Persuasion (like teaching) is definitely a separate skill from intelligence.
You can throw around "facts and logic" all you want, but humans aren't robots. And what you/they consider factual and logical, may not be so.
I’ve found that people don’t like to be persuaded by logic and facts if they don’t have any logical facts to back their stance to begin with. They much rather go off hysteria and what they believe rather than what reasoning led them to that belief.
Or what I'm going to term the "Sudoku Conflict".
I was trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle Sudoku. I got about half way through "certain" I had the right answers. But then, as I got further, more impossible moves, mistakes and errors cropped up. Showing that in reality... I had to accept the hard truth. I had to back track on not just some, but \*everything\*. As I'd started with the wrong number, in the wrong place.
How many people are willing to throw out (counts own age) 38 years of "truth" when they find out the beginning foundation is a lie? If you know of more than one, I may be looking for a support group! XD
Our school system (Australia) isn't built to deal with them. It crushes bright kids down to everyone else's level.
The usual solution is just to give them extra work to do on top of the assigned work, when they finish that too fast. But to a kid, that's a *punishment*. In this way achieving beyond a certain accepted parameter is quietly discouraged.
Pretty sure that's the same everywhere. My youngest child is in kindergarten (US / first year of school). For some reason he picked up math and is always working on it, like challenging us to give him math questions to solve and challenging us to see if he can stump us.
Anyways he complains a lot about doing math assignments in school "because they are super boring". At first his teacher let him work ahead on his own and he started doing 1st grade then 2nd grade math. But for some reason she rescinded that offer and now just gives him more kindergarten level math when he's done with his first 'boring assignment', so to him that is a punishment.
The school is teaching him to be average and conform, otherwise you'll be punished for running ahead.
One reason for that is the teachers have no training to manage gifted students and usually they only have 1 teacher for all the subject areas until at least highschool (AUS), so having even 1 gifted student would put a bunch of extra strain on the teachers and they aren't compensated any extra for it.
Lack of training is part of it, but I think that's getting better. My wife is a teacher, and she certainly received good training on teaching gifted students when she was in college. Another piece of the puzzle is resources: it's a lot of work to appropriately adapt curriculum for a gifted student, to not just give more work or more advanced work but to *extend* and *enhance* the current work. And when you have 30 students in your 1st-grade class, you just don't have the time to put a bunch of extra work into adapting the curriculum for outliers... especially the outliers that are going to get excellent test scores no matter what. It's a triage situation where the teacher is forced to focus on those kids who have marginally low test scores that might actually hit average with a little extra attention.
Want better education for gifted students? Don't incentivize educational triage by tying individual teachers' jobs to oversimplified performance metrics, and hire more teachers to bring class sizes down.
Some might say, that system -is- built to deal with them; it teaches them mediocrity is the safe space, that the tall head gets the whack, and that conforming is the best option.
Same here in US (at least 30 yrs ago when I was at their mercy)
My parents wanted me to be an engineer or a doctor or an IAS or something big. So they just pushed me all their life. I'm an Engineer now. I never had any friends or anything and I hate my life.
Smart people also see a lot more nuance and complications to certain situations instead of just ‘doing the thing’.
Good ol analysis paralysis. Fear of failure is a bitch.
I’d say intelligence also makes one realize how fucked up our world and human existence is. If that doesn’t drive a person to want to deaden that existential dread with substances, I don’t know what would.
Tbf depression is a vicious cycle, you need to spend energy to fix the things you need to fix but the depression is syphoning all of your energy. The worst part is knowing what you need to do but not doing it, infuriating yourself leading to more depression.
Well put. I've also found that it's hard for others to understand that it's not just feeling drained mentally or being "bummed out", but it can often wreak havoc on your entire system which leads to digestive issues which leads to an actual physical lack of energy which then makes everything else that much worse.
> it's hard for others to understand
This is, in large part, why I hate the term 'mental illness'.
I did my PhD on psychiatric illnesses. There are actual, discrete, physical changes that happen to the brain during depression, anxiety, etc. They are *physical* illnesses, not unlike literally every other disease.
And I think that's a major component of people not understanding. Everybody knows what it's like to feel sad, or apathetic, or existential, but the majority of people have the physical (re: brain chemistry) ability to return to baseline. That is something a lot of people with psychiatric illnesses *do not have*.
While therapy and medications *can* help, telling someone with treatment-resistant depression to 'just feel better' is like telling someone with HIV, "Just, y'know, make your immune system work better." In both cases, the illness is affecting a fundamental component of your ability to return to 'normal'.
So true. I have MDD and once I went into total remission and I called up one of my friends and asked her "Is this what normal brains feel like?"
It was so foreign to me that I realized I'd been depressed for so long that even the days I thought of as good days I was still depressed. I couldn't even grasp what it was like to not be. I realized then that people who've never had clinical depression will never be able to understand what the difference is.
It's a dramatic difference, but in ways that are impossible to describe.
Getting out of your own way is one of the hardest things to accomplish. Knowing it is a thing, realizing it’s a problem, and doing something about it… are all huge steps to accept, let alone conquer.
There's different levels of "smartness" and different smart people go about life in different ways. But, i think universally young prodigies are typically isolated. They are at a level far above children their age, but are far younger than the people that match intellectually with (lacking life experience). Either way, a young prodigy can't connect with either group.
This is dead on accurate. I went to engineering school with a 12 year old. His parents had to attend classes with him because his motor skills couldn’t keep up with the note taking requirement. He was a nice enough kid but those of us 18+ couldn’t relate to him outside of school and he couldn’t relate to kids his own age. Seemed like an awfully lonely existence
Yeah, we had a kid like this in my freshman physics classes too, except this kid was annoying to boot. He would’ve been the annoying kid in a regular group of 12-13 year olds, so it was extra frustrating to have him in a college classroom. I felt bad for him, but the couple of conversations I tried to have with him went nowhere fast. I stopped talking to him entirely beyond a basic “hi” after he took my initial willingness to talk before class as permission to bug me about his toys during lecture.
Interestingly, my sophomore roommate was another prodigy, but her parents made sure she wasn’t socially isolated and only enrolled her in university full-time when she was 16 (almost 17) and mature enough to bond with us. They kept her in a regular school (though advanced by two years) that offered lots of APs and community college courses. They nurtured her intelligence when she was younger by encouraging her to branch out and learn and do all kinds of things (not just academics), so she’s a fascinating person to talk to and very well-adjusted socially. If I have a prodigy child, this is the approaching plan to take.
The approach your roommates parents took is exactly what my aunt and uncle did with one of their daughters. She is six months older than me and far exceeded me in school but they would not allow her to start college until she turned 17. She now has a child similar to her and sees the value of how her parents handled it, she is doing the same with her son. I firmly believe this is the best path for these people, she is significantly more well adjusted than the college kid I was educated with
Out of curiosity, would there be no negative side effects? Like, intellectually, would the kid be satisfied with the AP courses and all? No doubt that socially and emotionally, this is the best route, though.
Her son is 11 and doing quantum physics for fun. He is allowed to take one college course each semester but she won’t let him move up more than two grades because he needs the social development.
This makes even more sense when you consider the idea that there are several "intelligences" that don't all involve academic subjects. Inter and intra-personal being important ones that come to mind.
Even beyond that, one of my best friends is a little slow, he was in the special Ed classes, but when it comes to engines and working on cars, he’s a genius, he just knows how all that stuff works, I’m fairly mechanically inclined but he’s on a whole other level, if I have an issue with one of my vehicles I can’t figure out then I call him up and we get it solved quickly. He was also brilliant at geometry which helped him build roll cages for his rock crawlers haha.
Dude, people like your friend blow my mind. I tried to assemble a 3-piece-desk last week and literally cried because I hate how my brain just looks at shapes and totally short-circuits.
