Swami Ananda Saraswati
Deep within when you know that you are not smart, still you want to present yourself as a smart person, that time you want to be a smart person. To understand better, When you desire something and to achieve your desired object the means that are required is either you do not possess or is something you think that you don’t possess that pushes you to become smart.
As I see more and more, your society in general and your upbringing, in particular, plays a great role.
Our society pretends to place a high value on intelligence. It highlights that to become successful, powerful, or to be liked, you have to be smart. But in reality, intelligence makes people uncomfortable. It is not only the person who thinks that he is intelligent but also others those who are related to that person. But the person’s ego, the value of self-worth, being fragile lead to low or high self-esteem when it comes to their intelligence. So, when there is a person nearby who is obviously more or less intelligent, they view it as a threat or pride to their own self-worth. Based on this mechanism you start defending or relating with a person.
Finally, your smartness leads to all sorts of confusion in your life.