1) There is always a pretty good reason why things are the way they are in spite of what it seems.
2) There is always a pretty good reason why people do the things they do in spite of what it seems.
3) Everyone else is not an idiot in spite of what I think.
4) I'm no better than anyone else in spite of what I secretly believe.
The last one is very hard to accept. I have to work at all these rules. It's always a struggle.
I would pragmatically say instead of assuming the former, first find out the history which may be reasonable or stupid, it's still the facts.
Points (3) and (4) seem unnecessary if you're focusing on the problems and solutions rather than judging others and yourself.
Most people are only 'stupid' because someone hasn't clued them in. That someone could be you. A few people are stubbornly thick, that takes patience which I'm incrementally developing. I do sometimes reach the end of my patience and will shut down a person/discussion and wish I could do it more gracefully which I'm also working on, e.g. "this discussion is getting into the weeds, let's pick up the discussion later".
After working with recurring teammates for a number of years, I can see how much they've progressed and advanced that I'm surprised that was only one or two years ago and they're so much more capable and well-rounded in thoughtfulness.
The more specific question is "How do you show someone that there's something they don't know or can currently imagine?" They keep saying "it's the same", "there's no difference", etc. I run out of ways of describing the other level of thought which is lost. Often it's the difference between conceptual vs implementation models. Many only have implementation mental models.
If you are fairly young, a lot of things seem dumb, but there are reasons they are that way - often perverse incentives. Think of that classic quote: "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" and you'll get the gist.
If you are a little older and have seen a bit of the world, then rather than just seeing everyone and everything as dumb (and not saying that it's not...) the goal becomes to work within the constraints to make it all better. Because a lot of those people you think are stupid, probably aren't, or their strengths might even be things that you just haven't discovered.
...but seriously as a high-achiever, surely you can find the half-hour in the work day where everyone else is screwing-off?
Sniff-out the lighter side, and solicit perspective from different parts of the productivity spectrum.
I too, being of pretty average intelligence --- probably not above --- am shocked by the stupid things people say and do as well. Maybe what you are experiencing is normal, like giardini says [1]:
> Half of all people have an IQ less than 100
So I tell myself: "Yep, I've been there" or "I guess one has a reson for it(one of see above)"
“Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”
- "Proverbs 16:18
By definition half of all people have an IQ less than 100. If you're above-average your "feeling" is likely not surprising to you.
Treat people fairly, be just with them. Don't take advantage but instead help them. Each person has different experiences than you and the combined value of their experiences is likely more than your own. Listen and be humble and thankful that you are lucky.
Everyone is stupid in their own way, including me, including you, once you realize that you won't be bothered anymore.
Or if you still think that way after investigating why, it's likely you're in the wrong rooms. Just as there's "always a bigger fish," there's always going to be someone out there better than you at something. If you want/need the challenge, seek them out.
The latter being more difficult to do these days as I boggle at the environmental decline and general reaction to ignore it and similarly the outrageous politics of the right that seem to dangerously deny truth.
One of the ways this feeling comes up for me is when I realize that almost no one is actually engaging in actual thought in order to solve specific problems. First you have maybe 90% of people who are just collecting a paycheck, or trying to maintain social harmony, or playing empire-building games, or in general playing a game that is a different game from building good things and figuring out the truth. Of the remaining, most people think using metaphors, heuristics, social consensus and other forms of indirect thought. Very few people have the ability to squint and stare directly at a problem and engage with the subject itself in a high-decoupling "autistic" way.
If you have this ability to take a problem, break it down into first principles and just think hard about it until you find a solution, most everyone will probably seem stupid to you, because they are not doing that. Sometimes you watch two people argue about something and understand within ten seconds what the central point is and you want to shake them both and make them just address that directly, but instead you listen to them ramble on for another hour. Sometimes you watch people stand around being puzzled by some bug, and then you go in, actually investigate the thing itself, build an understanding of what is happening and what exactly is going wrong and push a fix in half an hour. Sometimes the truth about a topic is just obvious to you if you stare at it with laser vision and ignore all irrelevant considerations and then you wonder why it isn't obvious to everyone else.
It may not even necessarily be an intelligence thing. Raw brainpower may be a prerequisite but it is more of, I guess, an actually-thinking-about-the-thing-itself thing. My raw IQ is probably not that high but I make up for it by spending a lot of time thinking and caring a lot about the truth to the exclusion of everything else. Then I wonder why other people don't do this.
The feeling of frequently being the only person in the room doing this is very isolating, and people in this position seem to end up with either super high or super low self esteem. I was the latter. I felt like I would never be able to communicate with or relate to anyone and that society would always see me as a loser, and it took a lot of time for me to overcome this. Nowadays I have a personal project that I believe in, that I can apply all of my problem-solving skills to, and I have a strong sense of the things I value and have specific tracks/plans to further each of them. I’m at peace with my psychological profile and have accepted my path in life. (If you’re one of the ones with high self esteem, you can fortunately skip this whole section.)
On to the practical side of things… society heavily pushes the message that no matter what, you will inevitably have to deal with people on some level. I think this is true and that there's no use fighting it. Everyone has people they can’t get along with; for you that list may simply be bigger. But also, I think that social interaction can be a tricky thing and there are many mental traps to fall into here. For example, you may believe that you just want to be left alone or not have to deal with anyone, but then you get what you asked for, and your all-too-human brain rebels and you realize social interaction is healthy after all. Or you may adopt a cynical view where you view human interaction as “just saying the right things” or “playing the game” to get along with others, and it works for a while because you are smart, but then you realize how ultimately unsatisfying it is. The point I'm making is that humans have a complicated relationship with other humans (or at least I do), and it can take lots of trial and error to figure out what kind of interface with others will make you happiest.
What worked for me was to figure out and be explicit about the type of relationship I’m able/willing to have with each person. I can usually tell based on what they say, what beliefs/values they express, how they behave, etc how well I can get along with them, and then I keep them at the right distance accordingly. I have acquaintances, activity friends, shared-ideology friends, and close/"real" friends. The “stupid” people in your question usually get pushed to acquaintance or activity friend.
Work is trickier. I am a terrible employee so I don’t really have good advice here. I kind of cheated and just went the self-employment route. I have a part-time contract gig that pays the bills and then I spend the rest of my time working on my own project. My coworkers for the most part are also just trying to pay the bills so I have a pretty good shared understanding and working relationship with them. I carefully structured my life so that I don’t depend on what you call “stupid people” for anything that I care about, and that has worked out pretty well. But I am also in a very fortunate position where I don't have kids and I work in an industry that allows for relative autonomy.
This has been pretty stream-of-consciousness, and maybe 80% of this doesn’t even apply to your situation, so I’ll stop it here. Hope everything works out for you.
look at what they will do, and wont do.