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Existential Depression in Gifted Children and Adults (2009) [pdf]
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoYes I am sure everyone indulges nihilism for a week when they realize our cultural mythologies of fixed morality, final judgement and eternal rewards are replaced by the inevitability of human life and indeed our entire planet disappearing...but anyone rational, especially "gifted", compartmentalizes it and moves on. But if you want to believe you are "gifted" because you read some Nietzsche, we can't stop you. I would offer that such faux-crises are the result of a lack of scarcity, not intellectual capacity. No one who has to hunt for lunch has time to ponder the inevitable death of the sun. We're just bored and tired. We rejected intangible cultural myths like religion and replaced them with vapid consumerism...now we're blue...boohoo. Maybe a nice war would help.
- DoofusOfDeath 10y agoApparently not everyone concludes that morality is unfixed, etc., because not every adult has concluded that God is fictional.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoObviously, but we sneer at them and regard them as knuckle-dragging baboons...but maybe they just accept a base lie so they can dispense with navel-gazing and get on with life. This is why, as an atheist, I totally support most people's decision to effectively believe in ghosts...it enables them to live life. The HN crowd also has its own faith propositions, but you can't challenge them...
- voidhorse 10y agoDogmatism is dogmatism whether or not there's a man in the sky behind it.
- smaddox 10y agoCertainly true. There's a larger gap between the atheism of Feynman et al and the "atheism" of Stalin, than between the latter and the major world religions.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoStalin grew up in a rigidly religious family, which extended to his early education. He was clearly psychotic, was beaten as a child, and maybe not even an atheist as an adult, who can say. Atheism...if you take it to imply a purely materialistic worldview, doesn't preclude mass murder...these are just organic forms that no longer perform certain functions. Since there is no god there is no eternal punishment, nor is there even any requirement that you assume others cherish their lives as you do yours. Indeed, a purely materialistic view might hold that mass murder was an inevitable outcome for Stalin (free will being a theistic construct). As an atheist I accept this as one interpretation of atheism...it's not mine, but we have no Pope to dictate beliefs (and yes, atheism is also a belief system). Richard Dawkins is no more an authority on atheism than anyone else This is why we have a criminal justice system instead of just leaving punishment to a deity...to prevent people from reaching and acting on the potential logical outcomes of a vacuum. Stalin basically had no authority beyond himself and he pursued one possible course of action one could in that situation, there was nothing to stop him from acting on his impulses and becoming one of history's most prolific mass murderers Is our position any loftier in a rational sense? I destroyed a parade of ants in my garage last week. I scrubbed my cutting board with bleach. Where is the line?
- return0 10y ago> has its own faith propositions, but you can't challenge them... I wonder if people even try to change other's faith nowadays. Personally i like having my beliefs challenged, but it doesnt happen often enough.
- pmyjavec 10y agoIt's hard to challenge with the 'downvote' button available ;)
- bobcostas55 10y ago>I would offer that such faux-crises are the result of a lack of scarcity, not intellectual capacity. No one who has to hunt for lunch has time to ponder the inevitable death of the sun. Some of the oldest (and greatest) literature we have, composed in a time of extreme poverty, brutality, and hardship (not to mention 100% illiteracy), deals exactly with that. The Iliad is fundamentally about mortality, its implications, how to deal with it, questioning your culture's morality, searching for meaning in the face of impeding death, etc.
- mcguire 10y agoThere is a quote by Tolkien, I believe, to the extent that the fundamental topic of The Lord of the Rings is about mortality, by which he means that it was written by a human being.
- headShrinker 10y ago> but anyone rational, especially "gifted", compartmentalizes it and moves on I'm mildly shocked at your inability to realize not everyone 'gifted' is rational, nor do they necessarily compartmentalize. Some of the greatest minds ever recorded in history had emotional problems, and issues working with others. Many were not rational, or socially normal.
