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Ask HN: How do you deal with alienation?

108 points by daniel_ 18y ago

How do you deal with social alienation? Over the past couple of years of high school, I've slowly lost contact with all of my friends. Whenever I do speak with them, I constantly think about the differences between me and them, and why I'm not friends with them anymore. Despite that, I'm so alone now that I desperately want to have a peer group to be with again. The problem is that the only people I consider to be good friends all have different interests, and all belong to different social groups. I have no social group of my own and go back and forth between their friend circles. It seems that their respective friend circles are very close knit.I always feel like the odd one out of whatever group I'm with at the time. I don't think I could consider my close friends a social group of it's own, as they are all from different groups and aren't friends with each other. Am I setting my standards for friends too high? I don't think I am, because I just want a friend that I can talk to on a wide variety of subjects, not just the few we have in common. I can't do that with anyone I know. I feel like when I talk to my "friends", I either have to talk all about computers, or all about music, or whatever that they're interested in, but never a mixture of everything. The peer groups I see are all so specialized and serve niche interests; none of them are generally interested in everything. I feel even worse about this, because I think that because I am feeling like this, that it makes me a walking adolescent stereotype. I feel like just another Holden, which probably makes the entire situation worse. I'm being self-conscious about myself being self-conscious, so that probably doesn't help. I feel like I can recognize the flaws in how I handle friendships, but I have no idea of how to solve them. The only thing that feels like a solution is waiting until I am out of high school to find new people. Everyone has told me to wait until college, and then I will find new people, but everyone I know in college generally sticks with the same friend group that they had in high school (hence why I would know), so I don't have much hope in that. How do you go about meeting new interesting people? How do you stop yourself from over-analyzing your current friendships? I never post here on HN, but I love reading the articles and discussions, and you seem like a wise and interesting bunch of people. Please give me your advice. Whenever I try to talk to people in person about this, they just tell me that they don't know what to say, and I can't stand talking to psychologists because they seem to just regurgitate what you want to hear repeatedly. Where are the truly interesting people in life?

SwellJoe 18y ago
I either have to talk all about computers, or all about music, or whatever that they're interested in, but never a mixture of everything. The peer groups I see are all so specialized and serve niche interests; none of them are generally interested in everything. Think on that statement for a little while, and maybe you'll see the source of your trouble. This is kind of a growing up phenomenon. You aren't unique in this regard. You seem to expect your friends to be a perfect clone of you, with the same interests (you have a few things that you're interested in; you are not a "mixture of all things"). The older you get, the more you'll realize that sharing one or two interests with someone is enough, as long as you enjoy each others company. You may find a few "soul mate" type friends in college, who like the same bands you like, who enjoy the same activities, are nerdy, etc. If you go to a school that specializes in nerdy subjects it's actually very likely, whereas if you go to the local party school, it is very unlikely. So, yes, it may get a lot better in college--but then when college is over, you'll still have to be able to build relationships without that forced captivity thing, so you might as well develop the skill now. The best way I know is to get involved in something you like. If it's music, start a band. If it's nerdy stuff, start a group that builds crazy nerdy crap and call it art. If it's theatre, join a local company or take classes. If it's a sport, join a league. If it's drinking heavily, start tailgating at football games. I'm deeply introverted and a loner (and mostly I like it that way), but whenever I've felt the need to expand my social circle I've usually started a band, and right away my circle of friends expands dramatically. I happen to love talking about, listening to, and performing, music...so this works out. If you find that people who only talk about one thing are tedious, this can be a problem...so I guess you'll need to figure out something that you don't mind only talking about for a few hours each week, so that you can do it regularly enough to experience a bond with folks. Where are the truly interesting people in life? I don't know. What do you mean by "truly interesting"? Are you truly interesting? Does everyone in your life have to be truly interesting for you to want them as friends? I'm empathetic to your position on this, as I kinda suck at having and keeping friendships alive, too, and it's partly because I find most people tedious after an hour or two of their company. But, I'm old enough to realize that no one is perfect, including me. Some of the most interesting people I've ever met (including a handful of famously interesting folks) are still not people I would want to spend several hours a day with. There's also something I've learned only in the past couple of years: When a conversation falls flat, it's always as much my fault as it is the person I'm talking to. As dumb or slow or weird or bland as the person I'm talking to may be, there is almost certainly something I can do to make it more interesting for both of us. Maybe it's just telling a joke, and being funny (because being entertaining is as much fun for the entertainer as the entertainee). Maybe it's introducing the person to someone else, and making the pair into a trio or more. pg is hilariously and famously good/bad at this (anyone who's spent more than an hour or two with him has heard the words, "This is the guy you need to talk to!"). How do you stop yourself from over-analyzing your current friendships? Do something else. If you find yourself thinking too hard about something dumb, like, "Are my friends smart/interesting enough?" Call them up and go do something that you enjoy with them. That'll answer the question, because they've just shown that they're smart/interesting enough to do whatever it is you enjoy, and it'll take your mind off of the wacky self-analysis. Of course, if they all bail on the idea and don't want to leave the house or something, then it answers the question as well...in the other direction. Find more interesting friends who like to do stuff. Doing stuff is actually a really good cure for a lot of mental blocks. I recommend it. It doesn't even matter what stuff. Ride bikes, go bowling, serve soup at the local homeless shelter, build big art, put on silly clothes and golf, etc.

