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Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

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Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#211

Post by joyeuse6701 »

austenallred wrote: post #18

I am miles away from Eric or Linus, but the "curse of the gifted" is very real. Thankfully I wasn't smart or gifted enough that I could ride it for long, but when it comes to math and problem-solving I rode it well into my high school years. I never learned to do algebra "by the book," because I didn't need to. Or maybe because I wasn't smart enough to. The math teacher would teach "3x + 6 = 9." Basic algebraic probl…

Hear you on that, I had no discipline in high school compared to my contemporaries. Then I went to college and had my first CS classes. I couldn't handle the load, couldn't get the discipline to study between the distractions of college life and stubborn refusal to learn how to study. I ended up getting really into martial arts and that discipline transferred over. When I went back to school. Thank God for that, because I'd be in a very different place without it.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#212

Post by eropple »

mullingitover wrote: post #116
livingparadox wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience. Breezed through my first calculus class. No studying, no homework (also no points), not even necessarily paying attention in class. Easy A. Then I took Calc 2. I don't think I've ever failed so hard in my life. ... Except freaking english...

Integrals are the devil's handiwork. Derivatives are almost too easy, and then you get to Calc II and suddenly you're supposed to be able to do it inside out and backwards, with the help of all those dozens of identities you must now memorize. I went from an A+ in Calc I to a C- in Calc II.

Yup. I bombed calculus twice simply because I have a lot of trouble memorizing things like that. I ended up taking the sucker's way out: I took it online in a class where Mathematica was encouraged. I use derivatives and integrals pretty often now, but I've yet to need to do them by hand since.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#213

Post by dclara »

mamcx wrote: post #186
jakobe wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the kinds of problems most people have seem trivially simple to me This sounds a bit narcissistic. If you think other people's problems are trivial, maybe you're just not being empathic enough to understand their full scope. If everything looks like it follows simple patterns, maybe you just aren't looking close enough. When you learn something new, there's often this point where you feel you understand it all. If…

Perhaps is "seem (ie: Look to me) trivially simple" instead of "are trivially simple". I find very hard to be in a "regular" conversation. Bored/dislike me pop, realities, and the normal kind of conversation that people have. Even if I understand that some of that conversations are important or are NOT stupid, still, I can't plug in. Neither talk by phone, or use any kind of chat or social app (even before all that N…

Sounds not too bad. But what kind of productive things do you do in a library all days?

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#214

Post by enjo »

Varcht wrote: post #48
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got burned by this too. Problem, unfortunately, goes deeper than just not learning how to do math. You skip learning ability to structurally learn new things at a young age, because you simply "get" how things work. So by the time you hit the wall you not only not know how to do math correctly, but also have no idea how to structurally learn correct way and must do both at the same time. Here most people give up an…

My daughter has gotten burnt in a similar way. She's grown up in the teach to the test era. She has been a straight A student and sadly I did not see it but what she is gifted in is memorization. You tell her 300 answers to the upcoming test and she will be able to recall them. It is now becoming apparent that she is stunted when it comes to actually reasoning and learning, PSAT kicked her butt and as a HS Junior she…

I can tell you what worked for a friends daughter: Music. They steered her (somewhere around her sophmore year) into playing piano and eventually she found the guitar.

As she described it "I needed to rewire my brain and music was the way to do that". From her perspective learning to play music helped her begin to understand how things "fit" together in her head. Her ability to memorize things was incredibly helpful (so she was initially a step-up in confidence), but as she played more she began to see how chords build on each other to form songs. She went from rote memorization to actually building a mental model of music.

In the end she became not only a fantastic musician but a MUCH better student.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#215

Post by [deleted] »

austenallred wrote: post #18

I am miles away from Eric or Linus, but the "curse of the gifted" is very real. Thankfully I wasn't smart or gifted enough that I could ride it for long, but when it comes to math and problem-solving I rode it well into my high school years. I never learned to do algebra "by the book," because I didn't need to. Or maybe because I wasn't smart enough to. The math teacher would teach "3x + 6 = 9." Basic algebraic probl…

[deleted]

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#216

Post by lawtguy »

nether wrote: post #23

I'm not gifted, I'm actually pretty dumb. Can anyone help a stupid normal person relate to this article?