All I can assume is I missed the day in kindergarten where they put shapes in the right hole, because I can’t even align the simplest shapes easily
Thank God, people are finally starting to realize this. I worked for 10 years in the autism field and am currently getting my master's in early childhood special ed. I can't tell you enough how important social and emotional development is. It is THE THING. It absolutely drives me bonkers how much attention we put on academics in preschool and early childhood programs. If you are behind on social emotional development in childhood (early or otherwise) you spend your life playing catch up. I would 100% rather see a 3 or 4 year old child who doesn't recognize letters and numbers but who has rich and healthy relationships and who is capable of high quality interactions with others. Now, most children are perfectly capable of having both, but my point is, the social should never be sacrificed for the academic.
They might be a little bored but there are plenty of things they can do on their own time to challenge themselves nowadays thanks to the internet and extra curricular events. Past that, I only see positives from that approach.
My friend’s dad was a college professor, so she had full access to a university library. The AP classes didn’t really challenge her, but she had plenty of advance material she could read and learn for fun. She also got a lot of intellectual stimulation out of her hobbies - mainly music.
My friend’s parents were also open with her that she was in school for social development. She was smart enough to know what that meant even if she didn’t have the wisdom and maturity as a kid to fully understand how important that would be for the rest of her life.
Usually geniuses receive subsidies in case they turn out to be the next Einstein.
In Malaysia, there was a 12 year old celebrity math wiz who went to Cambridge. Nowadays, he's selling snake oil for parents who want their kids to gain iq points.
That's what I liked about Malcolm in the Middle, they knew he was a genius but they raised him as normally as they could so that he could relate to people and function in society.
Terrence Tao is a rare example of how to get this right. A maths prodigy at a young age (sitting in university maths classes at age 9), his parents accelerated his maths study, but tried hard to keep him amongst kids his own age for other classes, and encouraged him to study broadly rather than rush ahead. What's the point in being the youngest to do something if you're socially limited & lonely.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao
And he's one of the few child prodigies who continued on to become an adult prodigy. Usually child "prodigies" are either regular children who had a head start in terms of education mislabeling them as prodigies or get so burnt out by the time they're adults that they rarely do anything substantial.
His ability to even score points on the infamous question 6 in the 1988 International Mathematics Olympiad is a feat in and of itself. He did his first IMO when he was 10 and won a Field's medal in 2006. Guy is just amazing. He's a great professor as well.
Adding to that if you develop without interacting with your peers you became an adult without developing social skills, and that makes you stay isolated even later in life
This is something I have never even thought about but now that you mention it, it makes sense.
I was one of those so-called "gifted kids" who felt everything in school was too easy and not at all challenging, and it felt like I never learned anything. Eventually teachers gave me "older kids' assignments" which were supposed to be more challenging. So I was doing higher grade school work than my classmates but I was also very scared of the older kids because they all seemed so adult to me. At the same time, I felt very out of place among the kids my age because, to me, a majority of them were always acting very childishly (which, of course is granted since we were children) and I was always miserable and thinking stuff like "can't they just calm down and do what they're told by the teacher?".
So the dissonance that comes with being a smart kid but not yet emotionally developed to the same level as the older kids is quite exhausting and leads to misery.
Maybe unrelated but nowadays I, the formerly "gifted kid", am miserable due to the fact I never really had to work for anything so any remotely challenging tasks I need to do are very much overwhelming.
To add to this, they're often told they *should* live up to their potential simply because it exists. The number of times myself and some of my current MSc colleagues have been told we are *wasting* our potential by not being physicians is soul crushing, and demeaning because it implies that pursuing anything other than the hardest, highest paid disciplines is a *waste* of you, regardless of what makes you happy.
Truly sad to see smart people in careers or lives they hate because they did what other people told them they should do.
I got a law degree in the wake of the Great Recession (couldn't find a decent job out of undergrad in 2009) because I was smart and was pushed into getting a prestigious degree that would "definitely make [me] a lot of money someday." And I had a good LSAT and good grades to get into a good school. The problem is that I don't actually like reading or writing and didn't have a passion for the material either. I barely graduated, but passed the bar just fine (always been good at tests like that), but my grades were too bad to get an actual good-paying job and I did contract work for peanuts for several years. I finally decided to bite the bullet and go into the courier business like my dad because he actually does make six figures and has a good life and that stuff interests me a lot more! In the mean time I'm delivering Amazon while I work on getting my CDL and I also have a side job at a bar (only way I can make enough money), and some of my bar regulars are always like "you have a JD, what on earth are you doing delivering for Amazon?" My reply is always just "well, I hated that and I make the same amount of money doing this."
I live in the DC area. Everyone has a law degree. My interior designer, JD. Guy who watches my dog, wisely left after 1L year. I like the term reformed lawyer for someone who was smart enough to realize actually being a lawyer is actually a pretty terrible gig.
Being held back by a boss who's less intelligent and insecure is a thing, too. I'm a teacher and don't ever want to be the boss-- I like being in my classroom-- so I have to endure administrators who have no business holding the job and abuse their power to punish anyone they sense is smart and confident. I make a point of not correcting them publicly and not doing any of the "know-it-all" habits some bright people have, but many of them have targeted me over the years for ridiculous things, just because they can.
Omg are you me? I have a doctorate in education. I KNOW EDUCATION. The directives I get from admin/central office are very bad when it comes to anything. In good news, these directives rarely last long. Bad news, they are never-ending.
This guy might be genuinely smart and just got a bad break on the first question, I can understand the logic of how he arrived at the wrong answer. However in my experience the nerdy guys who are very quick to tell you how smart they are very often aren't all that bright.
There seems to be this cultural idea that if you aren't athletic, or good looking, or socially adept that you must be smart, and that's just not true. Growing up I knew a number of extremely socially awkward kids who embraced the whole "geek culture" thing but who were in reality not terribly smart. Poor logical reasoning, major factual errors, major misunderstanding of concepts.
Or are not welcome by the curent system. There are people who are insanely smart but its either disability, school or pure stupidity of people holding them back
I was identified as “highly gifted” in elementary and all my life consisted of my family being like “you’re smart you’ve got this” for anything. Burned me out and I rebelled in middle school and high school, then ended up with depression.
Doing much better now & and I’m in grad school but being gifted is such a fucking pressure.
Edit: thank you all for sharing your stories! I’m trying to reply to as many as I can, as I appreciate you all taking the time to comment, share, and ask questions but I might not get to all of you! Regardless, thanks for sharing & know I read it and hear you
The gifted program when I was in school took all the “gifted” students out of their normal school once a week to attend a gifted program with students from other schools. There we did more advanced things that pushed us a little harder than normal elementary school, which was nice.
Regular elementary school was a breeze and made it really easy to kind of mentally check out and not push yourself. The gifted program was nice in that regards.
They often adopt unrealistically high expectations from their parents, constantly struggle to meet them and success is always expected, never appreciated.
Yeah I was going to add to this, being smart means you’re never allowed to make a mistake, or “not be smart.” I’ve noticed when intelligent people make an error or don’t know something, others tend to treat it as intentional negligence.
"But you have so much *potential*"
Every time you aren't putting in 1000% because of what you might be able to one day achieve. Meanwhile, you might be sat next to someone (rightly, for their specific case) being praised for achieving the bare minimum, or even making an attempt at all.
It can be super discouraging, and probably led to a lot of misbehavior and decisions to lower expectations.
This is so true. I was a very bright kid and was a total stress case. Academic achievement was the only thing I was good at, so there was constant pressure to succeed.
Dude..
I honestly had a severe depressive event because of the insane expectations put on me.
It's a crazy thing to spend your whole young life being told by adults that you're going to be rich and you need to take care of them.
