High intelligence is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing part is evident to almost everyone. A person of high intelligence can learn easily, qualify for almost any educational degree and, if interested, can earn substantial income. The curse aspect is less evident, but high intelligence, or its proxy a high IQ, can be an extreme challenge. The three examples described below, reveal the kinds of struggles faced by some people of very high IQ and how their lives unfolded.
Chris Langan
In an article titled, The Smartest Man in America, and published in 1999 by Esquire Magazine*, author Mike Sager discussed his interviews with individuals of extremely high IQ.23 The man to whom he assigned the moniker “the smartest man in America” was Chris Langan, 8 years before he won $250,000 on the 1 vs. 100 quiz show. At the time of the interview, Chris was 47 years of age, earning about $6000 a year and living in a cramped and cluttered one-room cabin in Eastport, Long Island. Langan who had begun talking at age 6 months, was extremely precocious and started school in grade 3 at the age of 3.
Though richly endowed with cognitive gifts, Chris was not gifted with a nurturing home environment. His mother had four sons by four different husbands. The first husband, Chris’s father, disappeared before Chris was born. The second husband was murdered, the third committed suicide, and the fourth, Jack Langan was an alcoholic who beat his sons on a regular basis. To defend himself and his two brothers, Chris took up weight lifting and by age 14, defended himself in a physical altercation that sent his abusive stepfather packing for good. The family lived below the poverty line, moving across the country to support their hand-to-mouth existence. Troubled experiences during his formative years, combined with the social detachment that often accompanies cognitive giftedness, made it difficult for Chris to navigate the challenges of human interaction. This social ineptness would later alter significantly the trajectory of his life.
On graduating from high school, Chris was offered full scholarships to the University of Chicago and to Reed College in Oregon. He chose Reed, but upon discovering that he did not fit in with his urbane, pot-smoking dormmates, he spent most of his time in the library. At the end of the first semester, he scored straight A’s, but early in the second semester he discovered that he had lost his scholarship–his mother had not filled out the parental financial statement of need necessary for its renewal. It is not clear whether Reed College dropped the ball in retaining this brilliant student, or whether Langan’s lack of social awareness prevented him from appealing his de-registration. In any case, his attendance at Reed College was terminated and a string of F’s were registered on his final transcript. After working for a little over a year in construction and as a forest services fire-fighter around Bozeman, Montana, he entered the University of Montana, specializing in mathematics and philosophy. However, the logistics of getting to class at 7:30 a.m. during the cold Montana winter without a car, combined with his inability to negotiate appropriate changes in his timetable led him to drop out of school permanently. The rest of his life would be spent working on his theory of the universe (CTMU) and surviving on income from his work as a bouncer, physical trainer, and eventually as a horse breeder.
From his interview of three other people of exceptionally high IQ, Mike Sager of Esquire Magazine* described other people of exceptionally high IQ who were also of modest means. All of them had experienced difficulty fitting into normal society, and faced in their early years, bullies, resentment, and the ostracism that comes from being different.
Ronald K. Hoeflin
One of these was Ronald K. Hoeflin, described by Sager as a “mild man with graying hair, who is 55 years old, legally blind, and living alone with three cats.” Reflecting on his social awkwardness, Hoeflin recalled an incident in the sixth grade when a girl in his class invited everyone to her birthday party. On his arrival, he was devastated when the birthday girl exclaimed, “I didn’t expect you to come.” Throughout his life, Ron struggled with acceptance, admitting:
The truth is that people with average intelligence are all a bit resentful. Throughout their entire schooling, they’ve had to compete with these people who seem to find it easy to get straight A’s, and they’re working hard just to get B’s and C’s. …It’s like you’re born out of sync with the world and you just have to adjust.
Ron has an IQ of 165, a level reached by only about one out of every 136,000 people. He is credited with the creation of two of the world’s most difficult IQ tests–the Mega and Titan. Though he has two bachelor’s degrees, two master’s degrees and a Ph.D, in philosophy, Ron lives on an annual income of about $7000, paying a monthly rent of about $106 in Hell’s Kitchen, New York. When asked whether his impecuniosity was a problem, he responded:
It’s a trade-off. Money on one hand, leisure and independence on the other. I’m not really enough of a people person to become wealthy, so I figure, what the heck, you know? I’m used to my condition. I have food and shelter and clothing. You don’t have to be a genius to know that those are the most important things of all.
Gina LoSasso
Another of these Hi-Q people of modest means is Gina LoSasso, described by Sager as a “short, garrulous woman with a heavy Brooklyn accent, purple eye shadow and an IQ of 168,” who at 43 years of age was a twice-divorced mother of two. During her school years, Gina felt self-conscious and her fear that she would be regarded as a nerd, prompted her to misbehave, often skipping school to run with the fast crowd. By age 14, she was in a residential drug-treatment program. Gina is a self-described obsessive-compulsive, who admits to an obsession with puzzles and games, including Scrabble and chess–an addiction that brought Gina to the top of the chess world. In 1986, she was chosen as a member of the U.S. Chess Olympic Team that competed in Dubai.
Throughout her early life, Gina had fled from what she regarded as mundane and tedious. Consequently, she flunked out of three different colleges and ran the gamut of unskilled jobs from selling copy machines to serving popcorn in movie theaters. However, once Gina focused on a goal, she could harness her OCD to a productive end. In a period of 5 years, she was able to earn three degrees, the final one a Ph.D. in clinical neuropsychology from Wayne State University. Shortly after, she moved to Connecticut where she pursued postdoctoral studies at Norwalk Hospital.
Throughout her entire life, Gina chased the dopomine high that comes from solving a puzzle, winning a chess game, or partying with friends. Accumulating wealth never seemed to appear on her radar screen. As she said to Mike Sager:
Look at all the fun I’ve had. I’ve partied a lot. I’ve dined with heads of state and heroin addicts…I’m very philosophical about my whole experience growing up in an inner city and struggling and being different, because I’m here now, and I’m at a really good point.
Prior to her move to Connecticut, Gina had been corresponding with Chris Langan, “the smartest man in America.” Romantic e-mail exchanges between these two Hi-Q people soon blossomed into a serious relationship. By 2004, Gina LoSasso had become Mrs. Gina Langan, sharing life with Chris on a horse farm in Mercer, Missouri.
A high IQ is not a formula for happiness and, in fact, the criteria for true happiness may be as French author, Gustave Flaubert once asserted: To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. Perhaps, Flaubert is a little too cynical.
*Sager, Mike. “The Smartest Man in America.” Esquire Magazine. Nov. 1999.
