplies. They aren't all that into that particular topic. Hence, here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OneStepAtATime Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 With my mother, sure, plus on some subjects with DH and with one friend who is working on her PhD and reads voraciously. And a few really great women who will talk about education but since they don't homeschool we have less to talk about then we used to. Homeschoolers around here are fairly private and don't engage in anything past a quick greeting. Otherwise, no, hard to find anyone around here that will talk about anything but eyebrow waxing and pedicures...or gossip unmercifully about whoever isn't in the group at the moment. And poor DS has it worse. When he tries to talk about Latin or the Romans or science or a cool change in his curriculum, he gets made fun of and pressured to talk about the latest video game or fad cartoon. He likes video games but there is so much more that he would rather talk about and explore....and no one we can find that he can share with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AK_Mom4 Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Plenty of intellectul sound here - Ds18 is still firmly working on his philosophy of Life and Dd12 is firmly in the Argument Stage. Not very highbrow though unless you include calling Shakespeare a Babboon for his heavy handed treatment of Lear's daughters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NicAnn Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I can talk with DH about anything. I have a few friends I can have interesting discussions with, but certainly not most of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 My MIL is quite intelligent and we like to babble on about science, medicine, and Chistiano Ronaldo. :)I have an awesome MIL, too. I just talked to her and we had an intellectually stimulating conversation. For others, it depends. When my husband worked at RAND for a year, tons. When he worked with Laser physicists, tons. In the DC area, tons. When we were in Germany, he had a friend who was Rhodes Scholar, we could barely keep up with him!! Some areas and times, however, not so much, although we always have friends and relatives to call when we need to. While we have some common interests, my husband is not interested in language geekery and I am not interested in gears or torque ratios. My son now can talk gear ratios with him and I have plenty of phonics friends to email. I could talk to my daughter about high level language stuff, but she does not love it, so I don't. She does talk about gymnastics with me now and we watch gymnastics videos together! She has been doing gymnastics for about a year and a half now. We have friends we know from Germany that last time we visited the guys stayed up late talking about pilot and gear geekery and his wife and I stayed up talking about languages and comparing her Russian math books to several other math textbooks she owns and the math that was in the West Virginia schools. (She afterschools, she grew up in Russia and kept her math books.) ETA: When we were at RAND, we went to a dinner party with several of my husband's co-workers and I was pursuing his Latin book selection for ideas. He had started teaching himself Latin a few years earlier. Unlike people who look at you like you are crazy for teaching your children Latin, he was pleased and intrigued and we talked for a while about the differences between learning Latin as an adult and as a child. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasmama Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 On a few topics I can have a discussion in which I am a strong, educated participant. On most topics, I am not that invested or educated to have an opinion worth sharing. Dh and I have some overlapping interests, and we can have stimulating discussions on those topics. When I was doing adjunct teaching, I would tell my students, "Now learn and use this word because it makes you sound really smart". :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catwoman Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TechWife Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Definitely. I live in an area where there are a lot of people with advanced degrees and opportunities for intellectual discussion occur frequently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yes, I have many friends and acquaintances that I can and do engage in intellectually stimulating discussion. I find it different than here though because written discussion by it's very nature allows you to formulate your thoughts more deliberately and to put it all down before someone jumps in with their own two cents. But then verbal discussion has a verbal ping-pong and layering effect that is hard to get in written discussion. . . I'm glad that I have access to both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abba12 Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 And poor DS has it worse. When he tries to talk about Latin or the Romans or science or a cool change in his curriculum, he gets made fun of and pressured to talk about the latest video game or fad cartoon. He likes video games but there is so much more that he would rather talk about and explore....and no one we can find that he can share with. It doesn't get any better unfortunately. My husband is still struggling to accept that when around his brothers and their circle of friends, who used to be DHs circle too, any topic other than video games, a couple of tv shows which they like basically only because they're controversial and 'edgy' , and a small selection of music, will get laughed at and ignored or teased. He just can't understand how a group of men, aged from early 20s to mid 30s can be perfectly content spending an entire party taking about video games. DH used to play those games,.he worked at a video game store, he was just as into it... But then he grew up, and he struggles to understand how they have not, especially the older ones who are married and such. The hours wasted astound him. He might still play a game occasionally for a couple of hours, but these guys are still clocking as much as 15 hours a week. He tried to talk about some current affairs with them recently... Lol. It didn't go well. But these same people have stated they won't spends time with us because we won't hire a babysitter, which we should apparently be doing once a week so we can socialize (i.e. so he can go to video game parties). he is adjusting to the new dynamic with his brothers... But it does suck. I hope your ds manages to find some likeminded friends soon, dhs best friend has been invaluable to him through this period Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
