Would you rather be a worried genius or a joyful simpleton?

Honestly?
I think I’d rather be a joyful simpleton.

I’m not worried about making my “mark” on the world, so why not just live happy?

My sincerest hope is that people with Alzheimer’s disease are happy in there.

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”
—John Stuart Mill

It depends on “how worried” and “worried about what?”

Worried about where I’m going to sleep tonight? Worried about a mortgage payment? Worried because of some irrational paranoia?

Worried to the point where I can’t leave the house because of something irrational, like a phobia?

A worried genuis. I sometimes find myself to be too trusting and land onto hot water.

Fortunately, it’s a false dichotomy – so I don’t have to worry, after all, and I don’t.

I am a worried genius.
And when I look at all of you, yeah, I will happily stay a worried genius.
A retard who is happy, is still a retard.

The “joyful simpleton” is often baffled at his state in life. The “worried genius” can relieve anxiety by thinking through a predicament.

I’d rather be a joyful genius. haha

@ragingloli I’m glad you hold such a high opinion of yourself and such a lowly one of the rest of us. We bow to your stupendous intellect. lol

I was actually rooting for Ultron in Avengers 2.

simpleton all the way.

@SavoirFaire That’s a weird quote. It assumes that a pig can reflect and think as a human does, and hold an opinion.
“waits for jokes about politics”

It’s the age old question. Would you trade places with a cow in a lush pasture?

@CWOTUS The question doesn’t assume that you have to be one or the other. It asks which you’d rather be if you had to be one or the other. Important difference.

@Berserker Yeah, it makes a bit more sense in context. The point is supposed to be that a human being has access to better and more important pleasures than a pig, so the pig’s satisfaction is not the final word on the quality of the things it takes pleasure in.

Haha I knew where the quote was going, I just don’t think we have enough Trump jokes yet.

Hmm, it’s a distinction without much of a difference, @SavoirFaire, if there’s a supposition in the question that one has to be one or the other. The false dichotomy is built into the question.

Your quote is perfectly sound, however. It merely compares two potential states of being – with no presumption that those may be the only states possible – and reasons why the one is preferable.

In my youth, I always said I would rather be a farmer. A farmer’s problems are all his own. He won’t dwell on Syria, Israel, Greece, or terror bombings in Boston and New York. He will worry about crop prices and rain.

I think the beauty of being smart is that you can become the sheep in the pasture anytime you need a break. A sheep in the pasture can only be a sheep in the pasture, often bewildered and confused at what happens around them.

The choice was made for me.

A worried genius.

I sincerely hope that if I ever lose my capacity for rational thought, I retain enough sense to kill myself before I become a complete simpleton.

The village idiot for sure. Ignorance is bliss and what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

@CWOTUS Actually, it’s a very important difference. Think about the game Would You Rather. It’s just a game of hypotheticals (“imagine if you had to choose between these two options for some reason”). In other words, it asks which you would prefer if you had to choose. But there is no implication that the choice being offered is genuinely dichotomous (i.e., that all people must choose one or the other). This question reads the same way to me. And I think it uncharitable to read it differently.

A worried genius can understand a joyful simpleton and might even contain a joyful simpleton within him but a joyful simpleton is just a joyful simpleton. Also, if there is something I should be worried about I would want to know what it is.

I would prefer a compromise, somewhere in the middle on both the happiness and intelligence scales. I like this quote made by Jimmy Stewart’s character Elwood P. Dowd in the movie Harvey:

Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, “In this world, Elwood, you must be” – she always called me Elwood – “In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.” Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.