Curse Of The Gifted (2000) • Hacker News Board

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#261

Post by dclara » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 5:48 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #246

dclara wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, "dunking a ball". We are talking about "dunking a ball" when you are taller than most of other people. You have a good metaphor here, but what kinds of ball are you dunking when you have higher IQ than other people? Do you do anything productive to take advantage of your high IQ? I didn't see it yet. I agree that being super intelligent is a disaster to people around you. But if you can make something to benefit…

I don't want to get dragged down by measuring intelligence with IQ. It's a vague and unclear measure at best. But to answer the spirit of your question. It depends. What's the cognitive task I'm gifted at? Did I do that task? Why should I feel shameful for doing that? If I'm good at rational reasoning, is doing the act of reasoning bad? If I'm good at advanced physics, is doing physics bad? If I'm good at painting, o…

Nice to hear that you have your own focus. I doubt about that because from what you've said in the previous posts, you feel lonely, or socially lonely, because not many common topics can be shared between you and the normal people. Or you feel it's so hard to make the advanced research in your area to benefit normal people.

I guess there is a gap in your heart which needs to be bridged with your social life. Advanced research can be seen as a type of work, all the scientists are kind of isolated with the regular groups of people. But they can still have their social life to enjoy food, art and something else outside the work.

On the other hand, my doubt came from the fact that you have a wife who is more intelligent than you. If you did, you would never feel lonely. No matter what you do in this world, you have companion who can really understand your value is. You should not feel lonely and you would not feel it so weird when you see the majority of people cannot understand you. If you wish to get rid of the social isolation, there are always ways to enjoy other types of pleasure life brings to you. I still think you are too narrow on a certain spot over the entire spectrum of life.

At any moment when I see any small achievement I get, I feel so fulfilled, especially when some people may understand my work. That's enough.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#262

Post by graycat » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 5:52 AM UTC

bunderbunder wrote: post #103

ejk314 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Straight As can mask a lot of problems. I've got a room mate who was put ahead a grade in middle?late-elementary school and missed the whole foundation of algebra. They did so because he got straight A's so obviously he's smart enough; he could just skip that. (They promised to give him a text book so he could learn on his own that summer, but never got around to giving it to him.) Of course, he started struggling i…

I have never, ever, ever met someone who was well-served by skipping a grade. Myself included. Ever. Skipping a grade means giving up a full year of education. If that proposition doesn't give you pause, you probably don't have enough respect for the value of education. Even if you you get absolutely nothing out of that year aside from the soft skills you develop by sitting in a class with other kids and listening to…

In high school, a relatively good high school (public, but my year MIT came recruiting, and the year before three guys went to Princeton and ran against each other against some fourth SOB for President of the freshman class), I took four years of math. Since my brother was in a private college, to save money I did my freshman year at a not very good state college. There they wouldn't let me take calculus and, instead, forced me into some 'college algebra' -- from my four years in high school I already knew 99% of it. So, a girl told me when the tests were, and I showed up only for those. Teacher said I was "The best math student I've ever had.". Well, maybe, but the main reason was I'd long since learned the material.

So, for calculus, I just got a good book and dug in. So, yes, first I did the chapters on analytic geometry, i.e., the conic sections -- hyperbolas, parabolas, ellipses -- and then one with calculus. For my next year, my brother was out of the good, private college, so I transferred in as a sophomore and hopeful math major. So, I started with their sophomore calculus. Did fine. Wrote my honors paper in math and got 800 on my GRE Math knowledge test.

But, right, I 'skipped' freshman calculus, never took it! Didn't get credit for it, either.

In grad school, there was an advanced course in linear algebra. I'd never had a course in linear algebra but still told the faculty that I didn't need that course. They said, with a patronizing smile, "Take it anyway.".

Okay. I blew away all the other students with by wide margins the highest scores on homework, tests, and midterm and final exams. Prof wrote, "Best performance in the class. Knows this material cold.". Yup. I told them so! Heck, I'd wanted to study optimal control theory, not waste time with linear algebra. How'd I do that? That is, essentially 'skip' a first, and, really, an advanced, second course in linear algebra? Easy? I already knew the material from independent study of a stack of books, including some of the best, especially Halmos, 'Finite Dimensional Vector Spaces'. But in total it was a big stack. How? Why? A long list of various projects in school and in my career in physics, signal processing, applied math, numerical analysis, multivariate statistics, and more along with some careful independent study.

Lesson: Independent study can work fine. Then can 'skip' about whatever you want, at least in math.

Really, guys, what the heck do you think a research prof or any researcher does? Actually know all that stuff just from sitting in classes in school? Heck no! Instead they learn, from texts, papers, seminars, etc. Actually, if need to know something and can get a good text, then usually can get good understanding of just what need from that text for less than 10% of the effort that would be required if had to learn the text well enough to get an A on all of it. Net, independent study is crucial.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#263

Post by dclara » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 5:56 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #235

dclara wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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. But it is, that's my point. If I went out and jogged instead of being on HN, and cut my portions by 25-30%, I'd be f…

Losing weight is not that simple. A short term effect can be made easily. But after a while, your bad habit will drive you back and even your body will feel better to stay at a certain weight, refuse to reduce more. The worse case is it usually bounces back. So short term weight loss does not count.