8circles Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIch elle Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Yes, but mostly during the study/book groups that I belong to. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bensonduck Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 I'm pretty lucky in this regard. I don't have tons of friends, but the ones I do have tend to share some of my interests. Maybe not all of my interests, but, for example, I have one friend who I love discussing books and literature with. She is always reading something interesting and has some pretty unique thoughts on books. Another friend is very into music and theater, an area that I am not as familiar with so I often listen (and want to take notes!) as she discusses a recent performance she saw. I'm pretty happy with my social circle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyofsixreboot Posted February 9, 2014 Share Posted February 9, 2014 Only with people who are in my family. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brilliant Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Yes, but mostly during the study/book groups that I belong to. Me, too! *Love* my book club time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunflowerlady Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Nope. This place is it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idnib Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Yes, my husband and brother are both very intellectual in different ways. DH likes to discuss and is very well-read but is averse to conflict. My brother, a philosophy major who missed his calling as a lawyer, will argue things till dawn. So I have the people, but finding the undistracted time is another thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Desert Strawberry Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Yes. I seem to attract fascinating people. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mom2bee Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 No. No where near it. I struggle to put words on a page coherently and succinctly in real time on these forums quite often. I am not verbally articulate in the least. And many people have much better vocabularies and diction than I do in real life. I had to look up the term highbrow, for instance. I knew I'd heard it/read it before, but I though it had the connotation of elitism as in snobbish. If you had asked me that question in real life, I'd have faltered just deciding on the meaning of 'highbrow'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Nope. I'm a dope. :biggrinjester: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucyStoner Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 I aim to keep it as low brow as possible all the time. ;) I don't know if I would call it highbrow but yes, I have a lot of very bright and well educated friends and we have a lot of conversations. On the way to skating last week, I had an interesting discussion about monetary policy. But then to make it acceptably lower brow we switched over to laughing about a new song from an old school local rapper and discussing wrist guards. Aside from that old radio game low, middle or high brow I pretty much avoid using any term ending in brow besides eyebrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Does it count if it's with my cat? Otherwise, only when I take classes IRL, so....very rarely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostSurprise Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Eh...several of them are highly intelligent but they all have their own narrower interests. I don't have too many people I can just roam topics with like dh...and occasionally my brothers (their interests are more focused as the years go on). I do have some very arty friends though, which is interesting for me because I'm not very arty at all. Dh and I are all over the place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Incognito Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Nope. This place is it. Me too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 With my sisters, dad and a couple of other friends, though verbal is always less deep than written. Mostly I subconsciously suppress any of those kind of thoughts in public... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Camelfeet Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Sometimes. Not as often as I would like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onceuponatime Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Sometimes. Not as often as I would like. ditto. When I come here, I get to "hear" people who are much more intellectual than I am. They exercise my brain. Sadly, I know very few people who can converse like that IRL. Among most of the people I know, it's seen as either argumentative or pompous to discuss topics on a higher level. Years, ago I had a friend that I could talk to on an intellectual level. When we got going, other people used to think we were fighting, but we were actually having fun. Here, I mostly sit back and watch because I would have trouble keeping up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cindy in FL. Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 So we've had highbrow, middlebrow, and lowbrow. What about unibrow? Is that someone who only talks about one thing? I think I know some unibrows. Now, that gets boring! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather in Neverland Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 Yes. At work I am surrounded by people who are highly educated with varied interests. I have the opportunity for intellectual discussion every day and I love it. But we also play practical jokes on each other, too. :) Just don't want you to think I'm some kind of pretentious snob. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wapiti Posted February 10, 2014 Share Posted February 10, 2014 I have intellectual conversations with a few very intelligent friends. We don't get together often enough. A couple of my friends (with grad degrees from top schools) and I joked that we needed a club for such conversations. Our conversations aren't what I would call high-brow though typically we'll talk on an analytically deep level about some issue that's directly personal to one of us (business/medicine/education). The hardest thing for me about being at home has been the need to do intellectual "work" but not having the time or energy or an interesting project. It's like a thirst and it's only getting worse now that my littlest ones are less small and the time is beginning to open up a bit (my kids attend school). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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