unalone 18y ago

The place where you'll truly find interesting people is the place that places emphasis on talent and skill above everything else. In high school I had the same problem you do; in college I'm finding it even harder, as we haven't had long to sort out into groups, versus the 12 years we had in grade school. I've been three places where I've felt real kinship with the people around me, to varying degrees. I find it when I go to work out; there's a focus amongst everybody in doing something pure and on self-improvement. That's the least I've felt it. I find it among theater people - the real obsessives. Theater is such an odd thing that the people who are drawn to it are very focused on doing as good a job as they can, they're confident enough to have a good time doing so, and they understand how hard it is, so that they welcome most anybody who wants to learn. It was most focused at a summer program I spent a month at, that selected high school students based entirely on talent rather than GPA and resume, and made itself entirely free of charge. I was one of the writers in the program, and everybody in every field was absolutely incredible. Once you get to that sort of group, everybody's interesting and unique and loves everybody else to some degree. So that's the tried-and-true method: find the places that are pockets of talent. Those places attract more talent and become really focused. If you can't immediately get there, the method I've found works is to just act like yourself. Don't avoid parts of your personality just because other people find them off-putting. That's uncomfortable. Instead, try and focus on doing what you want to do, and find the sorts of people that gravitate towards you based on who you are. I found, actually, that in my senior year of high school the people doing that all found each other, and while that group broke apart again, we had a few really wonderful months where we were all with people we'd never known really well before, where we liked each other not just for intellect but for personal honesty. That's not as easy a route, depending on what kind of person you are. I'm very sharp-tongued, for instance, and I'm not very interested in most people. That in itself offends some people, or at least makes them indifferent. But the result is that when you are with people, you really value them. I really connected with my roommate - he got me into lifting weights, actually - and a few people on my floor. Some musician/gamer/coder/work-out types. Nobody who's exactly my personality type, but a lot of people who really tolerate each other for who we are. And that's better than pretending friendships and having none. Despite that, I've got phases. I have some periods where I feel outright hateful hostility towards the people who aren't like me. I usually just keep that inside me, and focus the angst that I've got on working. The first major period of it I wrote a book. After that I wrote a few bursts of poetry and designed a web site. I'm half in the middle of one now and it's really keeping me focused on my work. It helps to focus it outwards at something (though, as a warning, I tried to get rid of it by drinking once and as a result half my floor wouldn't speak to me for months). I overanalyze friendships to death, to answer your last question. I overanalyze everything. I think that's a good thing. It implies that you're seeking for something meaningful and lasting. If something's not working, then it doesn't hurt to try and change it. Just don't get off to too drastic a start, or you'll burn bridges that you regret burning later. Hope that helps you! :-)

palish 18y ago
If 80% of people are talentless or skillless (wow, a naturally-ocurring triple-L), what should those people do?
- unalone 18y ago
  See, maybe this is bias, but I don't think it's possible to be talentless or skill-less (hyphen, maybe?) entirely. The people I know who're talented are the people who ask questions. The people who're skilled are the people who learn how to do something. And I've never met people who can't do either. Only people who refuse to. The people who I think are most talented - the people I try to emulate - are the people who never stop asking questions. The more you ask, the more comprehensive view you have of the thing, and the more you've got to master. There's nothing particularly hard to it. The people who don't ask questions, but accept things as they are, are the people who comfortably fit into a niche. I think most people do this: they get to a certain level, then stop, and they settle in with people who've settled there. The people who are skill-less settle in with people who have that mindset. So they end up with some sort of a satisfaction. The people who impress me the most, in every single field, are the ones who are never satisfied entirely. The ones who constantly move forward. It leads to a mindset like the one in the OP: you feel dissatisfied with the people around you, the people who settle in. And while the whole idea is that you never do settle in with a group when you're like that, you do acknowledge the people who are similar to you, and you develop bonds like that. Those are my closest friends: the people who, to some degree or other, never stop pushing themselves forward. It's because they always change: they always stay interesting. And while all of those close friends belong to entirely separate groups, while most of them have never met each other in person, they're still a very definitive group in my mind. And I'd like to think that I belong to that same group in their minds.
  - nazgulnarsil 18y ago
    I like the lack of the "talent" meme in asian culture. hard work is correctly identified as the reason for superior performance.

yason 18y ago

Good friends are hard to come by and therefore finding a whole group of them at once is pretty improbable. On the other hand, there's something interesting and something worthy in each and every person if you only drop your expectations and demands first. Secondly, friends are also like women: you'll find a good one when you've really reached a point of frustration where you find yourself swearing that "This is enough of suffering for me! I do NOT need a friend/girlfriend to be happy and to feel fulfilled. If I have to, I'll go by myself just fine, thank you!" OTOH, nobody wants to befriend someone who really wants a friend, maybe just any friend. You can't seek for friendship, it will seek for you. Third, you should make up your mind about what you want. What do you want from your friends should you become blessed with one? What do you want to talk about with them? What do you want to do with them? Unless you know what you want, you'll just keep bumping into friends or "friends" who want to do their stuff. Nobody is going to come and probe you for subjects that you might want to talk about, everyone just settles for some topic they know you know too. Also, being occasionally brave enough to talk about what YOU want to talk about is a great device to weed out people who can't or won't align with your interests. For example, if you want to talk about life, start doing that and you'll soon find out who will bounce back and who simply can't handle it. Generally, whatever it is that isn't working will just keep happening again and again until you find a way to change yourself, causing different and possibly more desirable things to keep happening.

zupatol 18y ago
> "This is enough of suffering for me! I do NOT need a friend/girlfriend to be happy and to feel fulfilled. If I have to, I'll go by myself just fine, thank you!" This might be realistic in the case of a girlfriend, but is hard to believe in the case of friends. You can't just decide that loneliness doesn't hurt you anymore, can you? Or if you can, it would be very interesting to know more. There is a lot of research that points the other way.
- Brice 18y ago
  Not being around people does not equate to loneliness. There are some good books on the subject. Solitude: A Return to the Self by Anthony Storr was one of the first I read and had a strong focus on psychology. For a more opinionated text, Party of One: The Loners' Manifesto by Anneli Rufus was good at building confidence in living this way.
  - zupatol 18y ago
    I just put the first one my reading list. Judging by what I see on amazon.com, Storr analyzes the life of some famous people that apparently managed to be happy through work despite 'inferior relationships'. The one I've read is 'Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection' by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick. It quotes a lot of studies that statistically link feeling disconnected with all sorts of things you want to avoid, including health problems. Of course, instead of having friends, you can try to avoid loneliness by getting rid of your social needs, in a kind of ascetism. I never managed to do that. On the other hand I read that Alexander Selkirk, the stranded sailor who inspired Robinson Crusoe, suffered terribly from loneliness the first one and a half years, but then got over it completely. Later, back in Scotland, he even regretted his time on the island. I was wondering if this story was true, and if there were other examples.

