18 ms·

I'm 20, brilliant and totally lost

• dotcoma 17y ago
  Lucky you! I was 20, brilliant and totally lost. Now I'm 36...
  • chasingsparks 17y ago
    The title of this thread and your post almost replicated the lyrics to Counting Crows' song, All My Friends (which is one of my favorite songs). Oh, HN.
  • dschobel 17y ago
    To quote the famous (unfortunately hoax) Vonnegut speech: Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
    • bmj 17y ago
      On the other hand, we have John Milton lamenting his 23rd birthday (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/sonnet7.htm http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/sonnet7.htm): HOW soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth, Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth, That I to manhood am arrived so near, And inward ripeness doth much less appear That some more timely happy spirits indueth. Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot however mean or high, Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven. All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great taskmaster's eye.
      • dschobel 17y ago
        23 could be a bona fide mid-life crisis in the 17th century :)
        • req2 17y ago
          A 23 year old in the 17th century would expect to live nearly as long as a 23 year old today- the depressed life expectancy statistics are largely due to the fact that 3 out of 4 children died before they hit the age of five. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
          • pg 17y ago
            What you say about life expectancy at birth is true, but it's also true that people who made it to adulthood didn't live nearly as long. I'd guess the average life expectancy of a 23 year old in 17th century England was under 60.
            • nostrademons 17y ago
              You don't have to guess if you're willing to move a little forward in time: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html So the average 20 year old in 1850 could expect to live an additional 40 years, to roughly age 60. The curve started flattening after WW1 and continued doing so until around the 70s and 80s.
              • req2 17y ago
                Rome wasn't much worse off- a 20 year old would expect to hit 54. Here's hoping for the hockey stick. http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html http://www.utexas.edu/depts/classics/documents/Life.html
              • ido 17y ago
                England in 1850 was already industrialized. I suspect there were significant differences in life expectancy between the 17th century and 1850.
      • wallflower 17y ago
        "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." Henry David Thoreau
    • gnosis 17y ago
      Youth is wasted on the young. -- Mark Twain
• adamhowell 17y ago
  "You cannot catch what you do not drop." I'd never seen that before, what a great quote.
  • tsestrich 17y ago
    What if someone threw you something?
    • adamhowell 17y ago
      Sorry, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not. But obviously the quote's saying that if you're handed everything it means nothing. But if you lose it and have to fight to regain it, you learn its true value.
      • 10ren 17y ago
        ah, like the prodigal son. (I used to wonder if "prodigal" was a biblical term; but it's just related to the word "prodigious". However, I don't know which came first.)
        • HistoryInAction 17y ago
          Well, it's a biblical reference. 'Roast the fatted calf when the prodigal son returns.' At least, that's what Ringo and Weber's "We Few" claims... ah, I love me my MilSciFic :)
      • anamax 17y ago
        No, that's not what it's saying. What it's saying is "all the cool kids sound zen, so here's my shot". BTW - Folks who earned "it" in the first place know something about value too. There are identities other than the lost princess....
    • eru 17y ago
      Then you can't catch it.
  • 17y ago
• heed 17y ago
  See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis
  • prpon 17y ago
    There's a crisis brewing every quarter year of your life, if you let them be your crisis. There are some crisis that need intervention and help but whatever happened to a simple kick on the butt to move ahead and go do something useful?
• d4ft 17y ago
  This guy writes a weekly-ish advice column for Salon. I'm not usually an advice column reader (nor a salon one), but the dude has a way with words and interesting perspective (ex-rocker alcoholic turned writer recovering addict)
• Tichy 17y ago
  What good are video games? Since I also always wanted to create them (and still haven't created a great one, just small ones): for me I think they are part of a greater quest against loneliness. Sure, creating a vaccine would be nice, but loneliness is also a killer (I don't have numbers, but it is not only suicides - also older people who just die when their spouses die and so on). Maybe they are not for everyone, but games were important for me in certain stages of my life - they helped provide save havens in times of emotional turmoil, they helped to get together and connect with people, and so on. Maybe games are not the best cure against loneliness, or the only one. Maybe I should have just become a therapist. On the other hand, maybe one day my game will help some other scientist over a depression and enable him to finish working on that vaccine. I don't subscribe to the notion that only vaccines are "really important" - even stupid things like fashion play a part in the bigger picture. Ultimately, one has to ask what are we living for. Sure, somebody has to create those vaccines to enable us to live on, but working on the question on what to live for matters, too - otherwise, why not just die.
