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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

#131

Post by passer_byer »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #116
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…

Family, kids — I agree. I stopped giving a shit about "changing the world" when my kids came into my life. They became my world. And you will change their world. I suspect they'll remember me forever.

This! I was constantly looking to grab the next rung up on the career ladder. Having kids made me rethink my priorities on helping them mature into happy, productive members of society. Sure, we made a pile of mistakes along the way in our child rearing efforts. I'm hoping the same, that they will remember me and my wife forever. I think they will.

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

#132

Post by vorteux »

It's not so much imposter syndrome. It's that research-based graduate experience matters, not in what one learns, but that it forces a person to go through 4 to 7 years of deeply focused introspection, often on fundamental reality.

I suspect similar experience can be gained in a monastery or deep spiritual processes. It's not that PhD is a requirement, people gain this ability in different ways, just it's the most standard way to set aside 5-7 years to focus nowadays.

It's not the kind of experience that one can gain from undergrad, or in a regular 9-5. Also when we are older, it's difficult to find the kind of time to do deeply focused introspection on a single topic.

Without this process, it's easy to get trapped into superficial learning, and confuse regurgitating factoids with knowledge and insight.

The key to do this once again is that instead of trying to learn everything, focus on a singular topic very deeply for a non-trivial amount of time.

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

#133

Post by uptownfunk »

This was strangely motivational. Given how you write and your degree of introspection you can get to where you want to be.

One thing I realized lately, is the hard work you put in today may not bear fruit for a while. There's also a power of compounding. Ultimately it all starts with what you are passionate about.

Not to be rude, it's good you feel shallow and dumb, because it shows you perceive the absence. So now it's a question of what you do with that feeling.

What gets you excited today? How can you start making baby steps towards that? Start small, and remember if you make 1% towards something every day, that will really quickly start to add up.

The worst thing you can do is nothing! And then you'd grow old, look back at your life, and feel the regret of what you could have done, when now you are old, graying, wrinkly and dying.

Isn't life too short to have that regret? And you are only 30!

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

#134

Post by vorteux »

It's not so much imposter syndrome. It's that research-based graduate experience matters, not in what one learns, but that it forces a person to go through 4 to 7 years of deeply focused introspection, often on fundamental reality.

I suspect similar experience can be gained in a monastery or deep spiritual processes. It's not that PhD is a requirement, people gain this ability in different ways, just it's the most standard way to set aside 4-7 years to focus nowadays.

It's not the kind of experience that one can gain from standard undergrad education, or in a regular 9-5. Also when we are older, it's difficult to find the kind of time to do deeply focused introspection on a single topic.

Without this process, it's easy to get trapped into superficial learning, and confuse regurgitating factoids with knowledge and insight.

The key to do this once again is that instead of trying to learn everything, focus on a singular topic very deeply for a non-trivial amount of time.

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

#135

Post by JohnBooty » 

    I sometimes wonder if my mental condition or 
    my medication has had an effect on this: I'm 
    bipolar schizoaffective and borderline.
Hey, I don't know if anybody has told you lately but maintaining a successful career with these challenges is fucking spectacular, and you're doing it!

Be proud, friend!

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

#136

Post by systemvoltage »

A lot of bad advice here generally trending to a defeatist attitude. The simple fact is that when you work on something for an extended period of time, persistently, it grows and grows. Give a solid hour of work every day for a year and you might be surprised what kind of things you can build. Now, think about doing this full time for years on - there are a lot of smart people but more often than not, aforementioned persistence is masquerading as genius.

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

#137

Post by jacquesm »

If you had been born in the middle of the 1960's or so you too probably would be a crack assembly programmer, you didn't really have a choice in 1982 if you wanted your stuff to run at an acceptable speed.

The good news is: retrocomputing is a thing and you can set up an environment like that for pennies nowadays. But it will take time and you will have a lot of frustrating experiences, nothing more humbling than computer from four decades ago that does exactly what you tell it to do, no more, no less (which is rarely what you intended it to do...).

Best of luck getting your feeling under control, I am very happy that I'm not forced into todays' fast moving environment where skillsets usefullness has a half life that is short enough that you will have to retrain many times during a single career, something that in the past was much less of a problem. And this pace is still accelerating, people born today will likely have it worse.

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

#138

Post by csw-001 »

When I feel this way I volunteer locally in my community. I am immediately reminded there’s more work to do helping our fellow humans than can ever be done - and it makes me feel proud and useful when I would otherwise be frustrated and burned out.

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

#139

Post by wakamoleguy »

sanderjd wrote: post #130
dvh1990 wrote: post #23

I'll be brutally honest because I used to be in your situation. Each and every person you admire has poured thousands of hours into some project. For some that's a degree. For some it's a game they wrote, for others it's company that they've started... Have you done that? Spent thousands of hours on a single thing? Focused on a project long enough to actually see results? I'm guessing not, because if you would have t…

This gets at the crux of my angst along the OP's line: When I look at people who have dedicated themselves to that thing that they pored so many hours into, what I always wonder is, "How did they make the decision to put so much of their time into that thing ." Like, I agree with OP that the Roller Coaster Tycoon one man project is really impressive. But there's no world in which I could possibly care enough about bu…

And that’s ok! I am happier with my current life of balance than I ever would be with that level of singular focus. The hard part is not comparing yourself to people who have made those choices differently than you. I often find myself saying things to myself like “Sure, if I put that time in, maybe I could be like that. But I choose not to, because that is not important to me.”

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

#140

Post by LamdbaMamba »

codegeek wrote: post #6

I know the feeling but I will leave you with this: "There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. ― Ernest Hemingway"

This is a quote I remind myself of a lot, because it's important, but for the life of me I can't find a source for Hemingway ever saying this. I think it was attributed to him before even before Kingsmen: The Secret Service but I'm not sure?
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