rkts 18y ago

I was thinking of posting a question very similar to this one, though the details of my situation are pretty different. See, I've been alone for most of my life. Alone in the sense that I've only ever had two or three real friends, and I often go for weeks without having a conversation with another person. As a kid I was fine with this. I was the guy who always sat by himself during lunch and recess, and nobody bothered me and I felt fine. I stayed the same until my senior year of high school, when I was struck by a burning need to make friends, meet girls and stop being alone all the damn time. I made some friends that year, but we were high school seniors, so we all moved off to college and I never heard from them again. Now I'm in my third year of college, I have no friends and I can't believe how hard it is to meet people. Though I guess the problem isn't meeting people specifically, but getting the acquaintances I make to turn into friendships. I just don't seem to really click with anyone. "You should join an organization for something you're into!" Well, I've looked but 90% of the organizations I see are racial, religious or political, and the rest just don't interest me. If I could find, say, an OCaml or Lisp programmers group, or an early music society, I'd be thrilled, but of course there isn't one. Maybe I'm just a narrow person, I don't know. Hmm... I'm not sure now why I'm posting this, but I typed it so what the hell. submit

nazgulnarsil 18y ago
how about a board game club? find an empty classroom you can use and start one.
- RK 18y ago
  Or the Lisp, OCaml, or early music clubs...
zupatol 18y ago
Dont blame this on yourself, it has nothing to do with being narrow. There's something broken about the whole of society. One american in four has no one to really talk to. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/22/AR2006062201763_pf.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06... Loneliness does have the effect of making it harder to connect with other people. It has this effect on everyone. It goes away when you're no longer lonely, but it makes it more difficult to get rid of the loneliness. There is no easy solution either. The only thing you can do is try harder. Maybe you need to know people better or get used to them before it 'clicks'. If joining an organization is the only way you see to meet people regularly, join an organization.
rodrigo 18y ago
You're being narrow. Of course we all want people like us to talk with, but thats not the rigth attitude. Just talk with someone, try to find whats interesting about them, place yourself in his/her shoes and try to see what makes them tickle and then talk about it, youll find that you can almost always learn something.
- asdflkj 18y ago
  Sure, you can learn something, but will that something be worth the effort? That's the $64k question here, and I believe the answer for most people is "no." Being alone sucks, but before you kill the pain with the companionship of idiots, you should ask if the cure is worse than the disease. Looking back, I regret time spent on idiots a lot more than time spent alone. YMMV, of course.
anthonyrubin 18y ago
What area do you live in? There are many more special interest groups in large cities. For instance there is talk of starting a Scala group here (Chicago) and there is already a Lisp group and a Polyglot Programmers group.

numair 18y ago

Don't try to meet people like you. Instead, become interested in lots of different types of people, how they live, who they are, etc. And don't just become interested, but actually make an attempt to blend into their cultures, social groups, etc. This is what is known as "social hacking." Successfully doing this will allow you to incorporate lots of different points of view in your work and life, which will give you a richer experience. Sticking to people who are all "good" at one thing inevitably leads to dysfunctionality and irrelevance. Oh, and don't try to look for smart people. Half of those people we label as "smart" are actually complete idiots. Just because society currently describes people who can type mathematically-intensive instructions to a machine as "smart" does not mean that they are any more intelligent than the person who has dedicated their time to understanding social nuance and child-rearing, or whatever. A lot of "dumb", "average" people are a lot smarter than you at many things; cooking, talking to girls, changing a flat tire, whatever... Learn to enjoy this. And finally, whatever you do, do NOT attempt to surround yourself with people who consider themselves "interesting." That's the absolute WORST. There's nothing worse than a group of people who sit around and congratulate themselves for being so cool and important - which is exactly why so many people in positions of power, feeling that they have "arrived" and can thus finally mingle with people worthy of their mystical talents, are so utterly impotent at accomplishing anything of significance. But hey, if you really want to smoke pot with Bono on his yacht and pretend you're saving the world, go for it. (That's not a joke, by the way. He really does that.)

midnightmonster 18y ago
> Don't try to meet people like you. Instead, become interested in lots of different types of people http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/28/mf.mrrogers.neighbor/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/28/mf.mrrogers.n... Mr. Rogers inspires me. Seriously. Check out #6.
- jmatt 18y ago
  Excellent point. Most interesting people are inherently curious about everything.
rtra 18y ago
It would be interesting to have a source for that allegation about Bono. My 5 minutes googling it were ineffective. PS: It's not that I don't believe it, is that using it would bring me great joy.
- unalone 18y ago
  That's sort of a meme out about Bono that says he's untalented, he's a prick, he thinks he's Jesus, and he's drug-addled. I think that's where OP comes from? I could be mistaken.
jimbokun 18y ago
"And finally, whatever you do, do NOT attempt to surround yourself with people who consider themselves "interesting." That's the absolute WORST." Sounds like the "Stuff White People Like" kind of white people.
chris11 18y ago
Cal Newport and Ben Casnocha recently did a video blog together that touched on how to become an interesting person. http://www.thinkdifferenttv.com/2009/01/test-embed-cal-ben.html http://www.thinkdifferenttv.com/2009/01/test-embed-cal-ben.h... Cal's idea is that we attribute a person as interesting/impressive when we can't figure out how they did some activity, so we just naturally assume that those results are from some kind of magical innate ability that the person has. For example, right now, I don't feel like I really know a lot about what separates a failed startup from a successful startup. So when I hear about a successful entrepreneur, I usually assume they must be an interesting or impressive person, which may or may not be true. Cal Newport also wrote a pretty decent blog about finding interesting/impressive/innovative activities. http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/01/a-simple-method-for-developing-an-innovative-activity/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2008/10/01/a-simple-method-for-de.... Both links have more to do with college admission/life and entrepeneurship than personal relationships, but I think the idea can be applied to becoming an interesting person.
asdflkj 18y ago
There is no need to redefine the word "smart" in order to make your point. We already have a word for that: "good". Good at talking to girls, changing tires, etc.

