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Nonetheless, thanks for sharing!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As a side note, "talented/gifted" is usually considered synonymous with high intelligence. Yet, I bet that it is as strongly correlated with dedication (going to the levels of passion or obsession) and sensitivity. It might happen that it is not IQ that matters in terms of gifted people being depressed. I don't think this works. If you look at the strengths/weaknesses chart, there's no way that just passion or obse…
I think the parent comment doesn't say that 'giftedness' is just passion, rather that out of the two axis that would make someone gifted (smart, dedicated), it's the second one that carries a higher risk in getting depressed.
From "The Mad Genius Mystery": https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/articles/201707/the-mad...:
> The fine line between genius and insanity on the interplay of autistic and psychotic tendencies among some mathematicians: Nash, Gödel, Newton and foremost: Alexander Grothendieck.
So many words for mere conjecture that is ultimately going to be used as a pat on one's own back for feeling bummed. I especially love the author's self-designation as gifted and not once expanding on this very narrow dimensionality reduction. What happened to the personality traits? What happened to character, adverse childhood experiences, education etc independent of so-called giftedness? Anyone could have come up…
I'm halfway through the article and surprised that the quality of being a neurotic person is not discussed yet or even mentioned. I find this post incredibly interesting, especially in the context of books that I've recently read and summarized like: Denial of Death by Ernest Becker ( https://www.lostbookofsales.com/notes/the-denial-of-death-by... ). Nonetheless, thanks for sharing!
This type of depressive nihilism is just a reaction to the destruction of values, after that you can progress towards an optimistic nihilism, building your values on truth instead of lies.
trying to build my values on truth makes it impossible for me to reconcile any such built values with things like liberalism, equality, egalitarianism, religious beliefs of any kind, etc. Basically pick all the dearly adhered to values of the "left" and "right" in the English speaking west and tear them up and toss them into furnace. It not a pleasant experience, especially in the culture war riven excessively online…
> It has been my experience that gifted and talented persons are more likely than those who are less gifted to experience spontaneous existential depression as an outgrowth of their mental and emotional abilities and interactions with others. I read it a while ago. While my initial reaction was "relatable", later I started getting doubts. Is it that talented people are more prone to depression (e.g. due to social iso…
It seems more plausible to me that existential dread strikes at random, and the gifted have a different set of coping strategies that leverage their giftedness. Most people just have to sort of take it because (1) existential dread doesn't imply any specific behaviours and (2) if a body wants to be able to feel existential dread tomorrow while living under a roof it has to keep earning a living.
Besides, life being meaningless doesn't imply anyone has to feel lonely or bad about it. We're all in the same boat and there isn't a reason to feel bad about the inevitable.
So many words for mere conjecture that is ultimately going to be used as a pat on one's own back for feeling bummed. I especially love the author's self-designation as gifted and not once expanding on this very narrow dimensionality reduction. What happened to the personality traits? What happened to character, adverse childhood experiences, education etc independent of so-called giftedness? Anyone could have come up…
I love how some in the Hacker News community truly believe that their immediate, knee-jerk reaction to dismiss the work of a highly experienced professional in the relevant field, who is applying their lifetime of knowledge and experience to a subject, a reaction that involves neither knowledge nor effort, is automatically correct and important for other people to read about.
In anticipation of objection that the question of one's own suffering is somehow outside the realm of analysis: I am not a Buddhist but having tasted the freedom from emotional suffering that was the result of his (the buddha's) analysis of the situation of being alive and his logical derivation of what then to do about it - from his Program, like Hilbert's, to find the solution to suffering - these days when I think of who is a "genius", I think of the buddha.
That may have been rare genius but in this era you don't need to work the answer out from scratch you only need to be smart enough to notice the problem and research a solution (since at least one exists), hence the claim.