Being average

[claidheamhmor]

I found this question being asked on Reddit (I hang around there a bit), and thought it was quite interesting:

"People who were told they were “gifted” growing up, how did you deal with realizing that you were pretty average?"

Has anyone else ever had that experience? I've done quite a lot of thinking around intelligence, success, achievement, and so on; it's quite sobering.

Comments

[cracked_belle]

I was actually just speaking with a colleague about a similar topic earlier this week.

I was tested for and accepted into the Gifted and Talented program in Louisiana, USA, when I was in kindergarten/preschool. I remained in it from then all the way through my high school graduation. then for my undergrad, I was in the school's Honors program, taking higher level courses as much as possible.

my teachers, all throughout my schooling, were very supportive and encouraging of us. they absolutely made us feel special, capable, and powerful. (most of them, at least.)

in college, the sense of "superiority" and importance increased. we even had a terms for the regular students -- from simple phrases like "nonors" (as in "non-honors") to insults like "mundies" (as in, "the mundanes").

then I got into the working world. and honestly, I still carried that sense of self. I like to think I wasn't one of the cocky bastards that gave us a bad name. rather, I idealised that I was simply a little more adept at thinking atypically, at embracing facts over emotions in my decision-making process, and at drowning in my creative juices until I produced something earth-shattering (or so I thought).

I'm not sure what my stance is now. I completed my undergrad at that school in summer 2008. that's over ten years ago. I feel lost, adrift. I spent so much time and effort defining myself by my Brain and its abilities, only to learn that no one actually values intelligence anymore. it's depressing, exhausting, and disgusting. I hate the general populace more these days than I ever have in my excessively misanthropic life.

so I don't think that I am anymore "average" than I ever did (and I never really have); I just think most everyone else is sub-par as acceptable humanoid creatures.

[claidheamhmor]

I know what you mean. I discovered that intelligence is cool for some things, but we all have some gaps in our selves. All all very well to be smart, but if you're not a good person, it's wasted in some ways. And being smart helps, but so many people succeed without it that I'm not convinced it has value beyond a certain point.

[filialucis]

Huh. I was told this all the while I was growing up and I believe there was at least some objective evidence to back it up (my primary school once got some outside experts in to give intelligence tests; officially nobody was told the results but my parents were told off the record that I got the highest or second-highest score). Thing is, I myself never, ever believed it. If anything, I consistently thought I was sub-par. I'm such a bloody perfectionist that I'm way too hard on myself and the slightest slip-up counted as "proof" that I was basically useless and it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world noticed.

I think I must have been forty, or close to it, before it dawned on me that given that the axe hadn't fallen yet, it probably wasn't going to. Life has been much less stressful since then. :)

[claidheamhmor]

I had a similar experience with tests - I went to the Schmerembeck Centre, got into Mensa, etc - except I thought was smarter than everyone else. Coming down from that (failing first year at Wits was the first part of it) was crushing, and it took years of achieving at things through persistence and dedication to overcome that. Turns out I'm good at doing intelligence tests and remembering useless trivia, but that doesn't translate well into success in life.

I always found you intimidatingly bright.

[filialucis]

Meanwhile, I always found everybody else intimidatingly bright. :) I'd never have had the confidence to even try to get into Mensa.

Mind you, that's OK. For one thing, I'm not a "joiner" in any case. For another, while I don't know much about Mensa beyond the fact that it exists, I'm a wee bit sceptical about associations that define themselves in terms of being brainier-than-thou. Intellectual capacity is only one dimension of the human experience, and I think it's a long way from being the most important factor in human interactions. (tl;dr: I've met too many highly intelligent and highly educated people who were thoroughly unpleasant human beings. This is partly why I high-tailed it out of academia.)

[claidheamhmor]

Allan persuaded a bunch of us to go take the tests, and having done them, I figure just about any of my close friends could pass them easily. I went to a Mensa meeting or two (and a very nice "Christmas in July" dinner, but I found that just about everyone there was a misfit of sort, and that was the only common thing.

Agree absolutely on the human interactions.

[moshah]

Hi! Thanks for adding me, I've seen your name around for many years now, glad to get to know you a bit better.

I think the gifted/talented thing is a double edged sword. I think you label a kid as that, you risk teaching them exactly the wrong thing: That its innate talent alone that dictates success. Rather,it's mostly about hard work and trying and grit. Tell a young kid they are talented without the right other tools, and when they hit the inevitable challenge/wall/failure, they will internalize it as not being "good enough" as opposed to something to work through.

I try to do that with my kids (3 girls, 9 - 7 - 5) - we tell them they worked hard, as opposed that "they're smart". Although we do tell them that too on occasion.

I gather you're in South Africa, yes? I'm planning a trip (solo) there come October/November. A few days in Capetown, than doing an 18 day self-drive safari through a number of parks and Lesotho and eSwazi. My friend who is a zoologist is organizing a trip with his friends and he'll be guiding. Plus we'll drink wine. :-)

[claidheamhmor]

You told me about Peter's accident way back when. :)

You're dead right about the labelling; I also try to instill the values of hard work rather than talent in my kids.

Yep, I'm in Johannesburg, South Africa. Sounds like you'll have a great trip! If you happen to be in or near Johannesburg, drip me a line, I'd love to meet up. In Cape Town, if you're at all interested in cars, go visit the Franschhoek Motor Museum near Franschhoek. It's on one of the Antonij Rupert wine farms, so well worth a visit. So many wine farms and so much nice scenery out that way.