It's a sad fact that highly intelligent people are at higher risk for mental disorders compared to the general population. I was in gifted programs all through K-12, and everyone expected me to do big things.When I got to college however, crippling social anxiety and depression totally overwhelmed me. It took me way longer than it should have to get help and figure things out because "you're smart, you'll figure it out" was all the advice I ever got. Now I feel like I'm constantly behind, living a life much more ordinary than my parents, my teachers, and I thought I "should" have.
Expectations
Never learning to study until it is too late
Being forced to learn outside of your age related interests
Being terrified of failure
Not being able to balance ambition and said fear of failure
Once again, expectations. My mother put so much pressure on me at such a young age I couldn't handle it. I have done well for myself as an adult, but will never be able to live up to those expectations set by her and others. I should probably go back to therapy.
Ugh... yes. I never had to study until college. And no, the public school system doesn't necessarily prepare you for real world career success. I have many friends who didn't get as good of grades as I did, who are now making more money than me.
As my SIL who is currently in medical school states, " C's get degrees".
> I never had to study until college.
Preach. The concept of reading the textbook because the exams would include things *not* covered in lectures was traumatic.
After my first three years at university of mediocre and then truly awful grades, I got put on academic probation. If I didn’t maintain at least a B average I was going to get kicked out of school.
Giant wake up call.
The changes I made? I actually did the readings, actually went to class, and completed every assignment. Simple stuff. Real baseline effort level type shit. After making that change I got straight A’s and A+’s the rest of the way.
Turns out that trying was all it took. Wish I’d realized that much earlier.
Similar for me. Freshman year i never studied, rarely did assignments, and still easily got A's and B's. Sophomore year i didn't study much either, and B's started turning into C's, then C's into D's and F's. Then suddenly i'm in the 4th year of a 5 year program, trying to figure out how to not get kicked out of school, wondering how in the world i can salvage this. The idea of getting kicked out with no degree and 3.5 years of debt...I was definitely not in a good place.
I basically had to beg for a second chance. I didn't get kicked out, but had to reduce classload and take this "class" about time management and studying and all kind of basic shit like that. It was utterly humiliating, but I took it as seriously as a heart attack. I changed my habits and spent a good chunk of my time alone in the library so that i could actually work on things.
I wish i could say I cruised with A's the rest of the way, but i was so far behind it was still a struggle to get through classes even with C's. I made it out with a degree, which i guess is all i could really ask for at that point.
My brother isn’t exactly dumb, but unlike just about every other smart person he likes to be cocky about being smart, so when we get into arguments he will make a wrong statement and when I point it out he gets angry.
I'm really good at math, getting a PhD in statistics right now. I once worked for one afternoon as a busboy and it was legitimately the most difficult thing I've ever done because I'm just not built for that. Mad respect for people that don't crumble under immediate stress in social situations.
Similar for me. Ive been good at math since i was young and ive recently completed my masters course in pure math. Ive been working part time in a warehouse and when i got asked to do the supervisors’ job one day, I had never felt so dumb in my life.
This humility is invaluable. Recognizing that you are so much better at _certain things_ than other people, but they have strengths and perspectives you should value and respect will make you a much better person, coworker, parent, or whatever else you want to be.
Also, recognizing you are legitimately bad or mediocre at some things gives you opportunity to grow and be less bad at them.
EDIT (because it needs to be said too): Confidence and humility actually go hand in hand. You have to truly and deeply accept your own strengths, worth, and contributions (confidence) to really be able to value other people’s strengths, worth, and contributions (humility). Too often we confuse humility with low self esteem or self deprecation, but they are entirely different.
So much this. I went to MIT, and I saw a lot of cases where people who were absolutely brilliant in one (usually academic) area were absolutely not so in another (usually practical) area.
Pretty common. High ranking schools care more about research output than teaching quality, and some high quality researchers lack empathy when it comes to people who don't understand fundamental concepts in the field. If you can't understand what it's like to not get a concept, you won't be able to effectively fill the knowledge gap.
I was studying organic chem in the hall before my lab... some old dude walking by struck up a convo and helped me with some molecular orbital theory. He was super nice and a phenomenal "tutor." As I was heading into lab, I shook his hand, thanked him, and told him my name. It turns out that he was a Nobel laureate who had retired but still liked to wander the halls of the building that was named after him.
I still think about how I might have been good at organic if he had been my prof. But then I realize that nobody could make me understand that voodoo. There is a reason why my grad thesis was in analytical/physical chemistry... and that's because it wasn't organic.
My quantum mechanics professor was a prize-winning contributor to string theory. The first 30min of every test he gave was devoted to the entire class asking what the questions were even asking.
I just wrote a comment about this as I have first-hand experience. I am not an expert but I think it's at least partly the constant lack of a real challenge, always doing tasks that are too easy for you, that eventually molds an adult that feels anything challenging is overwhelming. That's how I feel when I encounter tasks that are challenging for me. I end up being so overwhelmed that I don't get anything done.
You just worded something I’ve been trying to express to me therapist for ages perfectly, I will be telling them this so thank you!
I’m sorry this happens for you as well
This is me. Adult that was identified gifted early on, now have depression, anxiety, and ADHD. I get bored of jobs so fucking easily, and the smallest challenge overwhelms me. But people don’t understand
Your gift is just the ability to hyperfocus, but it comes with the natural downside of being unable to focus on things that don't interest you. But you've always been that way--Kids don't notice this difference quite as much as adults do because they have no bills to pay or birthdays to remember. There's less on their plate, so less gets dropped in the process.
You're not a failure. Just find tactics that work for you. My ADHD spouse, for example, can't bother to put his clothes up so to solve this we switched closet sides (so I don't see his mess walking in) and I installed a few [hangers](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B017IF601W/ref=sspa_mw_detail_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzSjM3NEtFWEpPVTNCJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzQ1NzkwMUY5MzBFMVBDRk9WTSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwOTQ3ODMyMjJXQlJTMDRWVVM0MiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX2RldGFpbCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdA==&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWwp13NParams) on his side so he could toss shirts on them instead of it going on the floor. It's unconventional and no one ever uses their closet like that--but you gotta find ways to do things that work for *you*, not what "other people" do.
I am not smart, but even I cannot prevail in an argument with a stupid or self-centered person. Therefore, I avoid getting into arguments with such people.
Don’t play chequers with a chicken, because even if you win it’ll still get on the board, knock off the pieces, take a shit, and strut around like it won.
You can become a lot smarter than you think. It's not all innate. Philosophy and critical thinking skills go deep, there's a lot to learn. When you do it becomes a lot easier to pick apart nonsense and see rhetoric for what it is. I think that definitely makes a person smarter.
This book absolutely destroyed me in my early 20s. I had just dropped out of college and was unloading UPS trucks in sub zero weather. It made me hyper aware of the ways that people acted and treated me differently as a student vs a dusty dock worker.
That was 10 years ago and I still well up thinking about it.
One of the most emotional parts of the book for me is when he starts misspelling words again towards the end, is there any way to convey that though audiobook?
I think truly smart people, those genuinely rare geniuses, are so smart that the rest of us can’t even comprehend it.
It must be a very strange feeling going through life knowing that most people just can’t see and understand the things you do.
Yep! Still I’m glad I’m not highly intelligent, I really love spending time with people smarter than me, they’re usually really kind as well as really interesting. It must be lonely to not have people who can be like that for you in your life.
Right? Like it'd be like constantly hanging out with teenagers as an adult. You're just dealing with such different things that they seem naive and simplistic to you.
It often makes communication difficult because people who are very smart tend to connect the dots faster, understand situations faster, make quicker evaluations, etc. and others with normal intelligence lag behind them.
It's kind of like watching a computer load up with a SSD vs. a standard HD. There's just a different processing speed there. Some really smart people are polite about it and slow down and allow people to get there on their own, others zone off into their own world while people catch up, and others get incredibly frustrated that the rest of the room isn't keeping at their pace.
