Are you stuck in movie logic?

However, I think "good will hunting" is a bad example.

> “I feel like you have a tremendous amount of intellectual potential that you’re wasting here — why are you getting in fights rather than trying to do something interesting?”

There is a scene where they have this conversation without words. Robin Williams is asking him without spelling it out and Matt Damon understands what the question is and dances around it. They both know what they're talking about even if they don't put it into words. In the case of this specific movie the problem isn't communication, it's just that the main character is incapable of dealing with things inside him that he doesn't understand (aka "emotionally immature"). (well, that was my interpretation anyway).

> “I feel like you have a tremendous amount of intellectual potential that you’re wasting here — why are you getting in fights rather than trying to do something interesting?”

for all my life and it has really hurt me. It just caused me to have this internalized guilt for having "wasted" my life. Even though it isn't really (completely) my fault.

And it really is a lie to begin with. What allows me to do crazy amounts of work in a short time is my hyper focus and that thing is not reliable. Its like seeing someone sprint and thinking they would be amazing running a marathon. Nope.

Plus intelligence is super overrated. I don't believe that having above average intelligence improves your life in any meaningful way. In fact people resent those that are more intelligent than they are so you are better of hiding it. And most work is working with other people and then you need to wait for other people to catch up with you anyway.

I would gladly trade my intelligence for being prettier or having more money. Or anything really.

If you are deeply into some scientific fields (in particular mathematics, but also related areas like physics and possibly computer science (the latter in the sense of the scientific discipline, not in the sense what the work in industry is)) having a massive IQ immensely improves your life. That is why in my opinion some highly smart people feel so attracted to these fields.

On the other hand, in most other areas of society, a "slightly above average" IQ is optimal (think 120-130). Sufficient to be able to dominate most people (sorry for this dark description), but not so high that you feel isolated and don't get understood.