Category: Personal Reflections and Diary

LIFE IS HARD FOR VERY SMART PEOPLE

(from elsewhere)

Great piece. I found childhood brutal in many ways. It was very hard to be happy. As an adult it is hard to be happy.

1) BEST ADVICE I DIDN’T GET: “Don’t do it their way.” I have an orthogonal frame of reference: everything is easy. So I teach myself. I teach myself at my own rate. And usually one subject at a time. I work more slowly but grasp at far deeper depth. Everyone else is wasting my time. And all the great teachers are available in the great books in the library. The rest are very poor substitutes.

2) BEST ADVICE I DID GET: “We are a tiny minority. It’s their world, not ours. Help them navigate it. But don’t expect them to change, or it to change.”

3) BEST ADVICE I GAVE MYSELF: “Love others like they are children. Enjoy them. Do not try to control them or improve them. Let them learn about the world. If they ask, help them ‘just enough’. As a general rule try to compliment or help everyone you meet – in their way, not what you want to in your way. They will like you back for it.”

4) MOTIVATION: “Women”. I’m a competitor. I like women, good food, money, time-to-think, and power to do what I wish. So I had to learn those ‘ordinary’ skills. I had to ‘learn to try’ not in intellectual but social matters. And it paid off. I think this is a better direction for the hyper intelligent to pursue than additional mastery of additional fields of little potential return. It’s in the mastery of the ordinary that most of us find our only substantive challenge, and one that produces the most substantial rewards. The lost potential in the very smart is caused by their free riding on intellectual matters and never solving the most important one.