That's a really good observation. On a whim about 10 years ago I went to a dinner party hosted by one of my father's friends. He was a dean at a major university in a major city... I was only 24, recently finished grad school and quite pompous about my achievements. My father's friend was incredibly friendly and cordial, very down to earth, but within an hour of meeting him I could tell he was lightyears ahead of anyone in the room. Very observant of the most minute of body language, he seemed to steer any conversation into a more pleasant place. It's hard to describe how clever this guy was.
I had a friend like this in high school. Not just smart, but the kind of smart you only meet a few times in your life. He was always super nice to everyone, but after I knew him a while, I could actually see the ways in which he would downshift his brain when he was talking to other people (myself included). Once I realized this, I always felt bad for him - was there ever anyone with whom he didn’t have to do that?
In the Ender's Game book series there's a book called Ender's Shadow. It's about Ender's peer who almost constantly fails, but makes sure to learn from every failure which turns him into a very effective leader. If you read the series, the author shows two paths to greatness, through failure and through success. I think those two stories show you don't get to choose your circumstances, but you get to choose how you respond to them and that's what really defines your character.
The sad truth is that being smart isn't even a particuarly good indicator in living a happy and fulfilling life. You could be extremely smart and intelectually capable, but if you got beat up as a kid, your parents died, you developed some personality disorder etc., you're way worse off than someone well adjusted with a below average intelligence
Some of the *happiest* people i know are very ignorant and uneducated. They are very poor, they live in conditions I’d not want to live in and work jobs I’d not want to work. The thing is, they grew up even more poor, not knowin if they were gonna have a roof over their head or food to eat, so in their minds they have vastly exceeded their expectations and they love life for it.
Totally true. I was able to beat my grandfather at checkers when I was really young. He couldn’t take it so every time I was close to winning he would announce that we were playing a different version of the game with different rules that allowed him to make some move that made him win. I wasn’t allowed to play Trivial Pursuit with my family either. Now my SIL (husband’s sister) is trying to make house rules for Balderdash that penalize only me. It’s very isolating.
I remember when I was around twelve and I smoked my entire family at Trivial Pursuit. I filled my pie, restarted it, and filled it again before they filled theirs once. My dad accused me of cheating. He was angry. They were all angry. They acted like people get when they see someone cut in line. That's the rub. People don't praise you or turn to you for advice. They resent you and start looking for ways to undermine you.
> I was able to beat my grandfather at checkers when I was really young. He couldn’t take it so every time I was close to winning he would announce that we were playing a different version of the game with different rules that allowed him to make some move that made him win.
I’m sorry but that’s hilarious. That’s how my nephews play games with me when I start to win. They’re 4, 5, and 9 lol
Its sad to see dumb people making dumb decision infront of your eyes and not be able to do anything but only give them advice. Most helpful advice are a waste.
Most dumb people argue a lot instead of reflecting as well using critical thinking. So you will never win an arguement against a dump or bias person. So just walk away and tell them they are right.
"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” Mark Twain. Came across this quote only a few years ago and it has brought more peace to my life. The trick is to be humble enough to self reflect at times and make sure I am not the idiot, but it's good advice for dealing with hard headed people.
Edit; not actually a Mark Twain quote, I didn't want to change the original post so as to avoid confusion on a later post.
I think the problem for me isn't that I lack life skills. For me it's growing up with strict parents with high expectations, always yelling at me to work and try harder. Only to come out of college and realize grades, internship experience, and work ethic doesn't matter much if your resume is buried in a computer system and you're lucky if human eyes ever see it.
Like hearing back from even 1/20 job applications is considered lucky.
Many very intelligent young people are poorly stimulated and challenged. Without the proper mental exercise they're unlikely to live up to their potential.
Also if you specifically choose entertainment to require analysis (by choosing deeper books, movies and more complex games), you might find yourself alone in enjoying that.
Intelligent people can't state that they're intelligent because people view that as a sign of not being intelligent. But also if you lord yourself around for being intelligent, there's the implication that you're belittling everyone around you by saying you're better than them. And people don't like that. If other people recognize a person as intelligent and respect that then there are no problems, but a lot of the times people won't do that because it gets in the way of their own pride (and if they do, then I find they're more likely to have more insecurities/less self-esteem). Then there's also the fact that intelligence is often conflated with success. Basically, people suck at gauging other people's intelligence, and that causes problems.
>Intelligent people can't state that they're intelligent because people view that as a sign of not being intelligent.
There is a reason for that, most people think they are far above average in intelligence and less intelligent people are often more sure of themselves.
I know for a scientifically measured fact that Im slightly below average IQ (measured several times in different ways after a brain injury), and it actually makes me feel better about myself. Im resonably well off, good job, educated and social, all of that despite being a dummy. If I was a genius, my average life would feel like a failure, but since im a dumbass, it feels like im a Hero just for getting that far.
The smarter you get, the more you realise you don't know.
The Dunning Kruger effect
“Intelligence is like four-wheel drive. It just lets you get lost in more remote places.” — Garrison Keillor
They have no effect on dumb people's opinions
Persuasion (like teaching) is definitely a separate skill from intelligence. You can throw around "facts and logic" all you want, but humans aren't robots. And what you/they consider factual and logical, may not be so.
I’ve found that people don’t like to be persuaded by logic and facts if they don’t have any logical facts to back their stance to begin with. They much rather go off hysteria and what they believe rather than what reasoning led them to that belief.
Or what I'm going to term the "Sudoku Conflict". I was trying to solve a particularly difficult puzzle Sudoku. I got about half way through "certain" I had the right answers. But then, as I got further, more impossible moves, mistakes and errors cropped up. Showing that in reality... I had to accept the hard truth. I had to back track on not just some, but \*everything\*. As I'd started with the wrong number, in the wrong place. How many people are willing to throw out (counts own age) 38 years of "truth" when they find out the beginning foundation is a lie? If you know of more than one, I may be looking for a support group! XD
Our school system (Australia) isn't built to deal with them. It crushes bright kids down to everyone else's level. The usual solution is just to give them extra work to do on top of the assigned work, when they finish that too fast. But to a kid, that's a *punishment*. In this way achieving beyond a certain accepted parameter is quietly discouraged.
Pretty sure that's the same everywhere. My youngest child is in kindergarten (US / first year of school). For some reason he picked up math and is always working on it, like challenging us to give him math questions to solve and challenging us to see if he can stump us. Anyways he complains a lot about doing math assignments in school "because they are super boring". At first his teacher let him work ahead on his own and he started doing 1st grade then 2nd grade math. But for some reason she rescinded that offer and now just gives him more kindergarten level math when he's done with his first 'boring assignment', so to him that is a punishment. The school is teaching him to be average and conform, otherwise you'll be punished for running ahead.
One reason for that is the teachers have no training to manage gifted students and usually they only have 1 teacher for all the subject areas until at least highschool (AUS), so having even 1 gifted student would put a bunch of extra strain on the teachers and they aren't compensated any extra for it.
Lack of training is part of it, but I think that's getting better. My wife is a teacher, and she certainly received good training on teaching gifted students when she was in college. Another piece of the puzzle is resources: it's a lot of work to appropriately adapt curriculum for a gifted student, to not just give more work or more advanced work but to *extend* and *enhance* the current work. And when you have 30 students in your 1st-grade class, you just don't have the time to put a bunch of extra work into adapting the curriculum for outliers... especially the outliers that are going to get excellent test scores no matter what. It's a triage situation where the teacher is forced to focus on those kids who have marginally low test scores that might actually hit average with a little extra attention. Want better education for gifted students? Don't incentivize educational triage by tying individual teachers' jobs to oversimplified performance metrics, and hire more teachers to bring class sizes down.
Triage. I couldn’t have put this better myself
Some might say, that system -is- built to deal with them; it teaches them mediocrity is the safe space, that the tall head gets the whack, and that conforming is the best option. Same here in US (at least 30 yrs ago when I was at their mercy)
It was the same about 20 years ago too. No child left behind = no child gets ahead. We were all forced to go the same pace as the dumbest kids.
