I feel a bit ashamed of showing my face on this forum again, and I'm badly reluctant to say anything about this anyway, but it needs to be said else I'm going to have nobody to say it to and it's not going to be exposed to the light of day.

So I am profoundly gifted (I have a document from a state university indicating that my IQ is estimated, based on test results from I think one of the Stanford-Binets and the Wechsler scale, to be 'well above 180', whatever that means - minimum of 180, of course, but I don't think 'well' has an operational definition in psychometrics, now does it) and a biology major at university. Great student, doing well academically, and generally well-off on most things. (I'm female, if you want some guide on pronouns - last thread I was in people thought I was male for some reason, probably the absurd cultural notion of There Are No Women On The Intertubes. Just letting you know that's not the case.)

I am almost completely bereft of anything resembling an adequate social life, and I'm perfectly comfortable with a relatively small social life (I'm a biiiiiig introvert) - but I'm close to having nobody.

My best friend, and indeed the only person I know on my wavelength who I have any sort of substantial contact with, lives across the ocean, and I can't even visit him for two and a half years since my folks, skittish people that they are, won't let me visit him until I've finished undergrad - which is reasonable to a point because he lives in Eastern Europe, albeit one of its most modern cities, but for goodness's sake I've known people my age who've been to South Africa and Thailand, and quite on their own (i.e. not under the aegis of a study-abroad program or something else), and it gets really quite lonely sometimes around here.

It's hard to find people on my wavelength anyway (it's a cliched phrase, but it's the best way I can really put it).

Combine this with constantly being assailed with people who come to the same conclusions I do a long time after I come to them partially because they're not as smart, people who base their opinions of the world on things that are patently untrue (for example, alternative medicine practitioners - it irks me something fierce when people consume or, especially, sell things that have no empirical, rigorous scientific proof behind them and yet purport to have an effect on the body that they don't - these things kill people), people who have nasty prejudices on the basis of sex or race or sexual orientation or anything else that has no effect on the content of one's character and the extent of one's intelligence - it's ridiculous, and I've about reached the end of my ability to put up with it to the extent where there have been times the past few days where I've had some fairly dark thoughts. (Don't worry, I'm a benign sort of curmudgeon.)

Sometimes I wonder if humanity's speciating - some people seem to be anything BUT human.

The Asperger's community (which I am not a part of, by the way) has a fairly good saying to describe my situation in a way - feeling like an 'anthropologist on Mars', except in this case, I fully grasp what's going on socially but find it not only illogical many times but also quite repugnant and refuse to take part in it. I'm not an outcast - in fact, I'm pretty well-respected by my classmates and am often sought out for help - but I don't respect them back (oh, sure, I treat them civilly, but I deride them in private) because I find them slow and also somewhat biased. I've had to hold myself back from berating lab partners when they screwed up an experiment, sometimes to ridiculous ends (e.g. in the second semester of organic chemistry, one is ordinarily expected to know how to use a separatory funnel and what it is. This is BASIC stuff, if you have taken organic chemistry; I don't expect a person to know what a separatory funnel is if you haven't taken organic chemistry. These people were in the SECOND SEMESTER of organic chemistry and they didn't know what a separatory funnel was), and am massively grateful that I'm able to do lab work on my own when I've got it (I get much better results).

And then there's the fact that Dad's slowly killing himself with tobacco, Mom isn't handling it very well at all, and I appear to be the sanest human being in the family. This is tangential, however, and just extra stress.

I don't know any other group of people that's even going to have an idea what I'm talking about and I'm moderately desperate to be heard and understood to at least an adequate extent by ANYONE, which is why I'm posting this long, not-totally-organized rant/plea here.

If you're asking "why?" it's because man is stupid and God hates us. Life is hell, but it ain't forever and it ain't that bad. (because life on earth is made of carbon, which has 6 electrons, 6 protons, 6 neutrons). If you want to live here you're constantly combusting oxygen, or, burning forever.
Just kidding. I'm being stupid. Trying to cheer you up a little.
Oh the lonelines. And why do they let the stupid people run things in this world? I vaguely remember those feelings. Now I have two small children and a husband to take care of and feelings have become simple- tired, irritated, happy, or amused. To be honest I frequent this forum for the community as well, although I do like learning new things like I always do here; it's the people here that keep me coming back.

ACh, rant away! I think you will find this forum to be very supportive and understanding.