time_management 18y ago

I have no social group of my own and go back and forth between their friend circles. That's a sign that you're an interesting person. It's painful, though. I feel like when I talk to my "friends", I either have to talk all about computers, or all about music, or whatever that they're interested in, but never a mixture of everything. You need to swallow your pride and learn how to make small talk. It's frustrating for intense people like us, not because we're too smart or to good for small talk, but because we frankly don't care about things like sports teams or the weather (or if we do, we care too much and can recite sports/weather statistics and bore people to death). However, it's a skill you'll need to learn, and you might as well do it now. Everyone has told me to wait until college, and then I will find new people, but everyone I know in college generally sticks with the same friend group that they had in high school (hence why I would know), so I don't have much hope in that. College is less cliqueish than high school, but still much more cliqueish than the real world. Most people have "cliques" (which usually emerge from what floors people are on in freshman year) because they are insecure and need a set of people whom, even if they are not close to any of them individually, they recognize as "friends". They rely on their base social group (most of whom are not very close friends) more than on individual friends, and meet dates and new people through this group. The high school cliques break up a bit in college, unless a large number of students from your high school go to the same school. Where are the truly interesting people in life? All over the place, literally and figuratively. Quality people are both rare and common; there are few of them, but they can be found everywhere. Most of my friends in college were international students, but I've met interesting and smart people literally everywhere, of all nationalities, races, and social classes.

jskopek 18y ago
I think you've summed up the dynamics of university relationships better then anyone else I'd known. Speaking as someone who missed out on a big part of first year dorm life, this is exactly what I've seen happen
scott_s 18y ago
Instead of trying to make "small talk," try to figure out what the other person is interested in, and ask them about that. Resist the urge to think of a weakness (having a hard time socializing) as a strength.

jmatt 18y ago

Wow, this sounds soo familiar. I remember having similar thoughts when I was in high school. I'll try to give some useful advice. I have no social group of my own and go back and forth between their friend circles. I'd ignore social groups entirely. Seriously, just forget any of these artificial groups of friends. I know that's not actually possible but in general don't worry about it. When I look back at the stratification of my high school social order it seems like it was straight out of "lord of the flies". Interact with the people who are doing interesting things. People who you find interesting or enjoy spending time with. Don't join any friend groups, that's an entirely isolating situation. Right now you can freely "group" with whoever you want. Everyone has told me to wait until college, and then I will find new people, but everyone I know in college generally sticks with the same friend group that they had in high school (hence why I would know), so I don't have much hope in that. Don't go to college where everyone else is going to college. Get away from all this. I did, and it was one of the best decisions I made when I was a teenager. Everyone in high school will likely think you are crazy for not going to the usual schools, but who cares. I think the single best thing you can do is just get out and... do things. This is surprisingly simple but will really make a difference. I think it's been echoed here already by a number of other people. Pickup a new sport, go see a movie, go to clubs, take classes at the community college, go on a road trip (gas is affordable again!), see a concert you would otherwise not see, play cards, go to a house party, study with people you usually wouldn't study with, volunteer somewhere, go to a museum, get an unusual part-time job, do something that no one else is doing. Go buy a copy of Make magazine and pick a project (http://www.makezine.com/ http://www.makezine.com/). Before you know it, you'll be the interesting person that other people will want to spend time with. And of course read PG's take on high school and nerds: http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html Somehow this hasn't been linked to in the post. I know it represents my high school experiences very well and he gives great advice.

mnemonik 18y ago
Good call on Make Magazine! I suggest that daniel_ start a project that he will probably need help with, and meet new people through the project. Tons of fun to be had from that magazine, I wish I had time to pursue all the DIY projects I could, oh well.

Scriptor 18y ago

This is coming in a whiles after your post, but hopefully I can still put in some input. I am a freshman in college with my first semester finished. In high school, I had about 3 good friends I enjoyed hanging out with. Besides them, I rarely had any social interaction. I was rarely (maybe once or twice?) invited to anything by anyone other than those 3 friends. The end of my senior year especially was depressing. I got to see everyone else, including my good friends, get invited to a good number of graduation parties while I stayed home. Weekend nights on the computer (like this one now) were common. Enough about myself, but hopefully that gives you an idea of where I'm coming from. This advice is from very recent experience. I understand what you mean by having people you only have a specific interest with. While others say this is normal, I don't think they git it. If every time you're with them, the conversation turns to just computers or whatever, it's not real friendship. One piece of advice is that you could try doing something or going somewhere with people, so it's not all about a conversation. I also know that living in certain towns (like my hometown) finding something to do can be near impossible. Now, for making new friends. Honestly, this is hard in high school, but not impossible. Friendships ebb and flow, and all of my friendships have seen different levels. Joining clubs is one good strategy. You could even try starting a club with someone else. For example, if you know someone who enjoys programming and you do too, you could both start a programming club. Why when I just said that only talking about computers is not frienship? Because having a club means you have to interact with people and it can bring in situations for meeting other people. Often, just having a good time with someone is a good sign. Now, for the advice that is probably most important, what will happen at college. I'm a geek, and I chose NYU, a college that I'm pretty sure is not very geeky at all. I did this on purpose, because I wanted a clean slate and an environment that actively pushed me to become more social. Here's some tips: - You have to do whatever you can to meet random people in the beginning. Sit with people at lunch, talk to people before class, join clubs, go out with floormates. I didn't do this at all, and now I regret that my only friends are from my floor. You just have to take advantage of this critical period when socializing is extremely open. - I was extremely depressed during my first few days at college. Many others seemed to have something amazing about them, playing an instrument, photography, acting, etc. Everyone else also seemed much more sociable while I stayed quiet most of the time. I often thought whether I made the right college choice. But after those few days, I suddenly fit in well enough. I was still very much the same person, but after all the stuff about "whoa! you play guitar!" or "dude, you've got so many movies", personalities became more dominant. I wasn't an asshole, and I could be funny on occasion, and I danced like an idiot, but a funny idiot. So the moral of this is, do something in high school that you can show off to other people so those first few college days won't be as painful. Otherwise, just be a nice guy and if you come up with something funny, clever, or interesting, say it! - After a few weeks of college, you will notice that everyone seems to have an individual label. I don't mean prep, jock, goth, or things like that. More like, everyone has a few personality traits that make them who they are. Somebody might be the big, outgoing guy, or the californian Asian dude, or the quiet we-need-to-get-this-guy-a-date nerd (guess who I am). Whatever happens, don't be the awkward guy. This will mean being natural and casual. If you don't think you can hold a one-on-one conversation with a girl, even if she's just a floormate, then frankly, don't. Large groups are your safest bet. To return to your high school troubles, here's one last piece of advice. Even though the guy who might be good at acting or talking to girls has his own kind of smartness, make sure that both you and other people respect you. Don't mix with people who disparage science if you're into science. Find people who are willing to be intellectual. I'm afraid that much of the above was too long, off-topic, or just weird. I'm pretty much writing this as stream-of-consciousness. Just remember: Be yourself. You can change yourself. You have to like what you change into.