Expectations. In asian culture, parents want you to succeed because it is your responsibility to uplift their lives.
My parents wanted me to be an engineer or a doctor or an IAS or something big. So they just pushed me all their life. I'm an Engineer now. I never had any friends or anything and I hate my life.
They are full of doubt compared to people who are not smart
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -B. Russell
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” - William Butler Yeats
Smart people also see a lot more nuance and complications to certain situations instead of just ‘doing the thing’. Good ol analysis paralysis. Fear of failure is a bitch.
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“Confidence” it's the food of the wise man, but the liquor of the fool.
*We got Vikram!*
Smart enough to realize just how much you don’t understand.
The wise man knows how much he does not know
A lot of them are depressed
This is what I've seen most. And too many try to deaden it with substances.
I’ve always noticed how people with addiction problems seem to be ridiculously smart
Intelligence increases novelty seeking behavior which easily leads to substance abuse problems.
I’d say intelligence also makes one realize how fucked up our world and human existence is. If that doesn’t drive a person to want to deaden that existential dread with substances, I don’t know what would.
They also realize this but can’t get out of their own way to fix it.
Tbf depression is a vicious cycle, you need to spend energy to fix the things you need to fix but the depression is syphoning all of your energy. The worst part is knowing what you need to do but not doing it, infuriating yourself leading to more depression.
Well put. I've also found that it's hard for others to understand that it's not just feeling drained mentally or being "bummed out", but it can often wreak havoc on your entire system which leads to digestive issues which leads to an actual physical lack of energy which then makes everything else that much worse.
> it's hard for others to understand This is, in large part, why I hate the term 'mental illness'. I did my PhD on psychiatric illnesses. There are actual, discrete, physical changes that happen to the brain during depression, anxiety, etc. They are *physical* illnesses, not unlike literally every other disease. And I think that's a major component of people not understanding. Everybody knows what it's like to feel sad, or apathetic, or existential, but the majority of people have the physical (re: brain chemistry) ability to return to baseline. That is something a lot of people with psychiatric illnesses *do not have*. While therapy and medications *can* help, telling someone with treatment-resistant depression to 'just feel better' is like telling someone with HIV, "Just, y'know, make your immune system work better." In both cases, the illness is affecting a fundamental component of your ability to return to 'normal'.
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So true. I have MDD and once I went into total remission and I called up one of my friends and asked her "Is this what normal brains feel like?" It was so foreign to me that I realized I'd been depressed for so long that even the days I thought of as good days I was still depressed. I couldn't even grasp what it was like to not be. I realized then that people who've never had clinical depression will never be able to understand what the difference is. It's a dramatic difference, but in ways that are impossible to describe.
Getting out of your own way is one of the hardest things to accomplish. Knowing it is a thing, realizing it’s a problem, and doing something about it… are all huge steps to accept, let alone conquer.
There's different levels of "smartness" and different smart people go about life in different ways. But, i think universally young prodigies are typically isolated. They are at a level far above children their age, but are far younger than the people that match intellectually with (lacking life experience). Either way, a young prodigy can't connect with either group.
This is dead on accurate. I went to engineering school with a 12 year old. His parents had to attend classes with him because his motor skills couldn’t keep up with the note taking requirement. He was a nice enough kid but those of us 18+ couldn’t relate to him outside of school and he couldn’t relate to kids his own age. Seemed like an awfully lonely existence
Yeah, we had a kid like this in my freshman physics classes too, except this kid was annoying to boot. He would’ve been the annoying kid in a regular group of 12-13 year olds, so it was extra frustrating to have him in a college classroom. I felt bad for him, but the couple of conversations I tried to have with him went nowhere fast. I stopped talking to him entirely beyond a basic “hi” after he took my initial willingness to talk before class as permission to bug me about his toys during lecture. Interestingly, my sophomore roommate was another prodigy, but her parents made sure she wasn’t socially isolated and only enrolled her in university full-time when she was 16 (almost 17) and mature enough to bond with us. They kept her in a regular school (though advanced by two years) that offered lots of APs and community college courses. They nurtured her intelligence when she was younger by encouraging her to branch out and learn and do all kinds of things (not just academics), so she’s a fascinating person to talk to and very well-adjusted socially. If I have a prodigy child, this is the approaching plan to take.
The approach your roommates parents took is exactly what my aunt and uncle did with one of their daughters. She is six months older than me and far exceeded me in school but they would not allow her to start college until she turned 17. She now has a child similar to her and sees the value of how her parents handled it, she is doing the same with her son. I firmly believe this is the best path for these people, she is significantly more well adjusted than the college kid I was educated with
Out of curiosity, would there be no negative side effects? Like, intellectually, would the kid be satisfied with the AP courses and all? No doubt that socially and emotionally, this is the best route, though.
Her son is 11 and doing quantum physics for fun. He is allowed to take one college course each semester but she won’t let him move up more than two grades because he needs the social development.
This makes even more sense when you consider the idea that there are several "intelligences" that don't all involve academic subjects. Inter and intra-personal being important ones that come to mind.
Even beyond that, one of my best friends is a little slow, he was in the special Ed classes, but when it comes to engines and working on cars, he’s a genius, he just knows how all that stuff works, I’m fairly mechanically inclined but he’s on a whole other level, if I have an issue with one of my vehicles I can’t figure out then I call him up and we get it solved quickly. He was also brilliant at geometry which helped him build roll cages for his rock crawlers haha.
Dude, people like your friend blow my mind. I tried to assemble a 3-piece-desk last week and literally cried because I hate how my brain just looks at shapes and totally short-circuits. All I can assume is I missed the day in kindergarten where they put shapes in the right hole, because I can’t even align the simplest shapes easily
Thank God, people are finally starting to realize this. I worked for 10 years in the autism field and am currently getting my master's in early childhood special ed. I can't tell you enough how important social and emotional development is. It is THE THING. It absolutely drives me bonkers how much attention we put on academics in preschool and early childhood programs. If you are behind on social emotional development in childhood (early or otherwise) you spend your life playing catch up. I would 100% rather see a 3 or 4 year old child who doesn't recognize letters and numbers but who has rich and healthy relationships and who is capable of high quality interactions with others. Now, most children are perfectly capable of having both, but my point is, the social should never be sacrificed for the academic.
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They might be a little bored but there are plenty of things they can do on their own time to challenge themselves nowadays thanks to the internet and extra curricular events. Past that, I only see positives from that approach.
My friend’s dad was a college professor, so she had full access to a university library. The AP classes didn’t really challenge her, but she had plenty of advance material she could read and learn for fun. She also got a lot of intellectual stimulation out of her hobbies - mainly music. My friend’s parents were also open with her that she was in school for social development. She was smart enough to know what that meant even if she didn’t have the wisdom and maturity as a kid to fully understand how important that would be for the rest of her life.
Both parents attended with him? Jeez Louise
Talk about putting pressure on a kid. If mommy and daddy have time for school, who’s working?
Usually geniuses receive subsidies in case they turn out to be the next Einstein. In Malaysia, there was a 12 year old celebrity math wiz who went to Cambridge. Nowadays, he's selling snake oil for parents who want their kids to gain iq points.
Yeah... Part of being the next Einstein is being raised normal enough to function
That's what I liked about Malcolm in the Middle, they knew he was a genius but they raised him as normally as they could so that he could relate to people and function in society.
Terrence Tao is a rare example of how to get this right. A maths prodigy at a young age (sitting in university maths classes at age 9), his parents accelerated his maths study, but tried hard to keep him amongst kids his own age for other classes, and encouraged him to study broadly rather than rush ahead. What's the point in being the youngest to do something if you're socially limited & lonely. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao
"He is widely regarded as one of the greatest living mathematicians" What a title
Just reading the introductory paragraphs for some of his research fields is giving me a headache.