  • aswanson 17y ago
    Well said. I've stated before that in the end, life is a series of aesthetic choices.
  • unalone 17y ago
    Video games fill the role that any art does. They help us find ourselves and fill us with a static strength that we can't get from people, who are constantly changing as fast as we are. I've actually always had the opposite reaction as that teacher in the article. I've never felt interested in science or technological process. It fascinates me, but I shudder at the thought of spending my life dedicated to it. I want messier things to spend my life achieving. But then, I also identify a lot with the person that wrote this, though I don't feel as beaten as he does, so this might not be a particularly unique perspective on the matter.
  • Quarrelsome 17y ago
    I think the real question is who is someone to suggest that X is more "worthy" than Y? Without the benefit of hindsight and ability to see all the possibilities with and without X and Y there is no evidence behind the statement.
• ax0n 17y ago
  At least he recognizes he's lost now, when there's plenty of time ahead to fix it. A lot of people won't see it for another 30 years.
  • joe_the_user 17y ago
    Oh, but he also "recognizes" that he's brilliant, the two realization should exactly cancel each other out...
    • unalone 17y ago
      Brilliance isn't particularly difficult. A lot more people could be brilliant than are brilliant now, if they only put a little work into it.
      • joe_the_user 17y ago
        Agreed but someone who "recognizes" themselves as brilliant is someone who is thinking of their brilliance as something defining and unique - ie, they are exactly the people who don't understand the potential in everyone. I'd further mention that many people unconsciously choose to not be brilliant because this allows them to fit in.
    • bfung 17y ago
      Totally agree. Being academically successful is one thing while leading the life you want is another. Most average people figure out how they fit in our social order ok. I think the appropriate quip would be "Welcome to the real world, now get off my lawn!" Move on, nothing new here.
      • doki_pen 17y ago
        He's got a step on me. I was academically unsuccessful and thought I was brilliant. But the truth is whether you are brilliant or not is meaningless. Only how hard you try really matters.
    • ax0n 17y ago
• dsplittgerber 17y ago
  The advice given is probably worthless. The student obviously has issues with authority, his goals being dependent on the validation of others etc yet that isn't even discussed. It's basically a generic "feeling lost is good for a while" answer, which every smart 20-year old should be able to give himself.
• mrshoe 17y ago
  Given society's strict schedule for youth, the timing of getting lost is key. Around college graduation time is a great time to get lost. Your drive has carried you through 17 years of education and you are free to find yourself at that point. Getting lost in junior high, like I did, is just bad timing. High School and college become a holding pattern in which you get lazier and lazier. Luckily it doesn't last forever.
• dschobel 17y ago
  The conflation of doing well in school and brilliance is amusing. Don't most people figure out the distinction in HS?
  • joe_the_user 17y ago
    It depends on how "brilliant" they are! This whole thread is an endless font for quip abuse, mod me down quickly so I learn my lesson...
• clistctrl 17y ago
  The women did it to him, I've said it before, and i'm going to say it again. If you want to be king of productivity, avoid girls.
  • unalone 17y ago
    Procreation isn't productive?
    • freakwit 17y ago
      http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1240 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1240
  • zackattack 17y ago
    Stop downvoting him. Sublimated sex drive is an incredibly powerful force, and drives thousands of people to take up positions in society (doctor, lawyer, programmer) instead of wandering the earth, content with food and drink.
    • giardini 17y ago
      Is sexual sublimation considered a valid psychological concept these days? Isn't this part of Freud's theories and isn't most of that considered defunct?
      • bitwize 17y ago
        Paul Erdős never married or had kids; that biological fact alone is thought to account for his prolific mathematical output (and why we have an Erdős number).
        • potatolicious 17y ago
          But what if I want to marry/have kids, and don't give a hoot about my mathematical output? Whatever makes people happy eh? Not everyone needs to be an Einstein.
