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Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

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Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#91

Post by pengaru »

The vast majority of software ever written is not only not executing on any computers today, but is completely lost to the ether.

Get used to your contributions in this field being irrelevant to the world at large, especially in the long-term. It's a statistical probability.

My personal happiness went up substantially when I started building physical things in the real world. Writing software is a great way to earn money, but making a lasting positive impact on the general public is a lot easier to achieve if you do something tangible, like build/restore housing.

Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#93

Post by baby »

interroboink wrote: post #46

My recommendation: feel your feelings, all the way through. There might be some tendency, when you feel small, to feel bad about feeling small — as though it is further evidence of your worthlessness — and that itself makes you feel worse, and down the spiral you go... Been there (: But if you make space for (or even _welcome_) those feelings, even if you don't like them, then in my experience you end up at a better…

I have a hard time understanding what you mean by welcoming them, or feeling them through. But if I interpret that as “accepting it”, as in understanding that it’s totally fine and that pressure is always created from comparing yourself, then I agree. Feynmann himself is famous for saying “disregards”.

Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#94

Post by dvh1990 »

Reading through the various comments, I wonder what happened to good old-fashioned ambition. Other than my post, all I can see are "it's ok, I feel the same way, don't change" replies.

We used to admire our heroes and try to emulate them, and if fortunate enough, come as close to them as our talents and circumstances would allow. And we did that through hard work, through having lofty goals and working hard to achieve them. Yes, many failed to reach their goals, but ambition and hard work is what built this species, this civilization.

Why are we forsaking that in favor of a "you don't have to try so hard, it's ok to be mediocre" mindset?

Why did we stop trying?

Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#96

Post by carnitine »

biggestlou wrote: post #7

There's no such thing as "raw" intelligence. Those people you find so incredibly impressive who have done such worthwhile things? Every single one of them sucks ass at a multitude of things. Every single one of them would see something in your set of capabilities that would astound them. It takes a vast constellation of capabilities, including yours, to create and sustain our world.

John von Neumann could multiply eight digit numbers mentally and hold conversation in multiple languages by the age of six. How could that be attributed to anything but raw intelligence? Had his parents somehow stumbled upon the perfect formula for child rearing in 1900s Hungary?

Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#97

Post by mikaelsouza »

This is one of the best HN posts I've read in a while. It feels so close to home, and I think it's amazing that people are sharing their feeling about this topic.

Sometimes I feel the same as OP, but then, when I encounter a post like this one, I remember that most people aren't going to do super-duper gigantic world-changing stuff and that's ok. Really!

Don't beat yourself because you didn't create RCT using assembly by yourself. As others said, people are so different and we all live under different circumstances.

The thing that I always try to remember when I feel like I am "nobody" is to do things that I enjoy and that matter to me. I don't need to change the entire world to feel accomplished. I can do what I feel is important and be happy with the impact it makes on my own life and other people's lives.

Don't worry OP, you're not alone. :)

Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#98

Post by irateswami »

> I sometimes wonder if my mental condition or my medication has had an effect on this: I'm bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.

Good Lord what the hell are you doing on HN then?!?!? Go talk to your therapist/doctor for God's sake and get off social media.

Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#99

Post by endymi0n »

Been there, thought that. Great stuff in the other comments as well, but adding the comment that stuck with me from my first therapist: „To compare yourself means to hurt yourself.“

Finding out _why_ I felt I needed to be ultra special was the first puzzle piece towards healing to me.

Accepting myself as I am, loving my imperfect self and connecting to the needs I had as a child was the second one.

And if you still think you need to be special after that, I‘ll leave this quote from Ira Glass for you for your way ahead:

„Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.“

Re: Ask HN: I feel so shallow and dumb when I see what other smart people are doing

#100

Post by achillesheels »

foobarian wrote: post #33

I have these kinds of feelings a lot. It is hard to feel useful in this day and age of a ubiquitous globally connected society because for anything you attempt to do you have instant access to the top 0.0001% of the Bell curve who you have no hope of ever beating. I find comfort in that I am not alone, thinking of all the peasants and regular workers across history who didn't amount to much either, but still mostly f…

Children are the ultimate creative project. Beyond that, proper child-raising is promoting the well-being of the future of the human race. This is the 99%'s highest fulfillment and should not be looked down upon as being incomplete. Indeed, it is a wonderful testimony to the abundance of giving life to promote more life-giving.
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