Lots of good explanations in this thread, but I'll add my own:

I'd call it the trap of the gifted, rather than the curse. That trap has three prongs:

1) Gifted people get concepts right away, almost effortlessly.

2) Because it's so easy for them, they never have to work at learning. It just happens for them.

3) Being so good at something earns praise from their teachers, parents, friends, etc. This often becomes central to their self-esteem.

This is fine until the day when their giftedness alone simply doesn't cut it. It could be in high school, or college, or graduate school or maybe even at some point in their professional career. But eventually it stops being easy and this is usually a very traumatic event.

Because of the three prongs of the trap, the gifted person finds themselves in a very hard situation. First, they are not used to frustration because previously they got everything right away. Second, they have no persistence because they've never had to work hard. Third, they become anxious and afraid and possibly even become depressed because they are no longer "smart" (at least by their own definition).

Being gifted isn't a curse or a trap in and of itself, but it can lead to a certain kinds of bad habits. Schools and parents tend not to do a very good job correcting these bad habits, which can lead to big problems.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#217

Post by dclara »

bane wrote: post #182
jakobe wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the kinds of problems most people have seem trivially simple to me This sounds a bit narcissistic. If you think other people's problems are trivial, maybe you're just not being empathic enough to understand their full scope. If everything looks like it follows simple patterns, maybe you just aren't looking close enough. When you learn something new, there's often this point where you feel you understand it all. If…

> This sounds a bit narcissistic. I know. That's the trouble with talking about growing up or being highly intelligent, you end up sounding like a narcissistic prick. Even saying something like "I've tested in the top 1-2% of dozens of aptitude and intelligence tests" sounds like I'm lording it over those who haven't. But I don't think it's really all that different than saying "I'm taller than 99% of the population"…

Looks like you have extremely high IQ. But IQ is not the only merit leading towards a successful and fulfilling life.

When you think most problems people deal with are simple and similar. Take your example, overweighted. You think the solution is simple: exercise more, eat less. Usually it's from an engineer's brain. But probably, you forgot to take your excuses into consideration, that's why you over simplified it. Then you struggled with it like many other people. If you do take all of the aspects into consideration, it's no longer simple any more.

When you easily felt bored after you have learn something new, I think it's lacking of depth to learn it more or to find more fundamental problems in it before you skip it.

I agree with you in most of the points, but I wish I could see that you can really dive into something and make it a big different for the world. If you cannot find anything with enough challenge for you, you may want to visit here: http://kck.st/JNqv8z because most people think that they are overwhelmed.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#218

Post by socrates1998 »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #140
socrates1998 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is so true. I hated my life for years because I knew if I could have just been more disciplined, then I would have been free from all the horrible, mind numbing, soul crushing stuff I had to do at my corporate job. It took me years to finally leap into self-employment.

>It took me years to finally leap into self-employment. What do you do? How did you start?

I was a teacher for a few years, so I transitioned that into a tutoring company and I am doing some freelance web design as well.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#219

Post by dclara »

FLUX-YOU wrote: post #176
bane wrote: post #107

edit a little stream of consciousness follows Curse of being gifted is very real. I wonder sometimes how many people couldn't break out of it and have ended up in bad jobs, or worse. Probably like many HNers I also suffered from it mightily in K-12 and by the time I realized what was going on, I was already so far behind that escaping school, rather than redoing years of what I missed, was the easier option. It took…

>Curse of being gifted is very real. I wonder sometimes how many people couldn't break out of it and have ended up in bad jobs, or worse. I read this and immediately thought "Oh, I must be gifted and suffering from this, because in high school I was good at computers, english, science, basic algebra, and geometry and ended up with a useless degree and a bad job." I don't know if I really am gifted, but it's easy to l…

Again, high IQ is not the only merit leading towards a successful and fulfilling life. If you are biased on the IQ side, maybe you have comparatively low EQ, I just guess, because you feel sad about your current situation and don't know how to deal with it.

Take advantage of your merits and avoid the shortcomings by making appropriate decisions towards your job and future endeavor. But how?

First of all, you are not a gifted victim. What you need to do is to uplift yourself to take more challenges and opportunities in your life instead of being buried in your bad job and sadness.

Second, do more research to find the area you are most interested in and dive into that. If you cannot concentrate on certain field or topic, that's a different issue, part of which is regarding the EQ.

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