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Comment by dmos62 | Hacker News Reader

Personal experience and reading points to the opposite conclusion. Trivia: amongst successful actors a disproportionate number of them had parents who had jobs that caused the family to move around a lot (traveling salesmen and the like). Out of the people I've met, those who were moving around a lot as kids had a different quality in my eyes. They also often continued moving around in later life. When you grow up in a single environment you find it harder to differentiate what is a feature of this local culture, and what is a feature of the "wider world", because you're stuck with only one data point.

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Anecdotes about personal experience, people you've met, and unsourced trivia don't disprove studies about populations as a whole.

Celebrities may have a much higher rate of suicide (2.9%) vs the general population (.013% in the US): https://www.researchgate.net/publication/13524696_Suicide_in...

That doesn't seem like the opposite conclusion to me.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that moving could possibly give you skills, deficiencies, and desires that make it more likely you become an actor either, but that seems like a little more like speculation at this point.

Don't discount anecdotes. World views, even if found to be supported by studies, are often rationalizations of inner state.

Depression is common among highly successful and/or popular figures. I read that depression was common among astronauts after they completed their missions. Virtually nothing that they (can) do later in life compares with the scope of their past missions, and that leads to depression or worse. These days, part of the astronaut training includes planning for their post-mission goals.

Same for combat veterans.

A lot of the more successful, worldly people I know were "army brats" who moved around a lot. It gave them a different view of the world and a greater sense of independence and the need to do things for one's self.

This might not be a fair comparison. One of the risks of moving during vulnerable age is being seen as an outsider and excluded from groups at every new place. But army brats tend to cluster as parents get deployed to a large base, and having other somewhat friendly kids in a similar state can be a big help with avoiding exclusion.

Successful actors are lottery winners.

Millions of people are affected by problems in childhood. There are 500 people, tops, on the planet who have monetized the resulting personality disorder into some kind of mass-media fame.

Why do you think there are only 500? I'm not challenging the observation, just curious about the casaulity you see.

Johnny Depp came to my mind as well reading that. Perhaps it's not such an opposite conclusion, though? I don't want to suggest most actors have personal problems, but having listened to a lot of the more successful ones it seems like there's often a void that's yearning to be filled by fame and adulation.

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