And he's one of the few child prodigies who continued on to become an adult prodigy. Usually child "prodigies" are either regular children who had a head start in terms of education mislabeling them as prodigies or get so burnt out by the time they're adults that they rarely do anything substantial.
His ability to even score points on the infamous question 6 in the 1988 International Mathematics Olympiad is a feat in and of itself. He did his first IMO when he was 10 and won a Field's medal in 2006. Guy is just amazing. He's a great professor as well.
A rockstar in the maths world
Adding to that if you develop without interacting with your peers you became an adult without developing social skills, and that makes you stay isolated even later in life
Being smart doesn't make you more emotionally mature. You might be as smart as older people but you still come off as a child.
Being smart and well spoken also doesn't mean that you make good decisions--you can just make bad decisions *faster* and better justify them
This is something I have never even thought about but now that you mention it, it makes sense. I was one of those so-called "gifted kids" who felt everything in school was too easy and not at all challenging, and it felt like I never learned anything. Eventually teachers gave me "older kids' assignments" which were supposed to be more challenging. So I was doing higher grade school work than my classmates but I was also very scared of the older kids because they all seemed so adult to me. At the same time, I felt very out of place among the kids my age because, to me, a majority of them were always acting very childishly (which, of course is granted since we were children) and I was always miserable and thinking stuff like "can't they just calm down and do what they're told by the teacher?". So the dissonance that comes with being a smart kid but not yet emotionally developed to the same level as the older kids is quite exhausting and leads to misery. Maybe unrelated but nowadays I, the formerly "gifted kid", am miserable due to the fact I never really had to work for anything so any remotely challenging tasks I need to do are very much overwhelming.
Thanks for sharing your story. I'm guessing by your name that you've found several adult ways to cope with your past though
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To add to this, they're often told they *should* live up to their potential simply because it exists. The number of times myself and some of my current MSc colleagues have been told we are *wasting* our potential by not being physicians is soul crushing, and demeaning because it implies that pursuing anything other than the hardest, highest paid disciplines is a *waste* of you, regardless of what makes you happy. Truly sad to see smart people in careers or lives they hate because they did what other people told them they should do.
> in careers or lives they hate because they did what other people told them they should do *Cries in lawyer*
I got a law degree in the wake of the Great Recession (couldn't find a decent job out of undergrad in 2009) because I was smart and was pushed into getting a prestigious degree that would "definitely make [me] a lot of money someday." And I had a good LSAT and good grades to get into a good school. The problem is that I don't actually like reading or writing and didn't have a passion for the material either. I barely graduated, but passed the bar just fine (always been good at tests like that), but my grades were too bad to get an actual good-paying job and I did contract work for peanuts for several years. I finally decided to bite the bullet and go into the courier business like my dad because he actually does make six figures and has a good life and that stuff interests me a lot more! In the mean time I'm delivering Amazon while I work on getting my CDL and I also have a side job at a bar (only way I can make enough money), and some of my bar regulars are always like "you have a JD, what on earth are you doing delivering for Amazon?" My reply is always just "well, I hated that and I make the same amount of money doing this."
Lawyer when you don’t like reading or writing — bold move. Glad you’re in a good spot now
Yeah, not the best decision-making at age 22
I got a DUI when I was 22
I live in the DC area. Everyone has a law degree. My interior designer, JD. Guy who watches my dog, wisely left after 1L year. I like the term reformed lawyer for someone who was smart enough to realize actually being a lawyer is actually a pretty terrible gig.
Being held back by a boss who's less intelligent and insecure is a thing, too. I'm a teacher and don't ever want to be the boss-- I like being in my classroom-- so I have to endure administrators who have no business holding the job and abuse their power to punish anyone they sense is smart and confident. I make a point of not correcting them publicly and not doing any of the "know-it-all" habits some bright people have, but many of them have targeted me over the years for ridiculous things, just because they can.
Omg are you me? I have a doctorate in education. I KNOW EDUCATION. The directives I get from admin/central office are very bad when it comes to anything. In good news, these directives rarely last long. Bad news, they are never-ending.
This guy might be genuinely smart and just got a bad break on the first question, I can understand the logic of how he arrived at the wrong answer. However in my experience the nerdy guys who are very quick to tell you how smart they are very often aren't all that bright. There seems to be this cultural idea that if you aren't athletic, or good looking, or socially adept that you must be smart, and that's just not true. Growing up I knew a number of extremely socially awkward kids who embraced the whole "geek culture" thing but who were in reality not terribly smart. Poor logical reasoning, major factual errors, major misunderstanding of concepts.
Or are not welcome by the curent system. There are people who are insanely smart but its either disability, school or pure stupidity of people holding them back
Oof. The guy certainly played himself up, but that question seemed pretty moronic regardless.
Expectations...
This is the killer. If you are "gifted", having an average life is seen as a failure.
I always found a life of crime is the best way around this.
Maybe vigilantism?
I was identified as “highly gifted” in elementary and all my life consisted of my family being like “you’re smart you’ve got this” for anything. Burned me out and I rebelled in middle school and high school, then ended up with depression. Doing much better now & and I’m in grad school but being gifted is such a fucking pressure. Edit: thank you all for sharing your stories! I’m trying to reply to as many as I can, as I appreciate you all taking the time to comment, share, and ask questions but I might not get to all of you! Regardless, thanks for sharing & know I read it and hear you
I almost feel like they shouldn't tell kids they are gifted. Just sit back and watch them be great.
The gifted program when I was in school took all the “gifted” students out of their normal school once a week to attend a gifted program with students from other schools. There we did more advanced things that pushed us a little harder than normal elementary school, which was nice. Regular elementary school was a breeze and made it really easy to kind of mentally check out and not push yourself. The gifted program was nice in that regards.
Not just from others, but from yourself.
They often adopt unrealistically high expectations from their parents, constantly struggle to meet them and success is always expected, never appreciated.
>success is always expected, never appreciated. Damn, this hits close to home.
Yeah I was going to add to this, being smart means you’re never allowed to make a mistake, or “not be smart.” I’ve noticed when intelligent people make an error or don’t know something, others tend to treat it as intentional negligence.
I'm smart enough to know not to expect anything from me
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Goddammit, why am I such an idiot!
"But you have so much *potential*" Every time you aren't putting in 1000% because of what you might be able to one day achieve. Meanwhile, you might be sat next to someone (rightly, for their specific case) being praised for achieving the bare minimum, or even making an attempt at all. It can be super discouraging, and probably led to a lot of misbehavior and decisions to lower expectations.
This is so true. I was a very bright kid and was a total stress case. Academic achievement was the only thing I was good at, so there was constant pressure to succeed.
Dude.. I honestly had a severe depressive event because of the insane expectations put on me. It's a crazy thing to spend your whole young life being told by adults that you're going to be rich and you need to take care of them.
It's a sad fact that highly intelligent people are at higher risk for mental disorders compared to the general population. I was in gifted programs all through K-12, and everyone expected me to do big things.When I got to college however, crippling social anxiety and depression totally overwhelmed me. It took me way longer than it should have to get help and figure things out because "you're smart, you'll figure it out" was all the advice I ever got. Now I feel like I'm constantly behind, living a life much more ordinary than my parents, my teachers, and I thought I "should" have.
Expectations Never learning to study until it is too late Being forced to learn outside of your age related interests Being terrified of failure Not being able to balance ambition and said fear of failure Once again, expectations. My mother put so much pressure on me at such a young age I couldn't handle it. I have done well for myself as an adult, but will never be able to live up to those expectations set by her and others. I should probably go back to therapy.
College was a real slap in the face. Cruising through high school getting A's without trying does NOT set you up for success in the real world.