- return0 10y ago> everyone 'gifted' is rational this was not implied in OP
- headShrinker 10y agoIf you are going to quote me please sample the entire logical phrase. > not everyone 'gifted' is rational, nor do they necessarily compartmentalize. This was directly implied by the OP. > but anyone rational, especially "gifted", compartmentalizes it and moves on. OP's statement implicitly states 'rational' beings are a group and 'gifted' are a subgroup of 'rational' beings. OP directly implies 'gifted' is rational.
- return0 10y agoTo a degree, i wonder if we need a new breed of atheist idols. The old guard is too gloomy and frail. Atheism can be a rosy cheeked child. This perceived unhealthiness attached to existentialism should go away.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoWe do but they are awful and flawed...Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk etc...we revere the rich as if they were gods. I would not be surprised if John Gruber has prayed to Steve at least once.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agoI don't think David Graeber believes in gods. Let's try him.
- nitrogen 10y agoThere is a trend sometimes called New Atheism that you may find satisfying. Its main tenets seem to be that all claims can be subjected to scientific inquiry (including religous claims), and that atheism needn't be depressing. Prolific authors in the trend include Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, Sam Harris, and others.
- jankins 10y agoI agree with you but I think you might make the same mistake as the author -- to say truly gifted people act as you do, which is to compartmentalize and move on. IMO there needs to be some more substance to support that association.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- aoiao 10y agoYou're the kind of blathering know-it-all loudmouth that enhances existential depression.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago>but anyone rational, especially "gifted", compartmentalizes it and moves on. Everyone point and laugh at the idiot who thinks life is objectively meaningless!
- Retr0spectrum 10y ago> As one child described it, they feel "like abandoned aliens waiting for the mother ship to come and take them home" This is exactly how I felt. I can remember thinking those exact words when I was very young - although I didn't really start questioning the nature of reality until my early teens. At some point, I realised that these thoughts were only causing depression, so I decided to simply stop thinking about them. I also became apathetic, and detached from my own emotions. Ultimately, my own existential depression led to self-destructive behavior - perhaps this was related to the coping strategy of "Seeking novelty and adrenaline rushes". Edit: I would like to add that I do not consider myself gifted. I simply have a rather narrow set of interests which I have become good at. I think it is particularly common for "technical" people to be told they are gifted, because to the untrained observer their skills can seem like wizardry.
- voidhorse 10y agoI know where you are coming from. I felt that I was a member of a different species, to the point where that idea quite literally manifested itself as a concrete possibility in my head. You're right man, it's all thought based...it's all brain weirdness. It's a conflict between biosocial and intellectual factors. The only way to push past it is to change your mindset. I can't speak for others, obviously, but for me that's been a long and arduous process. There are ways to question the nature of life and the world and to remain calm and serene about it. To remain level. I found too that little things are a big help...I lived a long time not bothering myself with "minor" and "vain" concerns... i.e. fancy clothing, delicious meals etc... but truly taking care and investing in these little things, concerning yourself with the quality of the little practices you partake in everyday really does begin to help. Caring about yourself in little ways slowly but surely leads to a more positive overall conception of your own self and your movement through the world.
- Retr0spectrum 10y agoI had a sudden "wake up call" about a year ago, and since then things have been getting much better. Partly because I have become more independent, but also because I have perfected the art of simply not thinking about things that I want to ignore. I'm not sure if that's healthy or not, but it seems to work.
