[jarrett]

It's not so meaningful to compare the relative intelligence of people within the upper echelons of intelligence--which is where you appear to be, along with those award-winners you mention. Which is not to disagree with any of your points. Rather, I'm just saying you don't need to worry about being less smart than all those eminent Harvard professors, because you're already in a league where such comparisons don't work.

What defines this league, and how can people in it be compared?

I think its boundaries have something to do with a general ability and desire to learn, and a breadth and depth of knowledge about important things in the world at large. (The knowledge criterion has to take into account age. You know less now than you will at 50, but that's obviously not a mark against you.)

Amongst such people, the only meaningful comparisons are far more specific than "more smart" and "less smart" can capture. You can meaningfully talk about, say, one's ability to solve an electrical engineering dilemma, or to pleasingly arrange the samples in a hip-hop song. But not relative smartness, not in this league.

This is one case where the truth is actually more comfortable than the myths we tell ourselves.