My belief system is that there is the "perfect form", that is, there is an ideal image of how each of us wishes he or she could exist, and all efforts that we apply everyday in our lives are efforts to achieve it. I think for most guys, this involves being fit/having the physique, having mental aesthetics or basically being able to grasp new concepts as quickly as possible, being able to juggle a social life/the ladies/have good charisma and have wealth to boot. The limiting factor for attaining our perfect form is our brains and the human body.

I believe you should always expend the most amount of effort to achieve your "perfect form", no matter where you are on the spectrum. Nootropics is a passage to the perfect form but that does not necessarily mean that is the only method you should employ. Cultivating a work ethic dedicated to learning, self-improvement, fitness and appreciating the beauty of life are all a part of reaching this form. If you achieve your "perfect form" and work hard, it should be worthy of respect, whether that means you work a trade and work out and read in your spare time/look after family and give back to the community, or if you are only average on the intelligence spectrum pushing yourself as hard as possible to receive an education. Everyone has something to give, and we should live everyday knowing that we are pushing ourselves as hard as possible towards this ideal life we all want for ourselves. None of this time off bullshit, going on holidays, looking for novelties and thrills, watching bullshit on netflix and going out to get some hotpockets for our next WoW raid. There is something for everyone at every level to push for and we should take pride in that, rather than to give up and blame our lack of success on our genetics or someone else. This is the 21st century, the information is out there for people to figure out how to take care of their health, and how to improve themselves.

So to answer the question I would say that nootropics is definitely some part of moving towards my "perfect form" or ideal self, but I believe that it must work in synergy with the right mindset. I believe in combining physiological factors with psychological, mainly due to the fact that we simply do not understand the brain very well, and do not understand ways in which our mindset can affect our bodies and brains. Just like how they say laughter is the best medicine, I think psychological states and our ability to regulate our emotions can affect our brains and our cognition and vice versa. My personal experience from this comes from playing the piano, because I can be depressed and have the worst day, but if I sit down and play piano for about 30 mintues at the end of the day I feel something that no nootropic or drug has ever made me feel - it's like a "reset" button in my brain, and I get a euphoria washing over my body. I have no idea what music does to the brain but I can say that I definitely feel it does something to regulate my moods. There is so much unknown out there, so I think it is wise to split our efforts between improving our physiology but also finding ways to improve our mental states, whether that involves music, volunteering and helping other people, spending more time meditating and learning how to appreciate things. I think physiologal/psychological go hand in hand and work best if you incorporate aspects of both into your self-improvement mindset. Too much of one or the other will lead to you misery, depression and exhaustion. The secret is finding your own balance of the two, I think.

That's at least how I understand it on an intuitive level.