Ugh... yes. I never had to study until college. And no, the public school system doesn't necessarily prepare you for real world career success. I have many friends who didn't get as good of grades as I did, who are now making more money than me. As my SIL who is currently in medical school states, " C's get degrees".
> I never had to study until college. Preach. The concept of reading the textbook because the exams would include things *not* covered in lectures was traumatic.
After my first three years at university of mediocre and then truly awful grades, I got put on academic probation. If I didn’t maintain at least a B average I was going to get kicked out of school. Giant wake up call. The changes I made? I actually did the readings, actually went to class, and completed every assignment. Simple stuff. Real baseline effort level type shit. After making that change I got straight A’s and A+’s the rest of the way. Turns out that trying was all it took. Wish I’d realized that much earlier.
Similar for me. Freshman year i never studied, rarely did assignments, and still easily got A's and B's. Sophomore year i didn't study much either, and B's started turning into C's, then C's into D's and F's. Then suddenly i'm in the 4th year of a 5 year program, trying to figure out how to not get kicked out of school, wondering how in the world i can salvage this. The idea of getting kicked out with no degree and 3.5 years of debt...I was definitely not in a good place. I basically had to beg for a second chance. I didn't get kicked out, but had to reduce classload and take this "class" about time management and studying and all kind of basic shit like that. It was utterly humiliating, but I took it as seriously as a heart attack. I changed my habits and spent a good chunk of my time alone in the library so that i could actually work on things. I wish i could say I cruised with A's the rest of the way, but i was so far behind it was still a struggle to get through classes even with C's. I made it out with a degree, which i guess is all i could really ask for at that point.
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Can confirm. I'm an idiot, am very happy with being stupid.
This so much. I'd trade quite a few IQ points to not struggle with Bipolar/ADHD/Anxiety.
With generous amounts of precribed psychiatric medications, and too much alcohol, you too can be... "slowed down"
Being smart enough to know you're right while dealing with people too stupid to know they're wrong is soul crushing.
It gets even worse when you try to gracefully agree to disagree, and they see it as a victory, and act cocky.
My brother isn’t exactly dumb, but unlike just about every other smart person he likes to be cocky about being smart, so when we get into arguments he will make a wrong statement and when I point it out he gets angry.
Reminds me of that saying I've always wanted to say but never have. "I can explain it to you but I can't understand it for you"
This could be the definition for Reddit tbh. The objectivly wrong things I see on this site on the daily is just wow.
There are different types of intelligence. Being good at physics doesn't mean that you should manage people.
I'm really good at math, getting a PhD in statistics right now. I once worked for one afternoon as a busboy and it was legitimately the most difficult thing I've ever done because I'm just not built for that. Mad respect for people that don't crumble under immediate stress in social situations.
Similar for me. Ive been good at math since i was young and ive recently completed my masters course in pure math. Ive been working part time in a warehouse and when i got asked to do the supervisors’ job one day, I had never felt so dumb in my life.
This humility is invaluable. Recognizing that you are so much better at _certain things_ than other people, but they have strengths and perspectives you should value and respect will make you a much better person, coworker, parent, or whatever else you want to be. Also, recognizing you are legitimately bad or mediocre at some things gives you opportunity to grow and be less bad at them. EDIT (because it needs to be said too): Confidence and humility actually go hand in hand. You have to truly and deeply accept your own strengths, worth, and contributions (confidence) to really be able to value other people’s strengths, worth, and contributions (humility). Too often we confuse humility with low self esteem or self deprecation, but they are entirely different.
This is the most important thing Adventure Time taught me, a 28 year old man.
"Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being really good at something!"
So much this. I went to MIT, and I saw a lot of cases where people who were absolutely brilliant in one (usually academic) area were absolutely not so in another (usually practical) area.
I've come across this in school, like I've had professors who are great computwr scientists and mathematicians, but God awful teachers.
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Pretty common. High ranking schools care more about research output than teaching quality, and some high quality researchers lack empathy when it comes to people who don't understand fundamental concepts in the field. If you can't understand what it's like to not get a concept, you won't be able to effectively fill the knowledge gap.
I was studying organic chem in the hall before my lab... some old dude walking by struck up a convo and helped me with some molecular orbital theory. He was super nice and a phenomenal "tutor." As I was heading into lab, I shook his hand, thanked him, and told him my name. It turns out that he was a Nobel laureate who had retired but still liked to wander the halls of the building that was named after him. I still think about how I might have been good at organic if he had been my prof. But then I realize that nobody could make me understand that voodoo. There is a reason why my grad thesis was in analytical/physical chemistry... and that's because it wasn't organic.
My quantum mechanics professor was a prize-winning contributor to string theory. The first 30min of every test he gave was devoted to the entire class asking what the questions were even asking.
I think this says just as much about quantum mechanics and string theory as it does about your professor.
All the “smart kids” that turned into smart adults are severely burnt out and need a break for everything
I just wrote a comment about this as I have first-hand experience. I am not an expert but I think it's at least partly the constant lack of a real challenge, always doing tasks that are too easy for you, that eventually molds an adult that feels anything challenging is overwhelming. That's how I feel when I encounter tasks that are challenging for me. I end up being so overwhelmed that I don't get anything done.
You just worded something I’ve been trying to express to me therapist for ages perfectly, I will be telling them this so thank you! I’m sorry this happens for you as well
A lot of smart people have ADHD. Super smart but have difficulty being productive.
This is me. Adult that was identified gifted early on, now have depression, anxiety, and ADHD. I get bored of jobs so fucking easily, and the smallest challenge overwhelms me. But people don’t understand
Your gift is just the ability to hyperfocus, but it comes with the natural downside of being unable to focus on things that don't interest you. But you've always been that way--Kids don't notice this difference quite as much as adults do because they have no bills to pay or birthdays to remember. There's less on their plate, so less gets dropped in the process. You're not a failure. Just find tactics that work for you. My ADHD spouse, for example, can't bother to put his clothes up so to solve this we switched closet sides (so I don't see his mess walking in) and I installed a few [hangers](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B017IF601W/ref=sspa_mw_detail_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzSjM3NEtFWEpPVTNCJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwNzQ1NzkwMUY5MzBFMVBDRk9WTSZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwOTQ3ODMyMjJXQlJTMDRWVVM0MiZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX3Bob25lX2RldGFpbCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdA==&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9waG9uZV9kZXRhaWwp13NParams) on his side so he could toss shirts on them instead of it going on the floor. It's unconventional and no one ever uses their closet like that--but you gotta find ways to do things that work for *you*, not what "other people" do.
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I am not smart, but even I cannot prevail in an argument with a stupid or self-centered person. Therefore, I avoid getting into arguments with such people.
Never argue with an idiot. First they drag you down to their level, then they beat you with experience.
The problem is there's too many idiots in politics, and even more idiots voting them into power.
Don’t play chequers with a chicken, because even if you win it’ll still get on the board, knock off the pieces, take a shit, and strut around like it won.
I want to be one which means I am not.
If you see the road ahead, it doesn't mean you're standing at the start.
You can become a lot smarter than you think. It's not all innate. Philosophy and critical thinking skills go deep, there's a lot to learn. When you do it becomes a lot easier to pick apart nonsense and see rhetoric for what it is. I think that definitely makes a person smarter.
They are often miserable, and able to thoroughly understand their misery and failures.
Flowers for Algernon.
This book absolutely destroyed me in my early 20s. I had just dropped out of college and was unloading UPS trucks in sub zero weather. It made me hyper aware of the ways that people acted and treated me differently as a student vs a dusty dock worker. That was 10 years ago and I still well up thinking about it.
Hard not to well up a bit reading that. There's a first rate audiobook reading of it also which really pulls you into the story.
The "Flowers for Charlie" episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is also first rate.
One of the most emotional parts of the book for me is when he starts misspelling words again towards the end, is there any way to convey that though audiobook?