I'm sorry to hear about your father, I do know how it feels. I lost my father, due to his addiction to tobacco.

I'm not able to give you words of inspiration. The only thing I can say is, allow people to get to know you. You might be surprised at the results.

'If you want to live here you're constantly combusting oxygen, or, burning forever.'

At least combusting is fun. It's what life is about. (Once you've made awesome things in organic chemistry, there is little more awesome.) I made seven feet of nylon three weeks ago (not strictly combustion, but it's a chemical reaction).

Hi ACh,
Welcome!
I went back and read your last post - and I particularly like when you added:
2 questions:
1) how did you maintain your drive motivation and discipline under less than ideal conditions?
2) what if 'enjoying other people' was an academic subject? How would you rate the 'drive,motivation and discipline' you have applied to the subject so far, and do you think it's worthwhile to increase your 'd-m-d' in this subject, and if so, what steps could you take to do so?

To be honest, I didn't really feel completely safe to fully be myself with anyone else until my own son was born. I did recognise that that isn't the right way, so I decided to act maturely and bring more of my whole self into my friendships, and also try to find people who were more 'like me' so that more of me would be appreciated. This group here is part of that.

If you are able to travel to BIQ in the spring near Boston Mass I would recommend trying that Beyond IQ (BIQ) Boston April 29 - May 1, 2011
Chelmsford Radisson, Chelmsford, Massachusetts, USA.
Also keep close tabs on http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/conferences.htm to see if there are any conferences that seem like worth a try.

Then there is the question of stress. Everyone has more than they want. Some people find a way to handle it so they can go on. Some people are more ambitious and find ways to grow from stress so that they can handle more than before. What are you ways to deal with stress. Which ones help you, which ones hurt you, which ones grow you?

One more idea - anyone you like here, you can send them a 'PM' private message and see if they are willing to chat with you a bit. One thing about PG folks - I believe that they are the most diverse group that exists.

Love and More Love,
Grinity

To be a good anthropologist, you cannot get involved in your subjects!!!

There is stress you put on yourself and stress that comes from outside. Inside you can be calm and cool if you learn to control your emotions. This does not mean suppress them.

As far as people go, find something to do that is non-academic that brings you in contact with people from all walks of life. I play sports in local leagues and volunteer.

2 I don't really know how to answer. To be perfectly honest, I feel like I've been run horribly ragged regarding 'enjoying other people', for the most part, and every so often I'm all 'hey, maybe this person has a smart' and then I wind up finding out 'nope, should have kept to myself on that one' because either they're, to be a little euphemistic, off the old wavelength, or worse, they're nuts.

1 I can answer better. I want those things and need them to get where I want to go.

The alternative is somewhere I never, ever want to go.

Elaborate on this a bit? I don't get what you're trying to say.

Can you say more about 'been run horribly ragged' - does that mean that you spend a lot of time on the topic? does it mean that your hopes get lifted up and then dashed? Does it mean that you work hard to enjoy the common bonds but run out of energy and crash after the effort? If this were a school subject, would you quit? change majors? Is the loneliness bad enough that it's worth continuing the 'class' even if the results are stinky for now?

((hugs))
Grinity

I do like the alternative medicine. �I like that it starts with a healthy diet and fresh air and exercise. �I try the least invasive solutions first and try to help the body help itself. �I just gave birth in a jacuzzi with a midwife because I could. �I would have been grateful for modern science if there was an emergency. �I try to raise my kids as natural as possible.

I sort of agree with you about nuts being a nuisance. �I don't like the nuts that are just a little off, only in their head. �I love the totally nuts that act it out, like the people that hike the Appalachian trail or learn to fly on trapeze. �And it's just personal taste, but I love old hippies. �Their hearts are huge.

I'll bet chemistry is a really fun project. � �Sounds like you're getting a kick out of it. �I don't like hearing your classmates aren't paying attention. �Maybe that's why they keep recalling batches of Tylenol off the shelves. �

We could really use your help with something. �I don't know if we have any scientists hanging around. �Maybe you could make a thread we could reference on great science fair projects so we can help our kids, please ma'am.

I'm going to say what I've said before, to others who have posted for similar reasons. I know from experience that being PG can be isolating. It can make you feel different, lonely, and misunderstood. You can't change that, absent finding other PG folks who share your interests, ideals, and personality, and who want to be your friends.