- voidhorse 10y agoI'm not going to touch on whether the 'gifted' only feel this sort of constancy of existential fear and depression. I don't think that matters. I think moving past it does. It's a question of framing. I have battled this sort of perspective, the existentialist depression, for a long time. I am finally beginning to realize the radical openness of life can be viewed in another way. You can see this existential predicament we all share not as something ultimately harrowing , but rather a gift. The future truly is open. Radically so. Existence does precede essence--rather there's no essence at all. See what occurs as a gift, when you can. The works of Samuel Beckett, though perhaps on a surface interpretation nihilistic and perhaps depressing, are actually a point of positivity for me. I find they really capture the open nature of life and its inherent lack of structure, or apparent (key word) purpose, and the human propensity, which is really quite admirable, to go on, in spite of all that. The following are all quotes from Beckett I like to keep in mind when I am viewing life in a grim manner and want to improve my mood: but who cares how things pass, provided they pass. the end is the beginning, and yet you go on. A story is not compulsory, just a life, that's the mistake I made, one of the mistakes, to have wanted a story for myself, whereas life alone is enough. ---- The important thing, I think, is to live. You can't control how things pass, but you can rest easier, perhaps, if you lay down your head knowing you at least tried. I had a professor whom I will always cherish that said "what if, could have, should have, would have, if only" are the words of tragedy. I've finally taken that lesson to heart. An importnat step for me was deciding and forcing myself to go out and do things I normally didn't do. I'm not an inherently social person, and I forced myself to modify that. I'm still not a butterfly by any means, but getting out there, meeting people, learning about them and how they lived their lives, genuinely starting to care about them, that all helps. Solitude, while it can be a sweet companion, I think is probably the worst possible thing to have when facing this sort of condition of existential worry. A story is not compulsory. It is written, if you write it. Sorry for personal ramblings, but I've been through what I'd call existential dread and its not fun, not fun at all. We only have one shot at this life thing. At the end of the day, spending it in a state of perpetual negativity is sorrowful. It's my hope, I guess, that maybe venting my own process of change and moving on from this incessant feeling of damnation will help someone else too, even just a little. Keep on living guys.
- 10y ago
- dschiptsov 10y agoMemes, memes everywhere.. Existential depression, my ass! Gifted adults, and even children, would surely read things like Stepenwolf, On The Road, Cuckoos Nest, Nausea, Age Of Reason and the likes and cure themselves. Depression is nothing but a set of acquired habits. Change in behavior, caused by traveling and excessive reading, will produce a different perspective upon so called reality and an altered set of habits which will change ones personality. For better or worse. This kind of CBT goes back to the seers and sages of the East and the first great philosophers of the West somewhere about 600 B.C. It still works.
- itsjareds 10y agoMaybe we're discussing different definitions of the word "depression" here, but depression isn't simply "walked off" or fixed with a change of perspective. To suggest so both ignores the reality of depression as a mental illness and repeats the same myth that people who are depressed are just confusing themselves.
- dschiptsov 10y agoSome people just did it. Some even wrote books based on such experience.
- ionised 10y ago> Depression is nothing but a set of acquired habits. Nope.
- dschiptsov 10y agoNo one has been born depressed.
- ionised 10y agoHumans develop and change both mentally and physically over time.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoJust get on a plane en route to Aleppo and your petty Western suburban crisis will evaporate instantaneously upon arrival
- voidhorse 10y agoNo doubt it would. If I were to do that and manage to survive however I imagine it will come back with a vengeance.
- jackyinger 10y agoTake your troll bs and get on that plane yourself. Your pretty clearly in as privileged a position as any of this site's readership.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoI'm not the one curled up with a dog-eared copy of The Bell Jar weeping "oh whoa is I"... If you really want some pop psychology...the HN generation clearly lacks in proper father figures...sadly our fathers are as emasculated as us. Sorry the iPhone 7 didn't complete you as a person. I have terrible news for you all...the day after your funeral the sun will rise and people will worry about revolving debt and football.
- guscost 10y ago> I have terrible news for you all...the day after your funeral the sun will rise and people will worry about revolving debt and football Why is this terrible news?
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoYou must be new here. HN is for precious snowflakes.
