Nerds, with their towering intellects and compulsive need to quantify everything from the stars in the sky to the lint in their pockets, often entertain a peculiar notion. They believe that by diving headfirst into a cultural tradition of lesser wit—say, a mathematician becoming a die-hard Thomas Carlyle fan—they can somehow outsmart the grim specter of intellectual exhaustion. They think they’re clever, these nerds, imagining that by rubbing shoulders with the likes of Carlyle, whose wit might not exactly split atoms but can still tickle a neuron or two, they can avoid the mental fatigue that plagues their peers.

They believe that by “marrying down intellectually”—say, a theoretical physicist suddenly taking up a passion for Hallmark movies or a mathematician becoming a fervent Thomas Carlyle devotee—they can somehow outmaneuver the inevitable burnout that devours the rest of their overachieving kind. They imagine themselves slipping into this less demanding intellectual milieu with the ease of a genius who’s decided, for once, to give their brain a break.

In their heads, it’s a foolproof scheme: by immersing themselves in simpler pleasures, they think they’re insulating their overtaxed neurons from the relentless grind of high-level thinking.

In their minds, it’s a masterstroke: they’ll soak up Carlyle’s grandiloquent prose, his heroic tales of history, and in doing so, they’ll refresh their own overworked brains, like a weary traveler splashing cold water on their face. They see themselves as sly interlopers, dodging the intellectual decline that seems to drag everyone else down. But what they fail to grasp is that this detour into the realm of the lesser wit is not an escape route; it’s just a different path to the same destination. They fancy this as a clever dodge, a way to stay sharp while everyone else dulls. But, of course, it’s just another illusion, as transparent as it is appealing. Like those who marry down thinking they’ve secured a lifetime of peace and comfort, they soon discover that the very act of lowering their intellectual stakes only brings its own kind of weariness. The mind, after all, isn’t fooled so easily. And so, even as they cozy up to the easy charms of Carlyle or whatever other lesser wit catches their fancy, they might find themselves sinking just as fast, if not faster, into the same intellectual exhaustion they sought so desperately to avoid.

The brain, after all, doesn’t care whether it’s fed highbrow or lowbrow—burnout is burnout, no matter how you dress it up. And so, while they fancy themselves too clever by half, they may find that even the wisest of detours still leads straight to the same dead end.