Being OK with not being extraordinary

In my experience, a lot of what we perceive as "extraordinary," is actually marketing. Some people are extraordinary self-promoters. It seems that every other person I see on LinkedIn announces that they are a "polymath."

Many of these folks are, in fact, really brilliant/creative/hard-working/whatever, but I have known folks that no one notices, that absolutely blow me away in their products and skills. No one notices them, because they don't stand around with megaphones.

They're too busy being extraordinary.

For me, I'm pretty good at what I do. Am I "extraordinary"? I don't really care. There's always some kid in a Hanoi Internet cafe that can shred my best, so I need to be happy with what I can do.

3. The people you hear about most are heard about most because they're newsworthy in some way. That tends to mean someone who's extraordinary good at something, or at least has the marketing skill to make it seem that way.

They'll also be the types who'll get a lot of attention on social media, since people are more likely to share extraordinary stories than ordinary ones.

So you get an unrealistic picture, simply because you're seeing all the outliers.

4. People who aren't very good at something tend not to share that, whereas those who do will share it. If you're a fitness buff who can bench press 400 lbs, you're the type of person most likely to post to a fitness subreddit, or Discord server, or on relevant hashtags on Twitter/Facebook/Instagram. The many others who are out of shape? Not so much.

Either way, it all leads to a situation where success/skill is drastically overrepresented online compared to its commonness in the population as a whole.

I've gotten through high school, college, and 12 years of post-career without literally any note taking. I've come to realize that I am no longer able to be as spongey as I used to be with academic style learning (non-exploratory) and I just decided one day to start taking notes under the idea that if I rephrase what I'm learning I will better retain it (based on the adage that if you can't explain something then you don't actually understand it).

So my notes are mostly focused on non-literal summaries of what I have gotten through using my own words and phrases. So far that seems to have helped but I've only been at it for a few months so I don't have much data points.

The real test is now as I"m learning Linear Algebra and computer graphics, which I tried learning before and I don't remember much of anything from it (even though it was only a year ago).

Being a true jack of all trades can mean you're mediocre at everything, it's better IMO to specialize on certain skills within different fields - ideally ones that synergize.