SwellJoe 18y ago

I took up an internship at a public radio station because I thought the people there would be interesting, and the people there are great, but the age difference between me and everyone can be a bit awkward at times. Excellent! Don't dismiss the old-timers. Some of the most interesting people I've ever known have been a lot older than me. In fact, actually, most of the truly interesting folks I've know have been older than me--they've just had more time to acquire crazy and funny stories. I took a job at an independent television station when I was in college, and that was a great experience (it got acquired by the WB, now CW, while I was there, and the character of the station changed and most of the old-timers left). Several of the folks I worked with had been involved in building the tower and broadcast station back in the sixties. Those old guys (and one gal) had some fantastic stories about the birth and growth (and changing mores, like the fact that smoking pot in master control on the night shift was accepted practice in the 70's) of the station, and had a lot of interesting insight into technology and changes; they'd seen the station go from film to analog video of multiple types to digital video, along with the introduction of satellites and other wonders of modern technology. Work past the awkward, be friendly and interested in their stories (fake it till you make it), and you'll probably learn something about making friends with folks who aren't exactly like you. Older folks are also more likely to be able and willing to make up for your lack of social graces. Generally, the older you get, the less clique-oriented you become...you might get more set in your ways in a lot of regards, but older folks tend to be happier to talk to new and different people, especially if the new people are truly interested in what they have to say. Another interesting old-timer story: A friend of mine worked with a lady who was maybe 10-15 years older than her. They became friends, because they were both vegetarian, and had a few other things in common. Turns out the lady was Jimmy Dale Gilmore's (probably best known as Smokey from The Big Lebowski outside of Texas, but he's a famous Grammy-wielding country musician) wife. You want interesting stories? Ask an old music star. Point is, you never know who you're going to find when you actually get to know someone. Anyway, the old-timers aren't generally going to be your best friends, of course. But, socializing merely for the sake of socializing is good for you.

jaytee_clone 18y ago
Old-timers (the cool ones) also don't have stupid social hangups, so they really know how to have fun. Plus, when it comes time to network for your start-up, old-timers tend to have a lot more connections and resources too.

anovaskulk 18y ago

The majority is not completely talentless, or without skill. They are average. It's the definition. There is only one thing they can do: be what they are.