This is a problem that so many people are fighting against, and mostly we are losing. Exercise may help, eat less may help, they are not ultimate solutions. The fundamental thing or the root cause is that our metabolism becomes slow which tends to accumulate more fat, and the energy being absorbed from food is not enough per meal, so we tend to eat more. Increasing the quality of food without junk, all organic and fresh, no transgenes, no trans-fat, is the ultimate solution along with regular exercise. But we may not be able to afford or be willing to pay the cost for staying healthy. It has a long term impact.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#264

Post by parasight » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 5:56 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #235

dclara wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

> 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. But it is, that's my point. If I went out and jogged instead of being on HN, and cut my portions by 25-30%, I'd be f…

It's hard on a non-intellectual level. Humans - even highly intelligent ones - don't work on pure logic. Why do people smoke? It's deadly. It's not logical. Same applies to overweight, sport, drugs, etc.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#265

Post by bane » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 6:08 AM UTC

nick_urban wrote: post #259

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…

If you want to improve your depression and clarify your thoughts, I recommend practicing awareness meditation for 15 minutes every morning and/or evening. After a few weeks, the results can be dramatic.

I might take you up on that. I've done some personal meditation exercises in the past and found that "disconnecting" during those sessions, brings about a kind of bliss.

Not sure if I can describe it well, but it's like taking a running car out of gear and just letting it coast. As thoughts enter and threaten the moment, just say "hi" and let them pass right through, rather than dwell on them.

Getting all the buzzing bees to quiet down for a few minutes is wonderful.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#266

Post by jaekwon » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 6:10 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #244

doctorstupid wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "the kinds of problems most people have seem trivially simple to me" From this I can tell that you're smart, but not really smart. The really smart never say things like that.

Can you provide an example of a typical problem most people have that's not trivially solvable by "don't do the thing that causes you to have the problem?" There's literally hundreds of thousands of pages of advice columns and books and lectures you can go to about various typical money/relationship problems which make up the vast bulk of people's issues which are all summed up with the above. Problem: I don't make e…

Problem: I can't find other people that I can associate with.

Solution: Move & get a career where you're more likely to find the right people.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#267

Post by yason » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 6:11 AM UTC

I'm cursed with the gift of being slightly better than most in nearly all things but not at all stellar in any single one. I never learned to study in school because I've always learned things on my own.

This has carried me far but my limits are always there, always visible, at 360 degrees. Meeting and seeing stellar people is a good reminder of that.

The converse point is related to dealing with whatever talent you have. The essence is to learn to keep yourself in the unconfidence and doubt as for your skills even if so many people around you don't seem to "get" what's obvious to you.

If you think too highly of yourself even if the evidence seems to be on your side, the reality will bite back. And that makes you go back and shut a part of yourself down, and you're in a position that worse than where you started.

For example, in programming the only way to handle your skills is to assume the role of a beginner and expect the existing code to be right for a reason that you don't understand yet. If it turns out to be blindly obvious that the original author had no idea what he was doing and a partial rewrite is not only in place but unavoidable, only then accept it as there are no other options left.

The trap is seeing too much of that and starting to hallucinate that thanks to your talents you can "just know" and short-circuit right through the way of doubt. No you can't.

As a talented person you need to remain humble and only exercise your skills and vision when there are no other choices left. That will keep your ego in shape.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#268

Post by bane » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 6:11 AM UTC

dclara wrote: post #261

bane wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to get dragged down by measuring intelligence with IQ. It's a vague and unclear measure at best. But to answer the spirit of your question. It depends. What's the cognitive task I'm gifted at? Did I do that task? Why should I feel shameful for doing that? If I'm good at rational reasoning, is doing the act of reasoning bad? If I'm good at advanced physics, is doing physics bad? If I'm good at painting, o…

Nice to hear that you have your own focus. I doubt about that because from what you've said in the previous posts, you feel lonely, or socially lonely, because not many common topics can be shared between you and the normal people. Or you feel it's so hard to make the advanced research in your area to benefit normal people. I guess there is a gap in your heart which needs to be bridged with your social life. Advanced…

> I still think you are too narrow on a certain spot over the entire spectrum of life.

I think you are right. When I think on my wife, the loneliness goes away, but it's tempting to fall back into old thinking patterns and habits, no? Sometimes bad feelings you've carried around for a long time are comfortable, like an old pair of shoes.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#269

Post by dclara » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 6:14 AM UTC

parasight wrote: post #264

bane wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. But it is, that's my point. If I went out and jogged instead of being on HN, and cut my portions by 25-30%, I'd be f…

It's hard on a non-intellectual level. Humans - even highly intelligent ones - don't work on pure logic. Why do people smoke? It's deadly. It's not logical. Same applies to overweight, sport, drugs, etc.

You have an interesting point. If we think we are rational enough to do things according to the right logic, there are still a lot of chances we fail. Most of the case, it's hard to control our body to follow logic because we are not only driven by our brains.

Re: Curse Of The Gifted (2000)

#270

Post by dclara » Wed, Feb 12, 2014, 6:25 AM UTC

bane wrote: post #268

dclara wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice to hear that you have your own focus. I doubt about that because from what you've said in the previous posts, you feel lonely, or socially lonely, because not many common topics can be shared between you and the normal people. Or you feel it's so hard to make the advanced research in your area to benefit normal people. I guess there is a gap in your heart which needs to be bridged with your social life. Advanced…

> I still think you are too narrow on a certain spot over the entire spectrum of life. I think you are right. When I think on my wife, the loneliness goes away, but it's tempting to fall back into old thinking patterns and habits, no? Sometimes bad feelings you've carried around for a long time are comfortable, like an old pair of shoes.

Yes, I sort of understand what you mean. I guess the only way out to relieve from the bad feeling is to be grateful for what life has brought to us. But I know, feeling is feeling, feeling is not logic. Try it, you may feel different, because our daily life is impacted by our emotional energy on a large scale.

Another angle to see the loneliness is from a long historic point of view. We are all lonely on the way to be born. See the story here: http://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html by Andy Weir. So try to forget about it or ignore the feeling and find every piece of joy in your daily life.