- voidhorse 10y ago
- hamiltonians 10y agoThey become keenly aware of their small ness in the larger pic ture of exis tence, and they feel help less to fix the many prob lems that trou ble them. As a result, they become depressed I have heard it's the opposite: that smarter people are happier. I think the problem is these studies on happiness and psychology are so imprecise. maybe also anecdotal evidence and cherry picking. Other char ac ter is tics of gifted chil dren and adults also pre dis pose them to exis ten tial dis tress. Because brighter people are able to envi sion the pos si bil i ties of how things might be, they tend to be ide al ists. How ever, they are simul ta neously able to see that the world falls short of their ideals. Unfor tu nately, these vision ar ies also rec og nize that their abil ity to make changes in the world is very lim ited. Because they are intense, these gifted indi vid u als—both chil dren and adults—keenly feel the dis ap point ment and frus tra tion that occurs when their ideals are not reached. They notice duplic ity, pre tense, arbi trari ness, insin cer i ties, and absur di ties in soci ety and in the behav iors of those around them. They may ques tion or chal lenge tra di tions, partic u larly those that seem mean ing less or unfair. They may ask, for exam ple, “Why are there such inflex i ble sex or age-role restric tions on people? Is there any jus ti fi able reason why men and women ‘should’ act a cer tain way? Why do people engage in hyp o crit i cal behav iors in which they say one thing but then do the opposite? People say they are con cerned with the envi ron ment, but their behav iors show oth erwise. Why do people say things they really do not mean at all? They greet you with, ‘How are you?’ when they really don’t want you to tell them the details of how you are. Why are so many people so unthinking and uncar ing in their deal ings with others? And with our planet? Are others really con cerned with improv - ing the world, or is it simply all about self ish ness? Why do people settle for medi oc rity? People seem fun da men tally self ish and tribal. How much dif - ference can one person make? It all seems hope less. The world is too far gone. Things get worse each day. As one person, I’ll never be able to make a difference.” These thoughts are common in gifted children and adults I think these concerns are common to most people...not just the smart
- MawNicker 10y agoI suspect your notion of intelligence includes more than the quality itself. Humans are complex systems and exist inside much more complex systems. If intelligence were purely adaptive then there would be a lot more of it than there is. If the adaptation of an organism didn't dominate the expression of it's qualities then they would always be manifest; They are not. When they are not, happiness is also often not. It is true that a more fully manifest human is happier. Also that as their happiness and observable intelligence are correlated. But what would result from intelligence that hadn't been able to fully manifest? I suspect the expression of many of these concerns. Your final statement equalizes on this point. In fact, the expression of these concerns is absolutely not equal among humans. I can appreciate the hesitation to accept their indication of higher intelligence. They're not remarkable thoughts. They're absolutely not thoughts we want to reward. They are only occasionally the product of excessive intelligence becoming maladaptive. A person that is failing to cope takes a fairly regular form. This form is ultimately not an expression of their intelligence. You seem to be talking about "adaptive" intelligence. I suspect this is in fact the nearness to an optimal quantity and not merely more of the quality itself. Also, that this fluctuates over time. Adaptation to it is a continuous process of the meta-mind. Ignorance can be recognized as a form of unconscious intelligence possessed by any finite thinking thing. The calculations of this intelligence precede the existence of any particular mind and needn't be known by it. Our capacity to know this form of intelligence is unlikely. Hence your perception of imprecision. The thing you wish were precise never will be. Psychology simply cannot talk about it. As a science it wouldn't intend to. It can only theorize about definable qualities. To understand and properly measure "adaptive" intelligence we would have to subvert the entirety of it's effects. We would have to know what it deemed unworthy of being within the finite knower; Merely to confirm that it was in fact unworthy of being known. We can only pontificate about what "adaptive" intelligence is. Perhaps we can assert it's the correlates of observable intelligence. This demands that it doesn't fluctuate over time. Anything we can know to properly define it is too finite. Knowing it would imply a more "real" intelligence we have yet to define. We cannot "know" the meta-mind.
- jankins 10y agoReminded me of a post recently that suggested liberal arts majors are typically better coders. I felt pretty good about myself reading that one too until I got to the part where it was written by somebody with a liberal arts degree, and like this paper didn't really give any evidence to support the claim except for some clearly self-serving unfalsifiable opinions. There's some interesting stuff in here if you like to visit this realm of thought but you could remove any reference to 'gifted' and you wouldn't lose any of it.
- naasking 10y ago> Reminded me of a post recently that suggested liberal arts majors are typically better coders. Better coders compared to what? Here's some anecdotal data: I've interviewed computer scientists and computer/electrical engineers for software work terms for almost 10 years now. I administer a pretty simple technical test just measuring the ability to read and understand a small function in C#. Over the past ~8 years I've interviewed, less than half of computer science students complete the test without any errors, or trivial errors due to simple misunderstanding of the comments documenting the code. Probably ~80% of the engineering students complete the test successfully. Take from that what you will. Perhaps I'm looking at a biased sample because the job descriptions I post simply don't attract the better CS students, but do attract good engineering students for some reason. No idea.