palish 18y ago
What if I am of average intellect, but am completely dissatisfied with it, to the point of being utterly consumed with a quest to not be as illogical and uncreative as I wish I didn't have to admit I am? I believe the only thing I cannot do is be myself.
- anovaskulk 18y ago
  You can't not be what you are. At least, not yet :-)
  - palish 18y ago
    That's the thing -- I have to be. At least, I have to believe I can be something I'm not. Because if I truly am stuck with this brain, with this inability to be smart, as smart as John Carmack or Trevor Blackwell or Steve Wozniak, then I will be unable to realize my visions of the future, of potential creations, of new awesomeness, and the one thing I feel I cannot live with being is a consumer rather than a producer. In short, what I am is an overpowering urge to be anything else.
    - anovaskulk 18y ago
      If you can be something better, then you're not what you think you are. Are you just speaking hypothetically, or do you really think you are unable to be smart? Because if you do think that, chances are you're wrong. > In short, what I am is an overpowering urge to be anything else. Join the club.
      - palish 18y ago
        A friend was answering some programming/logic questions for a potential employer. In addition to a many good programming questions, there was also this logic question: "A man was sentenced to death, but the king wanted to give him a last chance. He asked the man to choose from one of the three knights that were there. One of the knights was the Knight of Life, and he always told the truth. The second Knight was the Knight of Death, and he always told lies. The third knight was the Knight of the Dungeon. He sometimes lied and sometimes told the truth. If the man chose the Knight of Death, he would be executed before sunset. If he chose the Knight of Life, he would be acquitted and set free right away. If he chose the Knight of the Dungeon, he would spend the rest of his life imprisoned in the Dungeon. The man was allowed to ask the three knights one question each. Thus, he asked the fat knight, "What is the name of this tall knight?" The reply was, "He is the Knight of Life." He asked the small knight, "What is the name of this tall knight?" The reply was, "He is the Knight of Death." Then he asked the tall knight, "Who are you?" "I am the Knight of the Dungeon" was the reply. After that, the man was able to correctly choose the Knight of Life, and was set free immediately. Who is the Knight of Life, and who are the other two knights?" This puzzle seemed beautiful to me because it was so pure. If you can understand English, then you have the potential to solve it. My friend solved it in about forty seconds, according to him. I solved it in over twenty minutes, and only after being wrong once. I am an extremely slow programmer. I have had the good fortune of being around many productive programmers, so I know this to be the case. I used to make excuses as to why I was so. But in the end, it doesn't really matter; I am wrong 90% more often than I am correct, and I act stupidly most of the time. My memory is so horrible that I routinely forget the start of the sentences I am writing. I often re-read what I write (be it English or C++) over ten times before I am satisfied it means what I meant. My mathematical skills are a wash. (I still don't even understand the meaning and utility of 'e', and not for lack of trying.) My mind's eye is blind; I find it almost impossible to imagine what a given figure should look like, if I am about to draw it, so something such as Paul's painting http://bookshop.gfu.net/AxCMSTemplates_GFU/pics/products/0133708756.jpg http://bookshop.gfu.net/AxCMSTemplates_GFU/pics/products/013... seems nothing short of magic. My hand-eye coordination is decent, but not great. My reflexes are decent, but not great. So in summary, I feel I am decent, but not great; but I have an overwhelming appetite to be great. I don't want to give up on becoming a genius, and I don't want to believe that I cannot become one just because I wasn't born one.
        unalone 18y ago
        So the first guy can't be telling the truth, because the third guy gives a different answer and the Life gives the truth. So he's dungeon or death. Second guy might be telling the truth, since the Death would lie. Or the THIRD knight might be telling the truth if he IS dungeon. If the second guy is lying, that means we know the two liars and the third must be Life. But he says he isn't. Therefore, the second knight is Life, the third is Dungeon, and the first is Death. But solving a puzzle isn't genius. It's logic. Some people spend much more time with logic than others: programmers have lots of games like these. The Blue Eyes puzzle comes to mind as a particularly hard one. Similarly, the more people program, the more they learn mental shortcuts that let them be more productive. Time fixes everything, and the best attribute to fix things is passion. You've got that. You just need to make sure to unfailingly look for whatever your goal is, and to learn everything you need to pursue it. Remember: there's more to building something than programming.
        palish 18y ago
        There is more to genius than passion. I have experienced so many situations where I truly believed the equivalent of "0 is equal to 1". When someone points out why this cannot be the case, I usually sit in stunned silence while I review my reasoning. When I find the flaw, it seems inane that I could have missed it. Let me try to prove this from a different direction. You've probably heard of Henry Molaison, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_(patient) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HM_(patient) ... His hippocampus was surgically removed, rendering him unable to form new memories. Do you truly believe it would have been possible for him to build Quake 3 just because he was overwhelmingly passionate about doing so?
        unalone 18y ago
        You know the line about genius being perspiration? That one's very much true. That's why context matters so much. So I solved that puzzle quick-ish. But then, as a kid I played logic games to pass time. Other kids would play sports, and I'd pore through books of puzzles and solve them. So suddenly I'm able to do that. But it means that now, as a freshman at the gym, I'm operating as a near-pathetic level. For Christmas I got two 30-pound weights because that's a level that's easy for bench and hard for curls. But compared to my roommate? That's nothing. He does 50s for light workout. It's because he's spent much more time doing that than me. There are always impediments. The best trick is to figure out how best to work around them and do what you want anyway. Figure out where you best fit in to the process of creation. Look at the top Apple team. Steve Jobs and Tim Cook and Jony Ive - the three I know of best - are quite different people. Jobs is hotheaded. Cook is known for incredible stamina but he's not a design guy. Ive is all design, nothing else. They're very different people who excel at doing a few things very well, and they work together to create their brilliant products.
    - unalone 18y ago
      Then try and understand that there's no such thing as average intelligence, only different intelligence. People learn different things differently. Part of it's context, background. Part of it's just how minds work. Jobs had a foster father that was apparently very aggressive, and he inherited that trait. He had an open mind, certainly was good at learning from things, but some of his personality he got from the people who raised him. Nothing is immediate. Everything takes years and years of work. So whatever you want to do, start now! Begin learning. Learn everything. If you ever have a question, or wonder why something is the way it is, ask! You'll learn more, more, more, and eventually you'll find a question without an answer. That's when you begin work. Forgive me for being immodest and talking about myself, but that's the story I know and I hope it helps. When I was really young, I was surrounded by books, and learned how to read when I was 2 or 3. I'd read quite a lot by middle school, and so when we were asked to write things, I wrote by copying a lot of the things I'd read from different sources. Some people called it a matter of intelligence, but it wasn't: I had just read a lot, and so had a wide palette to blatantly steal from. At the same time, I had computers around since I was an infant, but I'd never really learned about things like forums until I was about 13 - which from some stories is pretty damn old online! From there, though, I learned a lot about communities, and tried making my on site two years later. It was all a matter of timing: if I'd discovered forums at 19, my first site would have launched a lot later. As it happens, now I'm working on a site for writers, and I'm combining a lot of the things I've learned in the past to make it happen. Passion's the real key, and from what you've written you've got that. Now you need to make that passion last. You can just go out and start trying things, but be warned in advance that they won't seem impressive at first. Each one gets a little bit better. And the more perspective you've got, the more this happens. Something you thought was perfect seems awful once you see things other people have made - I know this happens in both writing and web design, and I'm sure it must happen in every other field imaginable. It'll take time; nothing happens overnight. Not even for child prodigies: Mozart spent 6 years immersed in music before he became a prodigal violinist, after all, and he had a father who'd spent his life learning the craft that Mozart learned and then mastered. Never let generalizations stop you from getting something done. Don't worry about intelligence. Worry about doing things, thinking things. Let other people compliment you after the fact, and if you get things done they will. Focus your effort on accomplishment and you'll be guaranteed to succeed.
    - lliiffee 18y ago
      "Smart" isn't something you are, it is what you do. People who accomplish amazing things do so almost completely because of passion, hard work, time management, good taste, determination, working on the right problems, etc. In CS grad school, I have seen many absolutely brilliant people who accomplish nothing. In school, they were used to being able to get every math question right, while doing it in their heads. However, when working on real problems in the real world, this sort of raw brainpower (as measured by an IQ test or SAT or whatever) has amazingly little benefit. There is some small threshold, and on the whole it is helpful, but it doesn't mean much. You can do the math on the number of people walking the earth currently with IQ scores higher than Einstein. If you want to do great things, here is how: Keep learning new subjects, keep finding new problems, talk to other talented minute, work hard, and enjoy yourself. Worrying about being "smart" is a lame excuse. The "smartest" man in the world is this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Michael_Langan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Michael_Langan
      - anovaskulk 18y ago
        I'd have to disagree with that. There is actually quite a high threshold, as should be obvious, from the percentage of people doing great things. You may not notice it, if you live in your own little isolated world. Yes, you can be very intelligent, and incompetent; but no, you cannot be competent, able to get stuff done, and not intelligent.
        lliiffee 18y ago
        I think you make a good point. In saying the threshold is low, I am probably biased by my peer group. Although... it is so hard to separate "smartness" from "passion". Particularly as people get older, someone who is passionate and keeps investing in themselves by learning new things will blow past someone with faster neurons that rests on their innate talents, rather than challenging themselves.
        dasil003 18y ago
        Yes, but what's the threshold? Someone with an IQ of 100 can be very successful. I agree you can't be a luminary like the Woz, but holding yourself to that standard is like expecting to win the lottery. You can be plenty rich, successful, accomplished, etc without being an infamous figure. People are successful for all different reasons, and the best anyone can do is put themselves out there and take advantage of opportunities. The minute you convince yourself that are not smart enough or too lazy or whatever, then you're just committing to failure—most likely because psychologically safe—which is stupid because no one has the recipe for success. Chase your dreams!
    - Marcvs 18y ago
      Look. Even your brain is just an organ and so it can adapt to demand—to a certain extent, however its actual limits are debatable. Right now, it is only used to do what you use it to. When you try anything more demanding, it’s almost as if you physically feel its pain of incapacity, but so much only for the first time you try. Yes, try learning new things; as things you might not believe you could eventually master. (Pick something you would really love knowing or being able to.) Get introductory tutorials and go really slow; make sure you grasp one thing before you move to another. Repeat. Don’t let yourself be put off by initial difficulty. If you persist, you might slowly feel a kind of “lightening up”. You might eventually surprise yourself by approaching even everyday little “problems” in new and ingenious ways, stunned by how “stupid” you must have been not seeing those solutions previously.