But your emotions (anger, resentment, etc.) toward people who are less intelligent than you are are not something that you're stuck with. You can change your reaction to your environment, and I hope that you will work on doing that, because living in a world full of people you hate must be very depressing. If you address that problem, I think you'll find that life becomes much more tolerable.

You sound SOOO much like my husband ach!
My brother is pg as well; (they both knew each other at the same high school for big brained people, funny enough).
I have a pretty big brain, but tend towards the optimistic - oh that person over there just doesn't understand! I am not pg so I don't really get the MAJOR separation issues but see it a lot when it comes to these two men in my life. As my husband put it just this morning, regarding lack of educational fit and social fit, it can be so psychologically painful that it is equatable to physical pain; so much so that he wouldn't want to burden anyone else with a (detailed!) description (outside of family, of course).
He tells me about this stuff and he has had ok luck finding a few folks to hang with but no one that you would really say is as smart as he is. (Oh, and since he isn't in the sciences, finding jobs that are a good fit... well it is a bit of a challenge, too).

My brother has found a good place too, after much MUCH up and down. He has phd in nuclear physics, completed studies to become an m.d. also, but finally ended up getting a job where he can just do research, design, etc., etc., some bio-something or other job, which sounds like a great fit for him. His wife is adorable and very smart, I don't think pg, but she is gifted and they spend their days speaking different languages together, raising a sweet little girl and doing their own thing, which I think is a good ending/beginning.
Just some thoughts, early 20's is not the end of the road you will more than likely find folks you can 'stand to be around' and who can stand you.

ps, dh is definitely a curmudgeon!

It's at the point where I wish I didn't need people at all, more often than not - I certainly cherish the ones I have who actually enrich my life, such as my best friend and my parents and the handful of professors I've had, but others? It's psychological pain that's almost like chronic physical pain, and dosing oneself up on painkillers, unlike chronic physical pain, isn't the way to go about dealing with it.


I would totally beg you to put me in touch with your brother because I need mentors especially in the sciences, especially people who are profoundly gifted, like I need food, except I have no idea how one would go about a cross-sciences mentorship, since I'm in biology and your brother's a nuclear physicist.

Different languages are awesome. I'm somewhat fluent in Romanian, myself. Any Romanian speakers? Vorbesc romaneste, un pic.

I'm trying to do it real, real subtly (Mom has articulated that if she catches me traveling abroad before the end of undergrad, she will stop supporting me in any way, shape or form) - she knows and appreciates my reasons for wanting to, but she is fiercely paranoid and I've run into a wall trying to figure out why she has this wacky sense of anxiety.

(Neither of my parents are exactly all there, to varying degrees. Did I mention my father is probably going to die in the next 5-10 years, and he's only 60, because his lungs, brain, and bladder are in such crud shape and he's almost entirely disabled, and did I mention my mother is - partially justifiably because her family life as a kid sucked - EXTREMELY anxiety-ridden? They've gone over wills with me and talked life insurance and power of attorney. On top of the darker aspects of being profoundly gifted, I have family issues, and I'm in my early twenties - entirely too young for either parent to keel over, and yet my father will probably die, at the latest, two years after I finish grad school. Whoop-de-friggin'-doo. Although, then again, who DOESN'T have family issues?)

Somehow, doing this only strikes me as 'Deny it and the pain'll go away'. It doesn't seem like it respects the facts.

And I strive to know reality, no matter whether it is as great as unicorn farts or as cruddy as world genocide.

I can definitely find out whether he would be game for that, and will hope to pm you soon (few days) to let you know either way. I owe him a ring anyway!

Here's the thing, though - these things are actually recommended by medicine, barring the midwife, and that's not even really off-the-wall that much. I'm talking about the stuff such as attempting to treat cancer with large doses of vitamins or pumping chelation solutions into your kid to try to 'cure' their autism. That is what I refer to.

Ever heard of natural products chemistry? You'll find that a lot of the stuff we have in medicine comes from nature.


I'm talking more about the unhealthy sort of nut.


And about half of them want to be pharmacists. (I'm the only one who plans to go to graduate school.)

Seriously, next time one of them says 'lol i want 2 go 2 pharm skool' I'm going to tell them 'Fat chance, sucker, you can't even make aspirin'.

I'm glad you're making friends here. Everyone needs a place to feel at home, even if it's only virtual.

