The Gifted Adult: Self-Knowledge and Self-Esteem | Hacker News Reader

The Gifted Adult: Self-Knowledge and Self-Esteem

stephanietolan.com

41 pointsgirk14 comments

I'm sure the author knows what she's talking about and to some extent I agree with her, but humbleness is a useful quality too, in gifted people especially. Being skeptical about your own innate gifts makes you work harder in applying them, which elevates the quality of what you produce. When you start to believe you're better than "normal" people and you can do no wrong thanks to your awesome superpowers, that's usually when the wheels come off the wagon.

Low self-esteem is a drag but I often produce my best work when I feel like I'm a fraud and I have to convince myself that I'm not.

The more you learn, the more you begin to realize how little you know.

Understanding something deeply enough to explain it to others yet never having contributed something unique to the field does not make you a fraud, it makes you someone who understands something deeply.

I'm still relatively new here, so I'm not sure if it's common to comment on one's own submission.

After reading the article about the 10-year-old kid, Moshe, and the essay Danielle Fong wrote in response, I wanted to share this essay by Stephanie S. Tolan with you all, because it largely addresses the "imposter's syndrome" that Danielle mentioned.

This article was enormously influential in my life, and I hope that you guys will appreciate it as well.

As long as your comments contribute to the discussion about your submission, the community here is pretty reasonable. Also, they seem to be pretty good about downmodding comments that are unreasonable or otherwise unhelpful - so if you 'step out of line' someone is always happy to let you know.

I nearly spit out my pacifier and fell out of my high chair when I saw PG modded below zero several times in one thread -- about Arc of all things.

It seems to be seasonal. Around YC application deadlines, even his offhand comments get praised as fonts of celestial wisdom.

So the constituency of the community here tends to whip around randomly like a man in a nude suit riding a dangling firehose, spraying mud and rocks everywhere.

Yes, all bets are off when it comes to PG here. He has way too many fans that will mod him high simply because it says "by pg".

That being said though, the site is pretty consistent for every other user, although as it grows I've certainly noticed a relaxing in what is considered "off topic".

Any chance you've still got links to the other articles you mentioned? I seem to have missed those.

10-year-old Moshe: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/14/10-year-old-scholar...

Danielle Fong's essay: http://daniellefong.com/2008/05/15/advice-to-the-bright-and-...

So... do I have a low self-esteem because I'm 'gifted', or is it due to some other factors?

Nah, you just suck. It's all the others who are gifted ;-)

Does anyone else find it hard to read the text against the (yuck) background texture?

Use Opera and stick it in "User Mode". Voila, no nasty backgrounds or hideous fonts!

Brilliant article. Thank you very much for posting it. Without excessive arrogance, I've often had this impostor syndrome, though I didn't have a name for it, as have some of my friends. It's heartening to see this is quite common amongst "gifted" people :-)

Daniel

I remember reading that gifted kids who got tracked ended up being happy, functioning adults. Also, that child prodigies turned out all right for the most part (Bobby Fischer and child actors notwithstanding). But I can't find the sources.

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