I have known three or possibly four 160+ IQ individuals in my life. When conversing with someone, it is usually easy to tell if the person you are talking with is one standard deviation (15 pts) off from your IQ. If you continually talk over someone's head, you likely have at least 15 pts higher IQ than them. If someone continually talks over your head, then they likely have 15 pts or higher IQ score than you. From my experiences with those 160+ IQ individuals, everything I said to them they would absorb effortlessly without being bored, and everything they said I would have to concentrate strongly to keep up with. My IQ score as 145.
I too coasted through HS with little effort despite being in advanced/honors classes and received A's. I attended a great technical university (back in the early 90s as affirmative action was beginning to ramp up in earnest) for engineering and was caught a bit flat-footed sometimes as it required real efforts to get through (and the beer didn't help). After a few detours and gaining a bit of maturity, I completed my engineering degree and have been working the trade for 25 years. You typically need an IQ in the 120-130 range to be successful as an engineer or doctor. Being a standard deviation above that range, I can tell you that I run circles around my peers. So, for a 160+ IQ, being a doctor, lawyer, or engineer may be beneath your intellect. In hindsight, I should have strove to be a mathematician, physicist, or research scientist to better exploit my natural talents.
As a father with a high IQ wife with a bunch of smart kids, I can tell you that although the public education system makes some efforts to keep smarter kids engaged and challenged, they are certainly falling short. Comparing my experiences as a kid with those I see with my own kids, schools providing sufficient attention to high IQ kids has diminished a bit. My wife and I challenge our kids with physical and intellectual activities to keep them engaged. I agree with you that the mid-wits in charge of the education systems don't really know how to best cultivate geniuses. The nice thing about being a genius today, is that you do not have to depend on anyone in particular to gain knowledge and skills? I recently took on carpentry as a hobby.
Despite living in 98%-white semi-rural conservative county in the deep south, leftest propaganda does occasionally come home with my kids from school. My wife and I are quick to rectify our children's understanding and attitudes, and to keep our beliefs secret, as people are recording everything these days.
If you are fortunate to having been born with a 160+ IQ (as your stated percentile would indicate), then you have the gifts to accomplish virtually anything you heart desires. I have heard it said "Geniuses make their own rules." If you are a bored and unenthusiastic genius, then take-up a challenge and excel at it. Wrap a runway-model girlfriend around your finger (I knew a genius who did that), built a web site, invent something, start a genius "mad scientist" group, or do it all simultaneously. Slipping into a hell of degeneracy, likely so you can relate more easily with others, is easy to do--I've been there and done that. Pick a goal, or a dozen, and complete them. Pat yourself on the back or reward yourself with each completed goal. Then, in a few years look back on history that is now, and evaluate which is the better life to live. Do this, and I'll think you will want to thank me later.
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