Extraordinary vs Weird, Gifted vs Failed Potential: The chronically ill Phd student's lament

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 02:17:52 GMT

This grew out of discussions with other people and inside my head, dealing with that little voice that tells you you're mediocre, not living up to your potential, without value etc. I'm specifically coming at this from the point of view of someone who was "gifted" as a child then became increasingly unable to work or think very well, I'd be interested to hear from people with very different POVs.

Something I've been trying to get my head around since getting so ill is a broader understanding of what a person's "capabilities" really are. I am in many ways exactly as "clever" as I was when I was at uni, but I struggle to follow one or two lectures a week on Coursera because of my cfs related difficulty concentrating, and had to quit my really-not-that-challenging job because my brain just couldn't handle the work (neither could my body, but that's a different issue and in some ways was easier to accept)
( some personal context )
It's silly to blame myself for my limitations now, so did it make sense to blame myself for them then? Should I feel "proud of myself" for being less overwhelmed than I was two years ago now that I am on anti anxiety meds? In some ways it's depressing to admit your limitations, and obviously you shouldn't give up on your dreams out of misplaced "realism", but it also makes no sense to despise yourself for being "inherently mediocre" AND feel guilty for having failed to live up to your "brilliant potential". Everyone has a mixture of gifts and weak points, and we shouldn't feel guilty for not maximising the former without feeling proud for not being totally overwhelmed by the latter.

And why do we have to "live up to our potential" anyway? Life isn't a competition, not with each other and not with our "potential". Personally, the things I aim for are to maximise (a)My happiness (b)Everyone else's happiness (both by being polite etc and working on social justice) (c) Seeking truth and expressing things noone else is expressing (though maybe that's a subset of (a)? These goals are always open to change, anyway :)). I used to think (c) meant I had to pursue Science but for now it means making art. Is it great, popular art? No. Am I really all that inherently "gifted" at art? No(*). But it gets the ideas out of my head. Of course finding a balance between maximising the things I value and not beating myself up about missed opportunities is still difficult, but at least I'm worrying about things that matter and not holding myself to impossible standards (except when I am. This post is aimed at myself as much as everyone else!)

endless_murmur made a good post about the danger of telling people to be extraordinary which in turn inspired this post. As I said in my comment: we are told to be "extraordinary", but also told not to be weird, and the difference between the two is incredibly subjective. And not everyone is drawn to be either, and that's fine. Pluralism=good, elitism=bad.

I would have a final conclusion but like I said, I'm not good at formal essay structures any more :)

(*)Seriously, I was middling ability as a kid. I just kept at it because my parents are artists, and even then didn't really get any good until my late 20s when I had literally nothing else to do.

comments

Thorns

Extraordinary vs Weird, Gifted vs Failed Potential: The chronically ill Phd student's lament