- platz 10y agoI hope folks don't interpret their depression as evidence that they are one of the 'gifted' ones—an error of affirming the consequent. No-one on this forum is just average, right? Where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average (!) .
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoYep. I think most of us have this, gifted or no. And plenty of people on this forum are average. Including me. Actually, I'm pretty sure that the average high school student doesn't browse HN, so maybe I'm not average in that respect... Also, that joke was terrible. And it made me sad.
- Alexqw85 10y agoThe quote/joke comes from the intro of Garrison Keillor's radio show "Lake Wobegon", about life in a fictional city in Minnesota. So, hopefully that makes it a little less depressing. :-) ---Alex
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoNo, nonononono. I got the joke. That's why I'm sad. Keilor's finally retiring this year :-(.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoeveryone on HN is gifted! they even have a degree to prove it! keep the downvotes coming, it just confirms how "precious" HN is
- forgetsusername 10y ago>No-one on this forum is just average, right? Every time one of these posts come up, the comments are filled with "me too". Everyone here is a tortured genius.
- qwertyuiop924 10y agoI don't know about "gifted," but I certainly suffer from this. I suspect most people have at some point. I don't think of myself as "gifted." Some people have said I am, but I doubt it: I work hard, I read, I acquire knowledge. Anyone can do that. Besides, even if I am gifted, It's not a healthy attitude to have. You start to get presumptuous, and arrogant, which means that you'll learn less. And I'm arrogant enough: I don't need a swelled head. In short, statistically, I'm probably not gifted, and it's unhealthy to believe you're gifted anyways, so even if I am, I'm better off not knowing. This might be totally insane, but it seems reasonable to me...
- pg_is_a_butt 10y agoyou're certainly not gifted, but you are an ignorant hypocrite. why would you introduce the additional multisyllable word "statistically" when you were already talking about things in "probable" terms, thus implying a statistical approach... but then you have the audacity to claim you're reducing your point "in short"... no... no, you aren't. a gifted person wouldn't do that. a gifted person would call you an idiot. you're all idiots.
- bigtunacan 10y agoAs far as societal measures go I was identified as "gifted" at a young age. I was shipped off to special schools and classes, offered grade skipping, started taking college courses while in high school, "identified" by Mensa and Who's Who. In the shorter term, while I was younger, it did make me arrogant. As I got older that went away. It certainly didn't result in me learning less. I have always felt lonely, for a long time depressed, then eventually just detached and separate from the world. I'm almost 40 now and learning is still a way for me to tune out a world that I feel set aside from.
- lekeve 10y ago"As intelligence goes up, happiness goes down. See, I made a graph. I make lots of graphs." - Lisa Simpson https://flowingdata.com/2008/06/20/lisa-simpson-on-happiness-vs-intelligence/ https://flowingdata.com/2008/06/20/lisa-simpson-on-happiness...
- agumonkey 10y agoSomehow I believe that the upper brain is here to deal with problems, and so is naturally correlated to suffering.
- throwaway-anon 10y ago> This kind of sensitive awareness and idealism makes them more likely to ask themselves difficult questions about the nature and purpose of their lives and the lives of those around them. They become keenly aware of their smallness in the larger picture of existence, and they feel helpless to fix the many problems that trouble them. As a result, they become depressed. Psilocybin mushrooms have a similar effect, however ironically I have used those experiences as a way of dealing with existential depression. Rather than coming away feeling "helpless to fix the many problems" I feel more like I've shed the weight of those problems.
- weerd 10y agoI agree. There is no cure for existential depression, but the temporary changes in perception that occur during a mushroom/acid trip can be a huge boon. The sense of self is diminished as you are chemically forced to stare into the void. This death of the ego is a powerful kick in the brain and makes mortality more palatable.