palish 18y ago
That was an interesting way of sidestepping the question. If someone is born retarded, could they become a Steve Jobs just because they really wanted to and worked real hard at it?
- unalone 18y ago
  Most likely not. No. There is always a problem with mental limitation. However, that rarely matters as much as it's emphasized. The more you focus on something, the more brilliant your end results will seem.
  - palish 18y ago
    Right. So we've established that there is a baseline for becoming a genius. You are either born with it, or you aren't. Next question: how do you determine whether you're born with it? At what point does your demonstrated ineptitude force you to admit that you are incapable of realizing your goals? ("you" doesn't refer to you specifically, obviously. I just talk in the active voice.)
    - unalone 18y ago
      There's no point. You'll never know until after it's already happened. However, if you give up, you'll never know if you could have been. The struggle is what makes it so hard, but it's what makes it worth it in the end.
      - palish 18y ago
        True. But if you lie to yourself, then you may waste your life and alienate those you love in the process. Not all of the YC startups that failed have failed just because the founders stopped working on them, I'd imagine. At what point should you let failure overwhelm you?
        unalone 18y ago
        That's the separating question, then: to you, is it worth all that? It is for me. I'd bet that most of the failing YC founders learned important lessons from their failures. Nobody succeeds every time.
        palish 18y ago
        Sure, it's worth all that. I'd trade both arms for Newton's brain. (I could always learn to write with my feet.) The problem is, it is not at all a foregone conclusion that you will become one of the greats just because you throw most of your life at it. Should a retard give up on his life's goals sooner, later, or ever?
        unalone 18y ago
        The latter is what I meant. I think most people would trade everything to be one of the greats. But is it worth it for the shot at being one of them? I'd say absolutely. Not to mention: as you go for it, you find better and better people along the way.
        palish 18y ago
        I guess the difficult work could be delegated to geniuses who want to work with you, while you complete the work within your means. It's hard not to be devilishly jealous of their towering talent, though. Also, I'd imagine it would be extremely hard to earn their respect, so it they would be hard or impossible to find, or to keep. You bring up a really interesting point. To me, doing the work myself matters more than realizing the vision. I never knew that about myself before, so thank you.
        rms 18y ago
        I just wanted to reply to this to see how far to the right the text would go.
        ryanmahoski 18y ago
        How hard have you worked on the fundamentals in the areas you want to master? Newton slaved for years in deliberate practice to connect the neurons you admire so much. Many people who think they are doomed to mediocrity in fact are not. What exactly are your goals, where are you now and what are your habits? Maybe you are too stupid to achieve your dreams, but more often I think people are too lazy. How disciplined are you? Everyone values genius, welcome to the crowd. It is a convenient excuse to obsess on others' talent as if genes and childhood were all that separated you from them. You appear to be focusing too much on outcome rather than on the hard work necessary to achieve it. Skills always look natural from the outside! But ask the honest, reflective people you admire and they'll tell you: they worked their butts off on fundamentals. Psst: fundamentals are open to you too. Don't obsess over shortcuts. I would love to see you explain to a person with no arms how you'd gladly cut yours off for slightly better gray matter. Practice with intense effort. If forum composition and wordsmithing is a challenge, discipline your technique by journaling stream-of-consciousness. To improve your memory treat it like a muscle: high reps, low weight at first. How is your health? Do you exercise, eat right, avoid alcohol, have a positive attitude and sleep well? These are simple but powerful levers. Talent is overrated. Upgrade your attitude not your physical brain, silly. :)
        kirubakaran 18y ago
        I sense a leap here. Are you saying that you have to be a genius to make your startup succeed? If so, you are wrong.
    - chris11 18y ago
      "At what point does your demonstrated ineptitude force you to admit that you are incapable of realizing your goals?" I'm not really sure that intelligence matters as much as people think it does. K.A. Ericsson is a psychologist who studies expert performance, and he's clearly shown that a high iq is not required to become an expert in something. What is required is 1000's of hours of deliberate practice. So basically when you see overnight successes, you're really missing the hard work that got them there. Everyone needs to put in the effort. And besides research is coming out that really supports the idea that intelligence can be raised. There is some evidence that practicing the Dual-n-back test will raise your fluid iq. And the test isn't domain specific. http://cognitivefun.net/test/5 http://cognitivefun.net/test/5 is a good site for the test.The community there is also really good.

