I've been told that I'm smart. I wonder if there's a limit to how smart a person gets. Not capacity limits, such as "well, you're only going to live to a hundred or so, so you can't learn for more than a hundred years." I'm talking about either "topping out", such as this:



or just hitting some sort of stratification, a level at which point I get diminishing returns. I don't believe any 'interesting' topic can ever be fully learned. However, I wonder if I as student can ever hit that 'vertical curve' after picking all the easy stuff.

Perhaps it's fatigue. I know I don't sleep enough. I'm under a great deal of stress. I'm not in great shape. All these are suspected / related to diminished cognition. Still, I just feel like I am not as 'on the ball' as I was before.

In some things, I feel better. I am more aware of interpersonal dynamics, for example. I have more self-control. But could these things simply be ingrained habits, reflexes developed over time and not conscious thought?

How much of our time do we spend thinking about how we think? And should we?