Well, that's your interpretation. Personally, I think that resenting ND people for not being as smart as you are is like resenting a dog for not being able to use silverware. It just doesn't make sense. Yes, they are intellectually below your level. No, that doesn't mean that they deserve to be the objects of derision.

If you are PG, you simply can't expect ND people to be the same as you. I get that it can be frustrating trying to communicate with ND people. I have experienced that myself. And I'm not saying that you can simply make your feelings go away. I am saying that you should work on the issues that cause those feelings. Certainly they are related to being PG, but they do not follow inevitably from being PG, and they are not something that you cannot overcome.

I define the problem as being a lack of evidence-based medicine. I'm suspicious of "treatments" that don't fit this description.



I think it might help to look at the larger cultural context.

K-12 students are constantly assailed by messages telling them that College is the route to higher earnings! The news media, educational establishment, and even the political establishment all send this message. Many parents say the same thing (I've even seen it pop up on this board on occasion).

These days, college isn't seen as a place where you go because you're bright and you want to learn stuff. It's seen as a route to earning more money than you would otherwise. Crass, but unfortunately, reality.

You can't really blame people for buying into this message given that it's ubiquitous and apparently true.* You also can't really blame people for not having an IQ as high as yours. They can't change who they are or how they were born.

If you think differently than more than 99% of the population, you need to make a different kind of effort at finding people who think like you. For example, google the Prometheus Society or the Triple Nine society.

Val

*I say apparently because the issue is more subtle than having a BA or not. Talented people tend to earn more because they're better at solving problems, not necessarily because they have a BA. For example, a person who's a really, really good electrician will probably earn more without a BA than he'd earn with a BA if he was, say, a marketing manager of average ability. Someone without a BA who learned programming in the Army might be a better software developer than someone else with a BA who's just average (or above...). It all depends.

Well people try drastic things after the doctors say there's no hope. I had a friend die of brain cancer. After the doctors said they could not do anything more for him he tried some kind of mistletoe remedy. I'm sorry. This hits close to home if you're worried about your father. Speaking of which, sorry. It's um. Try to get your house in order, mentally. It's possible to throw away your future in a time of shock and despair. Not now, but when (if) they pass on while you're trying to finish college. I had a friend who's parents died when she was in her 20s and she left school and lost it for a while. If you're parents are trying to prepare you maybe it's really happening. I keep reading here that there are psychologists that specialize in gifted therapy. I mean, I don't know you. But if you think your parents are going to die while you're so young and trying to finish college I hope you would consider enlisting a counselor to help you hold it togeather. Especially since your best friend is over seas.
I'm really glad you came back to talk.
You can hang out and be a virtual auntie to the kids we're trying to raise here.

I don't think there's going to be a problem regarding anyone dying in undergrad, and were one of my parents going to die any time soon I'd probably enlist the help of a therapist (and regardless I'm the sort of person who sticks with what they need to do even in the event of tragedy).

Although bizarrely my parents talk a lot these days about wills and it unsettles me.

I was just a little worried with the talk of wills and your dad's health and stuff. Even people who are usually salt of the earth granite crack sometimes when it gets traumatic.
On a lighter note I'm pleasantly surprised by all the groups listed in this thread. I might google them later.

I don't think this is the case, fortunately.

While I swear most of my classmates have the brains of a slime mold (and I unfortunately just insulted slime molds), I think they're there, as far as I've gathered, to learn and grow, which is what I believe college's primary purpose is and should be for, if you haven't figured that fact out already. I value my studies, especially in biology - which I consider more than just a 'career'; it is what I have devoted my life to and what I have made my purpose, and I value everything I know, and I value learning, period. I am very lucky that I was born into a family that has graduate degrees - otherwise I'd probably be so despondent about life I'd have killed myself.

This generation is, I'd say, more alright than its parents - a lot of their folks seem to look at college as a place to learn and grow. Perhaps some of them either don't remember their college years or are somehow resentful of their children's experiences.

ACh, after reading this thread and your previous one, I had the following impressions:

1. You seem a little full of yourself, in the sense of being smug about your intelligence. I fell into the same trap long ago, although I am much better now. Such a sense of superiority may come from low self esteem, and in my case it did. My advice: most people, including the cowy masses at your school, should appreciate your intelligence if you're nice and not pushy about it; but the inverse is also pretty much true, with some differences (e.g. some capable people might cut an obviously capable though pushy person some slack). Some of your classmates have probably picked up on your attitude towards them, unless you've hid it extremely well.