- eli_gottlieb 10y agohttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22998852 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22998852 BACKGROUND: Happiness and higher intelligent quotient (IQ) are independently related to positive health outcomes. However, there are inconsistent reports about the relationship between IQ and happiness. The aim was to examine the association between IQ and happiness and whether it is mediated by social and clinical factors. Method The authors analysed data from the 2007 Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey in England. The participants were adults aged 16 years or over, living in private households in 2007. Data from 6870 participants were included in the study. Happiness was measured using a validated question on a three-point scale. Verbal IQ was estimated using the National Adult Reading Test and both categorical and continuous IQ was analysed. RESULTS: Happiness is significantly associated with IQ. Those in the lowest IQ range (70-99) reported the lowest levels of happiness compared with the highest IQ group (120-129). Mediation analysis using the continuous IQ variable found dependency in activities of daily living, income, health and neurotic symptoms were strong mediators of the relationship, as they reduced the association between happiness and IQ by 50%. CONCLUSIONS: Those with lower IQ are less happy than those with higher IQ. Interventions that target modifiable variables such as income (e.g. through enhancing education and employment opportunities) and neurotic symptoms (e.g. through better detection of mental health problems) may improve levels of happiness in the lower IQ groups.
- tokai 10y agoI think the woes of intelligent people are the mental version of first world problems. Unintelligent people are sad and lonely too - and if the research is true - even more so than clever ones. The myth that despair companions intelligence is properly due to confirmation bias. You don't have many stupid people talking or writing about the hurt they feel from being. Or its just a nice thing to believe to find exaltation in one's own suffering.
- chestervonwinch 10y agoThis bit from the "Strengths and Limitations" section gave me an inappropriate chuckle: > ... The use of a single question to measure happiness is easier for people with lower IQ to understand ... In seriousness, though, this paper is interesting, as it goes against conventional wisdom.
- karma_vaccum123 10y agoIt's true, you can't walk it off, you need to run to work up a sweat. You can outrun your own depression. I don't care who says otherwise.
- ZoF 10y agoAgree with this.
- jacalata 10y agoMost of your comments in this thread are just whiny trolling, but I don't like to leave harmful misinformation like this comment unaddressed. Running can have a positive effect in reducing or avoiding depression, but it is absolutely not going to solve everything for everyone. If you are depressed and do not want to run, or are running and do not find it cures your depression, you should get help, and you should not let some asshole convince you that you just need to run harder or better or be a different person in order to make things better.
- dang 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12526194 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12526194 and marked it off-topic.
- zizzles 10y ago"Gifted children" is just a special buzzword to make parents feel good about their high-functioning-autism offspring. That's how it worked here in Canada. My first encounter with such "gifted" students was in elementary school, they had a class right next to ours. At the time, I never knew about the concept of "gifted students" but what I remember clearly is this: They were constantly bullied for their appearance and mannerisms (ie. very bad dress sense, lack of hygiene, awkward personalities, poor motor skills) fast forward to today, none of these past gifted-students are doing anything special or noteworthy in academia and or the workforce (from my research) This is just my experience, but perhaps I'm being too harsh.
- hexane360 10y agoI'm not sure how your program worked, but my experience in the States was very different. Gifted was determined based on a high general or specific intelligence score. In elementary school, the gifted kids were given special acceleration in math and reading, and were commonly accelerated a grade or two in specific classes or every class. And general intelligence is heavily correlated to success. http://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligence http://www.vox.com/2016/5/25/11683192/iq-testing-intelligenc... I don't know if your program was different, but your anecdote isn't very convincing. Did you compare the percentage of noteworthy outcomes for students inside and outside the program? What do you consider noteworthy? Has your opinion of them from elementary school colored your views?
- force_reboot 10y agoIn my experience, intelligence is correlated with bad dress sense, lack of hygiene, awkward personalities and poor motor skills. I know a lot of professional mathematicians, and they all would have been bullied for these things things (like I was) if they went to my high school, though many of them went to private high schools. Before anyone downvotes me because presuming the existence of a group of people that is more intelligent than others is elitist or arrogant, I would point out that it is no more so that presuming the existence of a group of people with less social skills or motor skills.
