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As 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 ta
by bigtunacan 10y ago
As 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.
- rak00n 10y agoIf you don't mind me asking, how did you cope with loneliness?
- MawNicker 10y agoI suspect learning. Loneliness is ultimately not the signal we think it is. It's conditioned from other more fundamental signals. One such signal is the desire to learn. To become a better version of yourself. Sustained loneliness is eventually disintegrated and mediated more fundamentally. Empathizing with the intellectual giants of history can yield wonderful quasi-imaginary friends. Notably many such people lived very similarly and have wonderful things to say about it; Almost as if they intended to be your temporally long-distance friend. If you love them as they were then you will come to see that they loved you too. Truly to the depth that they could know you. It both humbles and inspires.