anovaskulk 18y ago
What's success? What does it mean in and of itself? Certainly, they can be successful, but at what? Not likely anything great.
- unalone 18y ago
  See, but you treat "success" and "great" like objective things. Everybody thinks different things for them. If you're like me and think that greatness is a few-times-in-a-century thing, then look at the people who achieve it, you'll be astonished. Some of my big-list people aren't people you'd expect at all. Bill Watterson, who was by all accounts keep-to-himself in school. Samuel Beckett, who entered college as a cricket fiend and slowly gravitated towards writing. Nobody tries to be great. There's the limit. Few average-minded people will attempt anything extraordinary. Few smart people will, for that matter. And if you don't try, you don't do it. That said, none of the great works I've seen in my life are things I've felt to be beyond me. Do you feel otherwise? Do you look at things and feel like you could not, at birth, have entered a path of life capable of producing those things? The things I think are beyond me are beyond me by choice. I won't ever write virtuoso piano music, because I don't want to spend 20 years learning to play the piano well enough to write that stuff. But if I really, really wanted to, I could, given enough time. The problem is that few people realize that. They see something complex and decide they could never do that, not realizing that the more you know the simpler it seems.
  - anovaskulk 18y ago
    So you're saying everyone has the potential to be great? That's just not true. Yes, most people never come near their full potential, but not everyone is born equal, and not everyone can do anything, if they just try hard enough. On second read, maybe that's not what you're saying, and I missunderstood. Forgive me--I haven't slept in 40 hours. :-)
    - unalone 18y ago
      Haha, I was up until 6 in the morning when this thread opened, I know the feeling. (You should get some sleep!) What I said in the other branch of this thread is that you'll never know if you can be great unless you spend your life trying, and that so few people do try that almost all of the people who really strive for it end up succeeding, to at least some degree.
    - lliiffee 18y ago
      "potential" is a dangerous word. What I was trying to say is that what holds most people back isn't IQ. There are huge numbers of people with high IQs who accomplish little. The really rare people who accomplish amazing things are distinguished, I think, more by their passion, interests, and work habits. The threshold to be a Woz is obviously, very high. I just don't think that threshold is mostly measured in terms of "smart".
      - gravitycop 18y ago
        There are huge numbers of people with high IQs who accomplish little. Have you read, or read of, any of these longitudinal studies?: http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-long.html http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/eric/faq/gt-long.html The best known longitudinal studies were conducted by Louis Terman. In 1921 Terman and his colleagues began a longitudinal study of 1,528 gifted youth with IQs greater than 140 who were approximately 12 years old. Over a period of approximately 40 years, the researchers laid the groundwork for our understanding of giftedness and paved the way for efforts to identify and nurture giftedness in school. Terman died in 1959 but the study will continue until 2020, to encompass the entire lives of his original 1528 gifted youth. Results of the study have been published in several volumes http://books.google.com/books?id=KQ4rLiAbHQQC&pg=PA41&vq=terman&dq=terman&source=gbs_search_r&cad=1_1 http://books.google.com/books?id=KQ4rLiAbHQQC&pg=PA41&#3... Intelligence is an important determinant of lifetime achivement. The classical study demonstrating this association was carried out by Lewis Terman and his colleagues. The study began around 1920 by intelligence testing a large number of children in California. From this sample they selected 1,528 (857 boys and 671 girls) with IQs of 135 and above. The minimum IQ of 135 represents approximately the top one percent of the population. The average IQ of the total sample was 151 (Terman, 1925). These children were followed up thirty-five years after their initial identification when they were in their early forties. By this time, the authors of the follow-up concluded that "the superior child, with few exceptions, becomes the able adult, superior in nearly every respect to the generality" (Terman and Oden, 1959, p. 143). Terman and his associated found that 70 percent of their sample had graduated from college; two fifths of the men and three fifths of the women had gone through graduate school. Of the men, 86 percent were in the two highest socioeconomic categories of professions and management. None of these individuals were in the lowest socioeconomic category of unskilled workers, as compared with 13 percent of the male population at that time. Seventy of the men were listed in American Men of Science, and three had been elected to the National Academy of Sciences. Thirty-one were listed in Who's Who in America. Between them, they had produced nearly 2000 scientific papers, some 60 books in the sciences, 230 patents, and 33 novels. Fourteen percent of the men did not fulfill the promise of their high IQs and failed to obtain socioeconomic class one or two occupations. These men were almost all impaired by psychiatric problems or lack of motivation. Among the women, most of them became housewives and mothers and consequently did not have such visible achievements. Nevertheless, seven women were listed in American Men of Science and two in Who's Who in America. Between them they had produced 32 scholarly books, 5 novels, more than 200 scientific papers, and 5 patents.

unalone 18y ago

I disagree with that threshold. When I was younger I thought it made sense: I was put into gifted and talented, and I developed an insane elitism that I used to denounce pretty much everybody around me for not having the same intellect. As I got older, I realized: it's not like that. People are very rarely stupid. Most people are very bright and just don't care to apply themselves. Again and again, as a kid, I'd come across situations with bullies and go with the lie that the bullies were stupid and jealous. Then in high school, I'd realize that some of those bullies were very bright, clever, and talkative, and that my own actions towards other kids could be perceived as bullying, when to me it was more a good-natured hazing. I started to realize that even the stoner deadheads that I thought were entirely mindless were in fact intelligent people who knew they were ruining their lives and just didn't care. From the people I've seen, the idea of exclusive intelligence is not as true as most people think it is. I've met people with higher IQs than me who seem less intelligent than I am, because they weren't raised in the way I was, and so went around laboriously working on schoolwork without ever once finding their own interests. For me, that was the height of unintelligence: doing things without asking why. On the other hand, I know one or two people I used to think were stupid going out and doing some pretty impressive things, not because they were particularly bright, but because they kept at something longer than other people did. The line about genius being 99% perspiration keeps coming up in my mind during this conversation. Most people have good ideas: one statement I read says everybody has three million-dollar ideas every year. We've all thought of cool things and then seen somebody else making a fortune of that cool thing. The difference between that person and the rest of the people with that idea is that that person knew what to do with his idea. The idea itself wasn't uncommon, but its realization was. Most people don't do great things because most people don't care to do great things. They never try once. Look at the startups you see here. Most of them are interesting, most of the coders have good things in mind. But how many would you call great? Even the really good coders rarely take on anything monumental.

Hexstream 18y ago
"We've all thought of cool things and then seen somebody else making a fortune of that cool thing." Stop! Stop! Now I feel less special!
abstractbill 18y ago
I agree with most of what you said, but: Most people are very bright and just don't care to apply themselves. I think it's probably closer to the truth to say most people don't know how to apply themselves. Just about everyone starts off with dreams of doing something great. Most people, no matter how smart, either give up to quickly or (less often) spend their lives working on the wrong thing. Figuring out what to work on, and then not giving up, is way more important than raw intelligence. Perhaps you've missed this because some people give up so quickly that it appears they never tried at all.