Comments by "k98killer" (@k98killer) on "Why Being Gifted Actually Makes Life Harder" video.

  1. Academic work until halfway through university was a relative breeze. I learned how to study at that point and felt pretty burnt out at the end. People asked why I didn't go get a doctorate immediately after graduating, and I think the honest answer is that I was too burnt out and didn't want to get more burnt out: my degree in biotech meant that I would have an additional year or three of prerequisite studies required for any doctorate program that interested me. (I got locked into biotech because I had used a lot of scholarships before realizing in my senior year that I didn't want to work in a lab.) The dual enrollment program when I was in highschool made me take a lot of courses that did not contribute to my degree, so I already had a taste of spending additional time and effort taking a bunch of classes to catch up despite jumping ahead. I instead returned to my highschool occupation of writing software. I have learned a lot since then and have a few new business ventures in the pipeline, but I still feel stuck and directionless. Being the gargoyle on the periphery of the established order is an unfun, isolating, and nihilism-inducing way to be in the world. I didn't ask for this, but I can't seem to stop manifesting it.
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  2. I once accidentally overheard my Japanese biotech professor telling a classmate "the most important thing you learn in your life: give up." He clarified that he meant to say "learn how to give up", which makes a lot more sense and was probably a translation difficulty.
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  3. It is worth noting that plateaus are inevitable and unique. Life is a continuous process of finding paths to get past the plateaus. It is still possible to invalidate unhelpful models but find the empirical models to be disappointing anyway.
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