• josefresco 17y ago
  Sounds like typical depression setting in, something he's probably unaware that he's been fighting for years. Sometimes your problems aren't new and unique (no matter how 'brilliant' you are), and it can benefit you to reach out to people whom you may not think can help you at first.
  • unalone 17y ago
    Is that really depression? I think that what a lot of us confuse for depression is really contentment. This guy is happy to live his life as it is, but for the worry that he ought to have a drive.
    • gloob 17y ago
      I would suggest that if he's worried, he's not content.
      • unalone 17y ago
        The question is where worry comes from. Sometimes there's an external force contributing to worry, like having to pay rent or living in an apartment with a rabid bulldog. Other times, the worry comes from something inside, like wondering why you don't go out as much as other people or why your house isn't bigger. The internal worries are ones you can fight without necessarily changing your life, because they're fictions in some way. In this case, he's been told that he isn't happy unless he's feeling a certain way, and now that he's not feeling that certain way, he decides he must be unhappy. The problem's circular.
  • mattmichielsen 17y ago
    Sounds more like existential thinking to me. I don't consider that directly related to depression. I have often felt the same way he does in not really knowing what to do with my life, wondering about the meaning of life, etc. I think that's just the human experience rather than depression.
• Mongoose 17y ago
  This article is a good in conjunction with last week's "I Was Told I Was Very Smart." http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1346357.html http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1346357.html An interesting trend in those labeled remarkably intelligent is a tendency toward stymied feeling of self-worth.
  • joeythibault 17y ago
    There's a lot of research available now in education that says that positive reinforcement works, but not when it's talking about intelligence. For example, students are much better off when you say, "you worked so hard on that project, it really shows that you cared about what you were doing" as opposed to "your project was great, you are so smart". Children understand the difference between hard work and smarts (where smarts are natural ability and hard work is a virtue). Later in life those students that were positively reinforced for working hard are better off than those that were simply told they were smart. Which is a nice reference to what it takes to be a startup founder (smarts are great, but only when paired with strong work ethic. However a strong work ethic and tenacity could overcome a natural gap in ability).
• auston 17y ago
  Did that guy just complain about being able to own/drive a Ferrari?
• joeythibault 17y ago
  Cary should have saved his time and just said "join the navy". I'm not advocating military service. But if this student doesn't want to stay where he is, doesn't know what he wants to do and doesn't have the means to relocate, it's probably the most stable situation to let him think about his/her own future. Just saying... 3 years on a boat or sub and he'll know EXACTLY what he wants to do (and will have a lot more means to act upon it).
  • sokoloff 17y ago
    The disaster of that plan is you may very well figure it out 3 months in, and then have a multi-year effectively prison sentence to serve out. I have deep respect for those who do serve. I just don't think that recommending it as some kind of default "until you figure it out" is remotely a good idea.
    • raintrees 17y ago
      But when it really comes down to it, isn't almost anything a good thing to do "until you figure it out?" The lessons we learn are to be found everywhere. Hindsight makes me laugh at how so many of my "lessons" were around me at all times, in even the most mundane things! I keep forgetting that for me, it's all about the journey, not the destination.
      • nostrademons 17y ago
        I'd say it's much better to do things you can get out of "until you figure it out", because figuring it out often requires going down many blind alleys, and it's nice to be able to turn around and go back if you don't like one. If I had to give advice to struggling young college grads who don't yet know what they want to do with their life, it'd be take a job. Any job, though you should preference ones that will expose you to new ideas and talented people. Go as far as you can with it, then if it's not working out, take another job. Repeat until you have a fair picture of what the working world is like, then start a company. It'll fail (first startups always do), but by then you should have a good idea of what you really want to do, so you can take the job that will most help you achieve that, and start another company a few years down the road. Unfortunately, most directionless people either go to grad school or join the military, which are about the two worst things you can do. Because both are fairly hard to get out of, and if you find out 3 months in that it's not what you really want, the time spent in them is basically a big sunk cost.