2. You seem to be too eager to impress others with your intelligence. Your writing style comes off as a bit flighty or nervous, but I think this is mostly because your word, phrasing and sentence-structure choices are designed with the total message in mind: you want us to know that you are quirky, have a decent vocabulary, etc. My advice: relax. You don't have to work to make people like you, and trying too hard to appear intelligent generally isn't the right way if you do decide to work at it. You also don't have to worry about convincing anyone here that you're smart.

3. People are not worthless or beneath you simply because they are less intelligent. Intelligence has a flexible definition in the first place, as you must know. You have surely enjoyed some products of people who would have scored well below you on intelligence tests; this might include books, movies, food, and a thousand other fruits of human labor. A good number of those people would actually perform better than you on at least some real-world tasks. Some of them would also score higher than you on one test or another; that doesn't make you a lesser being either.

4. If you are really having trouble coping with lesser ability in others, or different viewpoints (which often include some sort of prejudice or another), I suggest changing so that you are a less irritable person. It sounds to me like simply making a conscious choice to adopt a different attitude for a while might work fine; other options might include therapy to address some of these issues. You'll have a happier life if you can appreciate the good in others, instead of focusing on what you perceive to be bad; you might even notice a lot of good that way that you would have missed otherwise.

ETA: I think no5no5's dogs-and-silverware comment is a good one. I would add that if you've ever liked a dog, or any other being that's less smart than you, you can eventually see your way clear to liking some people who are less smart than you.

Actually, I don't even say a word to them most of the time. I just keep to myself and get my stuff done. If asked for help, I help. 'Pushy' is about the opposite of what I am.


In part, this is pretty unconscious for me, sentence-structure-wise. I'm not sure where you see the flighty or nervous, though. I really don't like the idea of consciously making myself sound dumber or less confident or less straightforward about what I'm saying.


But the dog's a dog. The dog's not a human being. One has standards for human beings.

My mother and my father have both scored a bit below me on intelligence tests. Does this mean I don't respect them? No. Likewise with many others in my life who have done so as well but who continue to teach me many things.

It's a little more nuanced than this. My beef is largely with the more average whose combination of illogic and various other mental gymnastics they do makes them do things that it would take actual conscious effort for me to screw up.

... take, for example, people who deny their children medical treatment for various reasons, people who perpetrate or perpetuate genocides and other violence (a great example of how bad it gets in some places is chronicled in the blog Other Things Amanzi - http://other-things-amanzi.blogspot.com/ - where this kind of crud is commonplace, people who use religion as a justification for various human rights abuses - or really anything else, including their own homophobia or racism or sexism or anything else, people whose own willful ignorance digs them into financial holes, people who are simply too unable to learn to dig themselves out of things, and other people who hurt others either directly or indirectly due to their own lack of brains. The list of iniquities visited upon humanity is long and being continually written and it grates.

I'm honestly not sure what you're looking for here. You seem to have made up your mind --- instead of question marks in your posts, I'm seeing a lot of judgmental statements.

So are you just looking for an audience --- rather than the opinions of others and possibly a new perspective?

Val

Do you do anything fun beside school?

You can always have non-academics fun with your ND classmates.

An anthropologist does not try to change the objects of their observation or bring in extraneous topics.


Anyone can develop and test hypotheses and then build a library of hypotheses that have been tested not been falsified.

Accordingly, IQ has little to do with the ability to think clearly and logically. People of humble origins and means develop some amazing knowledge and use it in amazing ways.

And on the contrary, smart people just come up with more imaginative ways to fool themselves and others.

I do value the feedback and have actually taken a good bit of time to think about it, but some of it I take and some of it I leave.


Honestly, I spend a lot of my fun time of ANY sort alone and I don't mind that at all. It's how I recharge.

Really, a lot of it too is that I'm weaving in extra information as you ask more questions of me - you've asked some information about my thoughts on things and I'm telling you what I think.

Certainly. But it doesn't make sense to put the standards you set for yourself onto other people. It's not even logical to do so. People are different, with different values and different abilities, and that's a normal part of the world. The things that you talk about--genocide, etc.--are awful, but they are understandable, and you cannot change them without taking the time to understand them first.

