Intelligence, thought provocation

I’m noticing it frustratingly maddening how hard it is to run into people that are cognitive thinkers and able to put two ideas together to form a larger picture. I’m in no way saying I’m some super brainiac – by no means am I. As I tell my friends, I find it disheartening to believe that I am above normal and others are below normal. I believe there are a remarkable number of normal people who are smarter than they believe. On that thread, it’s just not applied. It actually makes me want to grab a tree and bang my head against it.
As I was growing up, there were people I could almost plug into, and speaking was nearly as fast as electricity. Today, on a simple item a person argues against me. It’s terribly frustrating since I’m not even reaching the subject being talked about, it’s something trivial and obvious that is argued against.

I hope this changes, or at least is within an isolated area of constraint. I’ve had my teases of having a person or two I could go on for hours with and converse about philosophy/science/auto mechanics/etc. It’s like smelling clean air again… and when they disappear it can destroy you.
To quote David Bowie, it seems people around me follow the mantra, “I don’t want science, I want certainty”.