• SamAtt 17y ago
  I honestly thought this was terrible advice. The problem this kid has is everyone has praised him seemingly since birth and so he thinks everything is simple. The mere fact that one teacher saying his dream was silly could throw his life into chaos shows he's underprepared for the world. In fact, the only reason he seems to feel lost is because he doesn't stick with anything beyond the initial thrill. Rather than narcissisticly wandering the world and becoming even further ingrained in this "do what's easy" philosophy I say jump into the real world. Join a startup and realize the joy of working against insurmoutable odds. Where not only do people call your dream silly but a lot of them won't even meet with you to hear you out. Then he'll get enough backbone to pursue his own dreams
  • unalone 17y ago
    Why not do what's easy? It's a lot more fun, and as you do it you learn. Never assume that just because you're drifting through life you're not growing as a person. I find that I learn and progress just as much in my idle states in life as I do at those critical moments that throw everything in relief. I also think it's very, very bad advice to tell somebody to follow a dream that they don't entirely understand. I've had both: Dreams where I only vaguely felt I wanted something, and dreams I couldn't help but pursue because I understood them so completely. The latter dream is valuable and absolutely worth pursuing. The former dream isn't really a dream at all, and pushing too hard at it will only make you feel that maybe dreams aren't worth following after all. Following the wrong kind of dream will burn you out in the worst way.
    • scott_s 17y ago
      The good stuff - the learning that, I think, matters and helps you actually grow - happens when you get past the easy beginnings and push into the hard stuff.
      • unalone 17y ago
        I disagree. While sometimes you might not be willing to get into the good stuff, other times you're absolutely in that mood and get into it without breaking a sweat. I see nothing wrong in going with the flow most of the time. For the last while, I've been going at things at my own pace. I try, hard as possible, not to let myself get into anything I don't want to do. The result, I find, is that while I'm not as überproductive as I was last year, when I was in a bad place and trying hard to get out, I still generate a lot of work without seeming to have to make an effort. What's more, I'm growing in a lot of ways at once because I don't have the slight resentment against the work I used to force myself to do. I find as I look at great works of art, regardless of the genre, that with the greatest masterpieces there comes a sense of relaxation. The people who made them weren't obsessing over them any more than they wanted to. They'd just taken themselves down a path in which what they were making was exactly what they wanted to make, and they made it. I find the same thing about Internet startups, actually: My favorite start-ups tend to defy a lot of the conventional rules, work at a relaxed pace, and then explode and grow huge.
• motters 17y ago
  He doesn't sound all that brilliant to me. Anyone who gives up just because someone tells them that their ambition is worthless is certainly not a true visionary. People who really are brilliant are usually knocked back many times before they have their first success.
  • unalone 17y ago
    It's funny, 'cos you're pidgeonholing the guy while telling him that he shouldn't let people pidgeonhole him.
  • anigbrowl 17y ago
    An interesting argument, but one with which I don't agree. To give up on something because someone else says its undoable is certainly un-brilliant; but I can understand being demotivated by someone's argument that your goal is worthless. Recall that the guy is in South America, where many millions of people still live in the most grinding poverty; I can understand why a teacher would argue that since videogames are toys for rich kids, it's self-indulgent to devote oneself to such a thing when only a day's journey from the university (or maybe less) there are people with no clean water, access to medicine, etc. Now, I actually think a South American videogame compny would be a fine thing in the bigger context: it would create jobs, diversify the economy, could lead to new educational tools and so on. Videogames certainly stimulated my interest in computers and technology and still do. But while he may be brilliant enough to become a fine game programmer/designer/businessman, I can't blame him for being socially and economically immature enough that he's not able to see how it all fits together. so my answer would be 'you love video games? Then make some, the world needs better games, because games can be powerful learning tools'.
• techiferous 17y ago
  This kid's real problem is [insert projection here].
  • jseliger 17y ago
    [if you think you're brilliant, you're probably not. The most brilliant people I know tend not to think of themselves in terms of brilliance.]
    • jongraehl 17y ago
      No, they're just smart enough to know that certain signals don't help them.
    • _pius 17y ago
      In fairness, the kid didn't actually call himself brilliant.
• 10ren 17y ago
  I think his advice is: find facts. You can't make decisions without facts - at least, not well-informed ones. Facts about the world and facts about you. Facts that aren't written anywhere. Things you can only learn by experiencing them. Know thyself.