As far as I'm aware, current understanding of them seems to imply that these are pretty much universally bad things, though. I don't necessarily think understanding an event necessarily makes it instantly not contemptible.

Unless I've misunderstood your statement in some way, and if that's the case, can you elaborate?

If what you feel for people who have been involved in despicable events is contempt or hatred, IMO either your reaction is not rational, or you have not fully understood the sociological and psychological circumstances involved. The rational reaction to a despicable event, once it is understood, is to feel pity or sorrow for the people involved. Now, I'm not saying that one must always act rationally; but you seem to be saying that those who do not act rationally ought to be despised.

I believe that the feeling of contempt--that sense that others are less than oneself and ought to be despised--is the very emotion that is behind much (nearly all?) of the world's problems...including genocide.

Oh look, as a student myself, I have to agree with you about the vast majority of students. Not because they aren't as smart as me - I don't know if they are or aren't - but because they don't care! They are not there to learn about something they find interesting, they are there to earn a grade doing the bare minimum they can get by with so they can go to the tavern and get drunk. Yes, it's frustrating. No, I don't socialize with them often. Why would I? I have nothing in common with them. I don't bear any ill-will to them, except that they do make my life in the classroom boring and a lot less engaging than it would otherwise be. I just had to vent that too. I come home and rant to my DH and get it out of my system. You have to let it go, if for no other reason than hanging onto it makes you feel bad

What has been my saving grace has been two-fold. 1) enjoying the company of some commonalities when they occur and 2) Having one person I do feel really comfortable with. I am lucky to have that.

Another thing is that I have gotten a lot better at chasing people I can see any possibility of that connection. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.

It sounds like you are dealing with a lot right now, ACh. I hope it gets better for you. I think the age you are at is a tricky one too. I don't mean that in a condescending way, so I hope you are not insulted, I just mean that it is a exciting but incredibly difficult time for many people as they go through it, and more so as a gifted person. I'm kind of glad to be - ahem - well through it

Sending hugs

ETA: Ok, I KNOW my statement about most students is a complete exaggeration and in a more charitable mood I wouldn't say 'tavern' I would probably say they are busy working or something like that because I know that a lot of them probably are. But I also understand the sheer frustration of sitting in a class while the lecturer explains for the third time something those students should have learned three years ago. It does lead one to exaggerations.

I also wanted to add a specific survival strategy for that situation. Doodling. Honestly some of my lecture notes were almost unreadable for all the fantastic artwork surrounding them. Saved my sanity many times

Here's a thought: you can choose, if you like, to have a career that takes you to work with people who are cleverer than you at what you do. (Logically in a given field there must be one person who can't do that - but even that person could achieve much the same effect by switching fields every decade or so! You are highly unlikely to be that person, anyway; there are many people who feel as out of peers as you do while they are students.) This is probably a cheering thought. You might like to think about what attitude you'd like to experience from those people who are better than you at what you do, and cultivate it in yourself towards others.

Neither do I. I think if you adjust your approach a little bit, you would actually sound more confident, more straightforward, and maybe even a little bit smarter. But you could very well interact with others in a different way from what you've presented here, and almost certainly do speak differently, so it may not be that important. It seems unimportant to dissect the sources of my opinion; I don't mean to be insulting, and you seem fine with the way you present yourself.


Certainly, but your standard apparently included holding people slower/dumber than you in such low esteem that you could even consider them to be practically sub-human (your first category of such people was "people who come to the same conclusions I do a long time after I come to them partially because they're not as smart"). Even a "stupid" person in one of your classes is far more intelligent than the smartest dog, has a much richer set of emotional responses and a fuller perception of life, has a life's story to tell, etc.


That's good. Before, you made it sound like your parents, your male friend in Europe, and a handful of professors were the only people you could really handle dealing with on a personal basis.


I can understand disliking bigoted people, and your scornful attitude towards people in financial trouble seems to be not so unusual, at least here in the Northeastern US. If this is the rough list of people you dislike, you're probably roughly normal. Before, I got the impression that you disliked pretty much everyone who was slower than you, and that you only really could get along with your parents, the guy in Europe, and a handful of professors.

I guess in the end, you may have just needed a place to vent. People do that here pretty regularly. Welcome.

