John Glanvill • Anxiety Specialist & Researcher • Anxiety • OCD • Bipolar • ADHD • Energy • Online Treatment Course • Sensible Spirituality

The battle between Intelligence and Common Sense

In this 51-minute video, we explore why so many people with anxiety or depression are very intelligent even though how they are living doesn’t pass the common sense test!

Therefore, it is quite an interesting topic to explore how intelligent people may get access to more common sense ways of living.

Video summary

I’ve called this video – Exploring the energetic battle between common sense and intelligence!

Meaning – why is it that most people with anxiety are intelligent, yet what they are knowingly (or unknowingly) doing to themselves (very often) does not pass the simple common sense test?

Like, remaining in a job that they hate, worrying about things that have never happened, being lonely but not meeting new people, fearing thoughts when thoughts are not reality, being afraid of feeling emotions when emotions are natural, trusting science rather than exploring who funds that scientific research… (cont.)

Living in an emotionally toxic environment rather than relocating, seeking reassurance from people who have the same emotional problems as them, knowing they need to change their lives but not taking action to do so.

This list of what ‘doesn’t pass the common sense test’ is endless and quite ironic – but you’ll only see this – if you can detach yourself (from yourself) long enough to create a space for this awareness to reveal itself – because your intellectual ego doesn’t want you to clearly see what it is doing to you.

What I am trying to say is… What happened to common sense critical thinking and independent thought?

These days, common sense is seemingly much less common than it was before we had the internet (and social media) and its subsequent overload of information (some of which is true, but much is not), and whether we like it or not, this information has programmed our brains, influenced our belief systems and often distracts us into a virtual world rather than engaging us with reality.

How has it become that – so many intelligent people fear doing what they know will be good for them?

Why would an intelligent person doubt themselves?

Why would an intelligent person talk themself out of taking action rather than talking themselves into it?

Why would an intelligent person care what other people thought of them?

Why would an intelligent person have a huge resistance to change?

Why would an intelligent person be afraid to ask for what they want?

Why would an intelligent person think they are not good enough?

And why would an intelligent person not spend the time and effort to reprogram their brain from its childhood conditioning?

Can you see how easily intelligence may be observed from a new perspective?

So, I think it’s through the practical (rather than theoretical) use of intelligence that we are more likely to find calmness – and I’m going to refer to this practical intelligence as common sense.

As I mentioned in video 28, as unbelievable as it may seem, state schools were introduced to create good little workers who think similarly, have similar belief systems, believe in a standard view of science, and consent to authority figures.

That way, they would be of value to employers following the industrial revolution and the mass migration from farming to clerical, manufacturing, healthcare and service industry work – and ultimately become the consumers of the products they were producing.

Well, that all started two hundred years ago, and it is still happening today on a massively coordinated scale.

Now, back when I had my anxiety, I would have said – don’t be silly; we have a wonderful education system!

But, I see things differently now – if we apply some common sense thinking, I wasn’t taught how to make decisions, how to challenge authority, I wasn’t taught how to have self-esteem or courage, how to grow food, start a company, handle money – and many other quite basic common sense skills.

People keep saying to me that my work is so common sense that it should be taught in schools – but as we know, it isn’t; therefore, perhaps we need to undo some of our old-school education-based conditioning of what intelligence may be to create some space for a more practical form of intelligence.

Continued in video…