• jimmyrcom 17y ago
  The 'I want to make video games' for a living is like hearing a teen girl enthusiastically brag about having great style sense and wanting to be a fashion designer or a poet because the things she writes are 'deep'(depressed with loaded words). These statements are so common it can feel disgusting. The counterstrike neckbeards of my generation would always go into CS half assed, learn java and usually not do it as a hobby. The new WOW generation are doing the same thing now. If someone wants to be a game programmer I think it's better to have a passion for programming and math first rather than a passion of games. As far as programming the internet is a better resource than any school could be. As far as game companies hiring people I think there's a better chance in getting a job if you're really great at art and creating environments. People have always been full of shit, but the only one you can blame for letting it affect you is you.
  • unalone 17y ago
    I'm younger than this guy was in the article. My next door neighbor just went off to college to become a fashion designer. A handful of my friends became poets. A few friends of mine are forming a video game company. I don't see the point in bashing somebody because they like something. Very often, those people that try something and turn out to be terrible find what they love in the process. Why insult them?
    • jimmyrcom 17y ago
      It's not insulting them, it's looking at them as if they're naive because they don't know half the other guys or girls also secretly want to be the some thing. I have yet to meet anyone that's become a poet as a career choice. It doesn't pay. Only a handful of those girls ever become fashion designers. It's like looking at a little kid saying I want to be a policeman, fireman or doctor. All the little kids at 5 years old seemed to pick one of the three. You give them encouragement with a smirk and always expect things to change. The professor has the right to his opinion and to give his personal recommendation when asked. A person who has the balls to tell you you're wrong when he/she really feels that way should be respected not demonized. This should not be an earth shattering visionary destroying event if he recommends the contrary to what you want based on experience. I think the author exaggerates and throws the blame outward way too much.
• deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
• Arun2009 17y ago
  The dude is not nearly as brilliant as he thinks he is. I've seen better.
  • unalone 17y ago
    You don't know him. Don't be an ass.
• toadstone 17y ago
  my advice would have been: think harder
  • toadstone 17y ago
    I wasn't being flip. His head is full of mush and delusions. He is unsatisfied with his academic success, girls, and hobbies because they do not cast him as some kind of mythic hero. He needs to get rid of that illusion. Throwing himself into the army or a startup company would just be feeding it. Once he stops doing things only to aggrandize his self-concept, he might find something he actually finds interesting or beautiful and from that will spring endless energy.
• moldenke 17y ago
  This happened to me (although I was not brilliant). My social awareness (or whatever you might want to call it) only developed when I started university, and it made me look at what I was studying with disgust. Having said that, I think the advice given by Salon sucks. There is no "finding yourself" this is bullshit, there is only "making yourself". You have to choose and you have to throw yourself after your choices, there is no way to think yourself into life. I always liked this Baudrillard quote: "The modern ideal is to make your life what you want it to be. In reality, that is what you do when there's no other solution."
  • callahad 17y ago
    Could I ask what path you ended up making for yourself, and any insights you had on the way to discovering that particular direction?
• deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
• roc 17y ago
  I find that having a quality is inversely proportional to how often you talk about it.
  • UpFromTheGut 17y ago
    I hate to be pedantic, but I think "negatively correlated" would be more correct. Even though people know what you mean, it gives the phrase less meaning in case you meant to use the technical definition.
• teeja 17y ago
  "I'm learning to play the guitar, I draw, I read, I think, but I don't feel I exist.As if my biggest priority in life were enjoying it, learning to live it. But I want to do something else, man. I want to have a voice." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism
• xcombinator 17y ago
  I think one can't say to himself he is brilliant, this is so dangerous. My father tells me how much surprised it is when he sees back their school mates,now that he is retired, they expected the brilliant people in class to success. This is what really happened: The brilliant people(3 hipersmart guys) took a normal job and lived a normal live. People that had enormous problems in school, became presidents of big companies, made their own restaurants chains,got political power, became famous as scientific researchers... Wow: Nobody would have expected that!! I think those brilliant people were very good at learning and memorizing when the answer is known, but not so good facing risk and failure, fighting against unknown. PS: There was a time I got 10 over 10 score in some exams like math when a lot of people didn't pass. I felt great(and superior) about being considered intelligent, but at the same I felt frightened about losing my position, so I stooped asking stupid questions (what would they think about me). Later I discovered I love asking stupid questions, and I love testing new things, often it goes bad, so I felt liberated making enough grades and not being ultrasmart, but feeling this stupid man can kick some smart asses if I work hard.