I feel pity and sorrow when I consider the circumstances of some who have been forced into it, and I recognize many of the dynamics - consider, for example, the Nuremberg trials and the 'my boss told me to do it or I'd have been killed/sacked/courtmartialed' issue; while it's not an excuse to do something like that, one can see why one might do it - but ultimately, how hard is it, I wonder, for people to have sufficient presence of mind in a situation to realize '... this is wrong, I'm going to find a way to not do it'? Many have managed to do so throughout history. It's not impossible.



Don't worry, I'm not insulted about the comment about my age. It is difficult at times, especially when I and most of the people I know aren't yet at that magical age of 25-27 when the frontal lobe hasn't quite disconnected itself sufficiently from the amygdala and matured fully (it's the last part of the brain to mature - that's part of why, for example, insurance companies jack up premiums on people until they're 25 ). And I'm young and frankly have had bad experiences so far with living away, for one (tried it twice, and now part of me is terrified to do it again, despite the fact that I want to and intend to do so for graduate school and for that time when I move out of the house and on my own - and I'm sure this is not uncommon).

lucounu, I've actually gotten a good deal of reassurance and information from this thread. Perhaps you could give me some information on one thing: When I talk about a topic that is very emotionally 'triggering', one might say, I have a very, very hard time articulating my point accurately - it feels as if there are no words in English to make my point, even if someone later makes the same point in a better way than I could think of. What advice do you have about this?

Hi ACh,
I'm not Lucounu, but I have my hand up and waving wildly - pick me - pick me!

Articulating emotional points is very difficult and gets easier with practice. My advice is a 3 step process:
1) free write without regard to how it will sound to anyone else. Writing is a way to find out what you are thinking and make new connections.
2) set the first writing aside and imagine someone you love, and write so that they will understand what you are trying to say.
3) Develop someone you trust enough to ask them to read what you write, and ask what message they are recieving, and try to figure out if you communicated well.

Enjoy,
Grinity

It's not impossible, for some people, at some times, to make the right choice. But I don't think that you can assume that because one person makes the right choice that it is easy for everyone to do so. As I said, different people are different. They have different circumstances, different ideals, different abilities, different fears, different knowledge, etc., etc. Can you really say that if you were in Nazi Germany you would have been one of the few who stood up and resisted? Of course all of us would like to believe that we would have, but history tells otherwise.

That is why I think that emotions are so important. Is logic what decides how people act? IME, it is not the primary factor. I don't think it is about intelligence or presence of mind. Fear, hatred, contempt, courage, love, compassion...these are the things that determine how one acts in any given situation.

Again, articulating my response about how logic and emotions interplay is one of those things that drives me nuts because that's one of those things I do attach a great deal of emotions to.

It is sort of ironic in an amusing (the good sort of amusing) way, but I don't think it's at all a bad or somehow not accurate or correct thing, that I attach a lot of emotions to how I think about the use of logic (because I value it greatly). :P

Can you elaborate a little bit with your feedback on this? I'm curious about the adjustments you'd recommend, whether I'd make them or not.

LOL!

ACh, I'm sorry you're feeling like you have nobody right now. There's nothing more important to people's survival than feeling like you have people to trust and share with.




Last night I read a whole chapter in a book about this. It's called Brain Rules for Baby, by John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist (and a charismatic teacher). He only references studies published in refereed literature and then successfully replicated.

Anyway, happiness, he says, depends on connections with others. Not surprising. He also says, when studying the brain, logic and emotion are so intertwined scientists cannot separate them. The sections I read last night stress how our survival as humans depends a great deal on feeling happy and connected with others. Not surprising.

I just wanted to encourage you to, as someone else already said, approach your goal of connecting with people with the same drive you possess for learning anything else. The science of emotions is esoteric stuff. So you are a biologist - can you decipher this?

Here are some of John Medina's references:

http://brainrules.net/pdf/brain-rules-for-baby-references-happy-baby-seeds.pdf

He gives almost equal billing to Smart and Happy when describing brain development. It looks like science is saying that smart and happy do not have to be mutually exclusive. However, I think there is evidence that higher ability to use logic demands higher emotion regulation to achieve happiness via an interconnected peer group. Maybe you can retool your emotion regulation neurons. Our parents help us develop them in the first place...

I think I'm the only person on this site who hugs... I'm sending you a big fat squeeze right now [[[ACh]]]

Hi ACh, I sent you a pm. Hope you are doing well.