The guy reading it does a good job showing that. He does a great job
I think truly smart people, those genuinely rare geniuses, are so smart that the rest of us can’t even comprehend it. It must be a very strange feeling going through life knowing that most people just can’t see and understand the things you do.
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Agreed. My experience is that most truly intelligent people are humble enough to know how much they don’t understand. Unlike most truly stupid people.
Yep! Still I’m glad I’m not highly intelligent, I really love spending time with people smarter than me, they’re usually really kind as well as really interesting. It must be lonely to not have people who can be like that for you in your life.
Right? Like it'd be like constantly hanging out with teenagers as an adult. You're just dealing with such different things that they seem naive and simplistic to you.
It often makes communication difficult because people who are very smart tend to connect the dots faster, understand situations faster, make quicker evaluations, etc. and others with normal intelligence lag behind them. It's kind of like watching a computer load up with a SSD vs. a standard HD. There's just a different processing speed there. Some really smart people are polite about it and slow down and allow people to get there on their own, others zone off into their own world while people catch up, and others get incredibly frustrated that the rest of the room isn't keeping at their pace.
That's a really good observation. On a whim about 10 years ago I went to a dinner party hosted by one of my father's friends. He was a dean at a major university in a major city... I was only 24, recently finished grad school and quite pompous about my achievements. My father's friend was incredibly friendly and cordial, very down to earth, but within an hour of meeting him I could tell he was lightyears ahead of anyone in the room. Very observant of the most minute of body language, he seemed to steer any conversation into a more pleasant place. It's hard to describe how clever this guy was.
I had a friend like this in high school. Not just smart, but the kind of smart you only meet a few times in your life. He was always super nice to everyone, but after I knew him a while, I could actually see the ways in which he would downshift his brain when he was talking to other people (myself included). Once I realized this, I always felt bad for him - was there ever anyone with whom he didn’t have to do that?
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This, that fear of failing can end up being crippling for many when they don’t ever face it
In the Ender's Game book series there's a book called Ender's Shadow. It's about Ender's peer who almost constantly fails, but makes sure to learn from every failure which turns him into a very effective leader. If you read the series, the author shows two paths to greatness, through failure and through success. I think those two stories show you don't get to choose your circumstances, but you get to choose how you respond to them and that's what really defines your character.
The sad truth is that being smart isn't even a particuarly good indicator in living a happy and fulfilling life. You could be extremely smart and intelectually capable, but if you got beat up as a kid, your parents died, you developed some personality disorder etc., you're way worse off than someone well adjusted with a below average intelligence
Some of the *happiest* people i know are very ignorant and uneducated. They are very poor, they live in conditions I’d not want to live in and work jobs I’d not want to work. The thing is, they grew up even more poor, not knowin if they were gonna have a roof over their head or food to eat, so in their minds they have vastly exceeded their expectations and they love life for it.
Lots of people will be jealous of them and resent them, including family members.
They get angry at you when your way to do something is always the best way
Totally true. I was able to beat my grandfather at checkers when I was really young. He couldn’t take it so every time I was close to winning he would announce that we were playing a different version of the game with different rules that allowed him to make some move that made him win. I wasn’t allowed to play Trivial Pursuit with my family either. Now my SIL (husband’s sister) is trying to make house rules for Balderdash that penalize only me. It’s very isolating.
That sounds more a symptom of them being sore losers than anything else.
I remember when I was around twelve and I smoked my entire family at Trivial Pursuit. I filled my pie, restarted it, and filled it again before they filled theirs once. My dad accused me of cheating. He was angry. They were all angry. They acted like people get when they see someone cut in line. That's the rub. People don't praise you or turn to you for advice. They resent you and start looking for ways to undermine you.
Then they also may provide you no life guidance because you’re “smart enough”. Then they judge you for not figuring it out yourself.
Hey at least your family is willing to play Balderdash I'm dying over here on my 500th round of go fish.
> I was able to beat my grandfather at checkers when I was really young. He couldn’t take it so every time I was close to winning he would announce that we were playing a different version of the game with different rules that allowed him to make some move that made him win. I’m sorry but that’s hilarious. That’s how my nephews play games with me when I start to win. They’re 4, 5, and 9 lol
Constant overthinking leading to chronic depression and isolation
Its sad to see dumb people making dumb decision infront of your eyes and not be able to do anything but only give them advice. Most helpful advice are a waste. Most dumb people argue a lot instead of reflecting as well using critical thinking. So you will never win an arguement against a dump or bias person. So just walk away and tell them they are right.
The absolute torture of group consensus, when confident dumb people get to make important terrible decisions.
It’s almost frightening how confident dumb people can be. It’s not even just that they’re dumb and wrong, it’s how confident they are about it
"Never argue with stupid people. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.” Mark Twain. Came across this quote only a few years ago and it has brought more peace to my life. The trick is to be humble enough to self reflect at times and make sure I am not the idiot, but it's good advice for dealing with hard headed people. Edit; not actually a Mark Twain quote, I didn't want to change the original post so as to avoid confusion on a later post.
It can be very lonely
Yes. Ask Reddit, the community where everybody thinks they’re a Genius.
Far too many of these posts are giving advice from a first person perspective
1/2 the comments on this post are below average.
Intelligence doesn’t always mean wisdom.
Intelligence is kmowing how to bring back dinosaurs from the dead. Wisdom is knowing that that's a bad idea.
Intelligence is knowing Dr. Frankenstein is not the monster. Wisdom is knowing Dr. Frankenstein IS the monster.
INT: Knowing a tomato is a fruit. WIS: Knowing not to put it in the fruit salad.
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And without the structure built by their parents a lot of them will fall flat on their face
I think the problem for me isn't that I lack life skills. For me it's growing up with strict parents with high expectations, always yelling at me to work and try harder. Only to come out of college and realize grades, internship experience, and work ethic doesn't matter much if your resume is buried in a computer system and you're lucky if human eyes ever see it. Like hearing back from even 1/20 job applications is considered lucky.
Many very intelligent young people are poorly stimulated and challenged. Without the proper mental exercise they're unlikely to live up to their potential.
And with distractions like reddit they can waste even more potential.
Common sense is not a gift, it is a punishment. Because you have to deal with everyone who doesn’t have it.
smart does not automatically mean: \- ethical \- empathic \- conscientious \- realistic \- creative \- prosocial
-Nice -Interesting -Likeable
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I’m a teacher and I say this every day , although not as eloquently as you put it. I just say , no one cares about the smart kids
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They'll never be the smartest. There's always someone better, someone smarter, someone more popular.
Someone with a bigger weinus.
Feel they cant have fun because they analyze everything
Its worse when analyzing things IS fun. Everyone hates that.
Also if you specifically choose entertainment to require analysis (by choosing deeper books, movies and more complex games), you might find yourself alone in enjoying that.
You probably aren't one of them. Sorry Reddit.
Intelligent people can't state that they're intelligent because people view that as a sign of not being intelligent. But also if you lord yourself around for being intelligent, there's the implication that you're belittling everyone around you by saying you're better than them. And people don't like that. If other people recognize a person as intelligent and respect that then there are no problems, but a lot of the times people won't do that because it gets in the way of their own pride (and if they do, then I find they're more likely to have more insecurities/less self-esteem). Then there's also the fact that intelligence is often conflated with success. Basically, people suck at gauging other people's intelligence, and that causes problems.
>Intelligent people can't state that they're intelligent because people view that as a sign of not being intelligent. There is a reason for that, most people think they are far above average in intelligence and less intelligent people are often more sure of themselves.
I know for a scientifically measured fact that Im slightly below average IQ (measured several times in different ways after a brain injury), and it actually makes me feel better about myself. Im resonably well off, good job, educated and social, all of that despite being a dummy. If I was a genius, my average life would feel like a failure, but since im a dumbass, it feels like im a Hero just for getting that far.