throwaway942

Don't even start with Mensa. You'd be hard pressed to find a more smug collection of assholes on this planet

I'm sure some people do that. That's business acumen, however, not my personal forte.

Not many brilliant people ever become rich. To become rich takes not just cleverness or even genius, but the ability to convince others to invest in it and not simply fuck you over.

For myself, I'm just not interested in inventions. I'm far more interested in math and geology, so I spend most of my free time just being amazed by the earth. I'm no better at inventing a million dollar idea than the next guy. Probably worse, since I have literally spent hours investigating the wear patterns and flaking on a rock outcropping and considering the forces involved in it.

Sometimes that is certainly part of it. Do you go out of your way to explain calculus or particle physics to children?

Or do you simply not bother?

When a person has spent their entire life trying to communicate whatever they were excited about to people who are only interested in the fad du jour, they don't develop the skills to communicate well once they do find people bright enough to understand.

For example, go walk around MIT, Harvey Mudd, or Cal Poly and see how poorly freshmen do with their initial social gatherings.

You personally are probably extremely smart (this is HN after all, where I seek refuge from the total fucking paste eaters of the world) - but that just means that you were dealing with someone who had never had an opportunity to learn those communication skills. Unlike you, presumably.

Thankfully I had some teachers, like you, who thought I was fun to work with. When I exceeded her class, she had a college professor friend of hers slip in work for me, and occasionally supplemental tutoring.

It was awesome. Being able to challenge myself with upper division calculus while stuck in state-mandated algebra was probably the only reason I survived those courses.

Throwaway for obvious reasons.

I do not mean this comment as a brag. Far from it.

I am one of these people - I tested with an incredibly high IQ (nearly 200 at the time, though I know that fades). I graduated with a 4.2 GPA, and a 3.9 average (because on semester I chose to 'punish' my mother who was taking credit for my high grades, and got a D just to prove it)

I have a very hard time with life in general. People bore me to tears. You have to repeat and dumb down everything for them all the time. Most jobs are mind numbingly dull.

Unlike the people in this article, I had support. My grandfather was similar to me, and taught me some basic coping mechanisms. They have largely worked, and I've learned how to survive with a nearly perfect memory (oh god the horror, I wouldn't inflict it on anyone) and what I like to call an incredibly high idle.

I make enough to get by, and the company I work for seems pleased with me. Been there 16 years so far, always resistent to anything beyond a simple lead type position. Thank god my management usually recognizes that I am VERY bad at dealing with people, and lets me get back to solving problems in my very quiet and dark office.

The coping that works for me is split attention. If I'm simultaneously listening to two or more musical pieces, working on different problems on different computers and screens, and fiddling with something (like a pen or something), I can get through a day.

If for some reason I'm restricted down to a single source of input (like just a laptop), I basically go completely mad. My mental energy level is far too high, and the frustration of waiting for the computer to keep up causes me to get angry beyond reason.

My life is a fucking hell, and I also spend a lot of time contemplating suicide. The imaginative and interesting methods help occupy some cycles.