- 10y ago
- ianai 10y agoAt a very young age, I remember stairing at myself in the mirror and realizing I am I, and asking but what am I?!
- Netcob 10y agoAnother name for "common sense" which isn't that common for some reason.
- jimenezjrs 10y agoI wanted to share a couple of thoughts, because after reading the comments here, there seems to be some kind of discomfort with the word "gifted". I too, felt like the paper described what I've been through, but completely rejected the idea of being gifted, as it should be, because it furthers marginalizes the self from society. I believe that with some effort through introspection, reading and practicing everybody could have similar opinions or knowledge as the people described in those pages. But I had to look into what gifted meant to the author first before assuring my discomfort and luckily, I found a couple of definitions on the website, which are different at what everybody here is thinking he meant. "Gifted and talented children are those identified by professionally qualified persons who by virtue of outstanding abilities are capable of high performance." I want to note the word "capable". A lot of you, I'm sure, have come to realize that you learn fast, and faster than most people around you, and that you have different interests: sports, music, intellectually, leadership etc. That means that you don't have to be as Mozart or Einstein to enter that definition of gifted. The second thing I wanted to say was a little bit of my experience. Yes, I'm an idealist and have strong emotions. After realizing the joke that society is I became conflicted. First, because I came to realize that we all are at fault of "this way of life" by playing along with it. Second, because I can't do anything about it to accomplish the ideal world that I sought. And lastly, because nobody that I knew thought or felt like I did, and that, made me different and felt alone. I read some books that further threw me into the abyss, because I hadn't experience enough or wasn't mature enough intellectually to understand the good in them. Especially Camus' "The stranger", a novel that talks about the absurdity of life. To make my comment shorter so that you don't get bored. I read Sartre, and found in paragraph what life represents for me, and that set me "free", as I'm an atheist, that knew there was no meaning to life, and thus, felt my existence and everything I did irrelevant: “Man is condemned to be free: condemned, because he did not create himself, yet nonetheless free, because once cast into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” For me, that was how I started to feel ok. I was free to do everything I wanted, but I too, was responsible of everything, "good" and "wrong" of the consequences. That meant "I was" what "I did", not what I thought me to be; Seneca gave a great example when he said: "A coward, makes himself a coward", and I didn't want to be a coward anymore. It was time to live what I thought life should be. And then, I read Seneca's letters to Lucilius, and found in them, agreeable and useful ways in living a more content life. And it has led me to a better path (individually speaking), "the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference".
- rybosome 10y agoI struggled quite a bit with an existential crisis a little over a year ago. The sense of despair I felt over the lack of innate purpose and meaning in life made it hard to get out of bed in the morning. I recovered from this aspect of it by reminding myself that evolution happened to shape me with a mind which craves purpose; so just as I fulfill my need for food, sex and companionship, I can create a sense of meaning for myself to meet this need. The sense of meaning came from being, as Neil degrasse Tyson says, "A good, strong link in the chain of life". I decided to simply be a good human who attempts to be present and care for my fellow humans, to honor and respect life, and to try to leave society more healthy and stable. This is enough for me. Unfortunately, the existential risks which plague us (nuclear war, catastrophic climate change) not only frighten me because of the horrors I would experience, but also because they would erase my purpose. Grappling with the idea that humans could be wiped out due to our apathy, greed and proclivity towards violence is so thoroughly depressing that my only recourse is distracting myself. I meditate, get lost in friends, work and video games, enjoy travel, and try not to think about it. If civilization or our species will be destroyed within my lifetime, I want to at least have enjoyed the time I had.
- mcguire 10y agoDid I miss it, or was there no mention of the worst, most depressing problem of gifted children (or, most likely, adults): learning, and intuitively understanding, that they are not the smartest person in the room.
- jstewartmobile 10y agoThere are way too many 'I's in this article for comfort. It is a great ego-stroke to hear that you are depressed because you are a gifted snowflake. Odds are, you are depressed because you are not doing the right things (regardless of how gifted you may be).