  • skinnymuch 17y ago
    "People that had enormous problems in school, became presidents of big companies, made their own restaurants chains,got political power, became famous as scientific researchers..." I doubt this very much.
    • xcombinator 17y ago
      Well, maybe it sounds like when I say "had enormous problems" that they didn't pass courses, or were stupid, they passed(with great pain through) and they were not, but I'm talking about boarding school with military discipline(and physical punishments) in Europe. I think is difficult to understand this, specially for american people. The fact that some people don't quite understand is that making a successful restaurant or company is as difficult or more difficult that study and fill an exam.
      • skinnymuch 17y ago
• morphir 17y ago
  I think this article roots to the kids narcissism - just because you have an high IQ, does not mean you will become somewhat more important, more powerful or more successful than "Joe the plumber". Let me ask you this: Was Godel happy? Was Alan Turing happy? Even though they both were brilliant and had academic success, still - their personal lives was pretty much a sad state of affairs, and depression characterized their lives. Brilliance and success is not happiness. You are 20 (!) - I was around 25 before I found my academic passion, which by that gave me a inner calm. I wish you the best of luck. But to expect every piece to fall at place at the age of 20 is plain naive, actually a bit provoking. In addition to the large tasks here in life (like education and career) the small enjoyments like coffee in the morning, listening to the birds, getting a proper workout - is what keeps you smiling, or at least, it's what makes my day swell.
  • joe_the_user 17y ago
    Well, "Joe The Plummer" wasn't a plummer and wasn't named Joe but he was still more successful as a media sensation than this kid has been so far. Still, I think you put a finger on the Kid's narcissism. But consider, we're getting closer to a society where being well-thought-of in High School really seems like as good a guide for your chances of becoming a billionaire as anything. I mean, Sara Palin resigns as governor of Alaska because being a manager is kind-of a hassle but still seems to be taken seriously as a potential president. Now it's starting to make sense...
• giardini 17y ago
  When asked them what they want to become, a number of nerdy boys I know (cousins, nephews, etc.) have answered "I want to make video games!". Knowing that it is a competitive subfield of an already-competitive IT industry, I always encouraged them to look for alternatives. The guy should get a physical. He may have low thyroid, anemia, etc. The cure may be as simple as taking an iron tablet occasionally.
• ErrantX 17y ago
  I was above average intelligence in a school with a slightly below average age group. As a result I stood intellectually taller than my peers and breezed through. I was brought up with my parents doting on me telling me I was brilliant and destined to great things. As a result I was a little shit at 18. It was university that brought me crashing down, gave me social skills, got me laid and focused my education. But that was only by luck (I changed course at the last minute - my original choice would have been easy as school). However it never found me a purpose or passion (beyond an enjoyment of "hacking" and programming). I left university a much nicer person but just as lost. Now it's only 18 months later but I have a real serious career and a passion and am doing pretty good. Again that was total luck. Sounds like this guy is just getting to the "lost" section; don't worry it will figure itself out. It might take a couple of years (I know a guy who it took till about 31 to really sort out what he wanted). But the fact he is asking means he is on the right path. Best advice I believe you can give people like that is dont think too far ahead - I still want to be a millionaire playboy at 30 with 10's of businesses behind me. But thankfully now I know that is just a dream to help drive me to whatever success I do end up with. It might well be as good as that - probably not. But hell, ill bumble along ok regardless :) Or in summary: this shit generally works itself out so long as you work hard on the moment in hand. EDIT: I see a few people trashing the armed forces option. I couldn't disagree more. If you make the decision in the right way and understand what your signing up too it could be a great experience. No need to worry about your ling term future for the moment :)
• nalbyuites 17y ago
  Having gone through a similar phase recently, I can relate a lot to this guy. In my case, I was just plain lazy and irresponsible. For me, sitting about and wondering about 'the purpose' was a way of justifying not working in my grad courses. How many people really do manage to find their purpose in life? I would take SamAtt's insurmountable odds and extend them to every second of life. In all the moments that you have till death, you can do so many things, sitting and moping should just feel wrong. (I wish I followed my own advice.) I don't know the guy, but I feel such thoughts arise from an easy-going and leisurely life. People growing up with uncertain futures and/or troubled circumstances/times (in the so-called Third World) seem to be much clearer about what to do. Making meaning of your life is much easier when you have a hungry family to feed back home. You can't be bothered about your 'true calling' then. I don't know which case is better for an individual's peace of mind. Being more aware of one's mortality can help, perhaps.
