31–40 of 76 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I was too busy studying to be popular!" > Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Just like all those quarterbacks who were too busy with football practice to waste any time honing their social skills. Oh wait...
Training for a team sport probably involves social skills to some degree.
It took me too long to realise that a lot of the popular kids where also smart. They just had social skills as well. It's much easier to tell yourself that other people don't like you because you are smarter than them than it is to work on yourself.
Instead, some people just have more points than you, and just because they have more points in charisma, doesn't mean they also don't have more points than you in intellect.
I've heard, even on this site, people deride management and C-suite types as "dumb" or "the popular kids", and in the same breath worship "that guy in the room"[0] but the stark reality is quite different from this fantasy.
This article is in the same vein as that execrable Lisp article that showed up today: "Alas, poor brilliant misunderstood me, cursed by my genius and unwillingness to ~play the silly games of the lesser people who surround me~"
"I was too busy studying to be popular!" > Few smart kids can spare the attention that popularity requires. Just like all those quarterbacks who were too busy with football practice to waste any time honing their social skills. Oh wait...
> Unless they also happen to be good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of popular kids, they'll tend to become nerds.
Being good at sports or good looking is just viscerally impressive, and makes you more popular. Being book-smart has no such effect, unless you're particularly witty.
Alberti, arguably the archetype of the Renaissance Man, writes that "no art, however minor, demands less than total dedication if you want to excel in it." I wonder if anyone in the world works harder at anything than American school kids work at popularity. Navy SEALs and neurosurgery residents seem slackers by comparison. They occasionally take vacations; some even have hobbies. An American teenager may work at bei…
It took me too long to realise that a lot of the popular kids where also smart. They just had social skills as well. It's much easier to tell yourself that other people don't like you because you are smarter than them than it is to work on yourself.
It took me too long to realise that a lot of the popular kids where also smart. They just had social skills as well. It's much easier to tell yourself that other people don't like you because you are smarter than them than it is to work on yourself.
It's sad that people tend to think of life as some kind of DnD character creation, where people have the same points but allocated in different ways. Instead, some people just have more points than you, and just because they have more points in charisma, doesn't mean they also don't have more points than you in intellect. I've heard, even on this site, people deride management and C-suite types as "dumb" or "the popu…
It took me too long to realise that a lot of the popular kids where also smart. They just had social skills as well. It's much easier to tell yourself that other people don't like you because you are smarter than them than it is to work on yourself.
