The smartest man alive: Why you shouldn't look down on anyone

How we see people is a complex combination of personal life and the society we live in. It is not clear cut or simple, but it helps us navigate life and social settings faster not perfectly. How we see one another is almost always out of our hands. It is not anyone's fault, those who judge and the judged are caught in a complex web of societal standards.

It would be hard to first get to know each person before forming an opinion about them. It's simply impractical. The best we can do is judge less, mind our business, and find common ground with the people we meet.

Looking down on someone is not just despising someone below you in social rank. It is also finding perceived fault in those who are higher in the social ranks than you and using that to despise them.

However, it is our personal responsibility to treat each other as fairly as we can despite our reservations.

Albert Einstein is one of the most brilliant scientific minds in history. His genius has immortalised him forever. And yet, there is a man more intellectually gifted than he was, but never climbed the social ladder with his strong intellect.

A brief story of Chris Langan's life

This man's name is Chris Michael Langan. He has the highest IQ between 195 and 210, higher than Einstein (160), Stephen Hawking (160), and Paul Allen (170).

He started speaking at just six months old, he breezed through school, could talk about the universe and God at a young age, and played like Jimi Hendrix with his eyes closed.

Not only that, he was blessed with a strong physique. He did not suffer from any health problems.

Unlucky

However, Langan suffered from a poor family background. It stunted him from climbing the ranks and damaged his social development. In his own words,

"to this day, I have not met anyone who suffered in their childhood from poverty as my family suffered. We didn't have a pair of equal socks, but holes in the shoes. And in the pants. We always wore the same clothes. I remember with my brothers washing our only clothes in the bathtub: we did it naked because we had nothing else to wear."

His mother did not have the best luck with men. Langan's father disappeared before he was born, her second husband was murdered, the third committed suicide, and the fourth "was a failed journalist named Jack Langan."

Chris Langan suffered at the hands of the last one, receiving beatings and dragging the family around the country. And all this happened before he turned 12.

His upbringing made him a problematic personality with behavioural issues and a disdain for authority and academics.

Combined with a lack of resources and value for education in his background, Langan fell victim to the cruel cards that life deals many people with.

Triumph

Today he lives out on the ranch, never finished college, and spent most of his prime years as a bouncer at bars and doing construction work and farming.

Despite not utilising his exceptional talent to achieve greatness, Langan has lived a good life and done the best with the life he got. Depending on who reads his story it is either tragic or inspiring, but Chris is living it up at 70 years old as a horse rancher and autodidact.

Takeaway

People bear the markings of their backgrounds and experience that mold who they become. We are all blinded by our own experience to see into another's. The best we can do is leave people better or the way we found them, not worse.