• wicknicks 17y ago
  Its time to say "Hello World".
• sup7rstar 17y ago
  The cause of this acquired imbalance, the woman. :D
• anonjon 17y ago
  The follow up article to this is: "I'm 25, not as smart as I thought I was, and stuck in a dead end job."
• symptic 17y ago
  It would seem to me this young man has already set the gears into motion by knowing he doesn't have the answers and by making an effort to question his life. Many of the responses in here speak so matter-of-fact-ly that one person's opinion is right or wrong, but the truth is, no one knows the secrets behind what makes for a good life. Life happens and it's all about how to take it in. Be it thrusting yourself into hard, difficult situations or taking it easy to learn and enjoy the subtle nuances of life. There is a particular equifinality in life where the same solution can be derived through different approaches. No one here is in the right or the wrong. My personal opinion is that "getting lost" is less the solution, but rather the gentleman should "stay open," if you will. Wandering is merely one action that tends to incur openness, but it may or may not be the correct approach for any one person in particular. Learning to appreciate life is what he's learning "the hard way" currently and I would venture to say he'll experience that 'click' in his head sooner than his doomsday-ridden mind is anticipating. Realizing how fortunate we all are to be here in this cultivated "world" of intellectualism--of the attitude we all have developed through our own stories similar to this boy's--discussing the merits of self-realization (who I am) the requisites of self-actualization (what I can do) is what is important here. It's quite the privilege.
• sirbyt 17y ago
  There's no such thing as being brilliant. You can do brilliant things. If you feel you have a talent that other people don't then pursue that talent. That's what 'brilliant' people do. If all you have is good grades and no ambition, you're not brilliant, you're an idiot. Now start doing something about it.
• RevRal 17y ago
  You need something to propel you forward. Declaring that you're brilliant after you accomplish something is sometimes fun, but feeling that you're brilliant 24/7 is like putting a brick wall in front of you. People don't often realize that most experiences, and feelings, are common; but, it is the lack of skill to communicate that makes us feel lonely. I say, learn to communicate well. And be around people who know how to communicate well. I think this is very important to a person's happiness. Especially people who are, indeed, above average -- perhaps even for their sanity.
• caffeine 17y ago
  Dear Tired and Lost, Welcome to your life. You are the latest man in a chain many thousands of years long to wake from his deep sleep and discover that he is incomplete without a purpose. First, the bad news: the pain won't go away by itself. It will get worse, like a constant implosion dissolving your heart from within. During sex and danger the pain may abate - and then come back, strong as before. Be warned, though; ignored for too long, the pain can numb. Then your purpose has abandoned you, and you are lost. The good news: if you find your purpose and live it, the pain will go away. As I said, you are the latest inheritor of this burden - many have walked this road before you. They have left you way markers - the world's great spiritual traditions - to help you find your path. You must open yourself profoundly to the world around you. Find a teacher, meditate deeply, question incessantly. Test yourself at every opportunity. Find your true purpose, and give yourself completely. Do so, and you may be enlightened, suffused with joy at the wonders that have always surrounded you. Fail, and die an anonymous end to a vacant life. Happy hunting.
• ironsam 17y ago
  If his writing is any indication, he is clearly not brilliant.
• c00p3r 17y ago
  Relax, all the really painful things starts after 35 for a man afrer 25 for a woman =)
• allenp 17y ago
  Not to be too literal, but to answer the kid's question, "What are games good for?" Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun for Game Design sets out to answer just this. Essentially his argument boils down to that games are made to teach us things, that they can be used for amusement, and that they allow us to have experiences that paintings, film, or music don't have the capacity to deliver.
  • Quiark 17y ago
    Actually games are at least as useful as movies. And when a talented guy wants to be a director or actor, nobody tells him that it's nonsense and he should do something useful instead. So this was not fair from the teacher.