As an intellectual, I can relate so so so much with this. In today's society, not only is being smart shamed but being successful is also. It's the worst form of blame shifting where the very fact that someone is successful and the other is not makes it feel like the successful one is to blame.

I don't have a lot of friends but the ones I do are like minded. We'll converse for hours about mythology, society, psychology, philosophy, etc. and it's these conversations that invigorate me.

It's the thinkers that run the world