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OriginalGriff wrote: as I learned more and more over the years I really learned that I know nothing, and never have ... but it's fun trying!
That's exactly how I feel.
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upvoted for truth. amen.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Many people have said I am trying... very trying.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Hah ! I was editing the post to include "i" when you posted this.
My reaction to this serendipitous I-Thou wire-crossing in hyperspace was to feel good because: anytime I can imagine I am functioning like OriginalGriff, I imagine that may be a sign I am not totally hopeless; likewise:
Anytime I think/feel/guess I am anywhere near to functioning like MacArthur, Deeming, Clifton, O'Hanlon, Raddevus, and others, I briefly imagine the previous 75 years have not been totally wasted.
And, that, Friends, is the end of the introduction to: "False Modesty 101."
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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Hah! I can't even cope with getting my alphabet right first time! 
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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sounds like a variation of "imposter syndrome" which a lot of really competent people get.
"Somebody might find out I'm not that great at this"
It's I think, probably related to a phenomenon outlined by David Dunning and Justin Kruger where capable people tend to underestimate their own abilities.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Upvoted for mention of DK effect; there has been some interesting discussion of the extent to which this effect is "culture bound;" if your culture promotes "if you got it flaunt it," or excessive verbal hyperbole ... would it be modal behavior to internalize that ?
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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I guess I figure what passes for culture in the US, given its "individualist" tone, that it already promotes this, so I'm not so sure. I could be entirely wrong. I've not spent more than an hour thinking about the issue, probably in my lifetime.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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viagra? 
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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When I'm coding it's easy to tell when I'm functioning at peak, because I stop writing code. It just *flows from me*, maybe a bit like speaking in tongues. It's almost a religious experience. 
Maybe that's even why I do it. I don't know.
Recently I wrote a tiny webserver in C# in a single function and it compiled, ran, and it served dynamic T4 rendered pages on the first try. That's what the flow does for me. I didn't think about it. Before I knew it, the code was just there.
Outside of coding, it's much harder for me to gauge my level of effectiveness.
This has only gotten harder since I went mad. I still "feel normal" to me - the crass hegemony of the mind.
I try not to worry about it so much. I figure my general effectiveness is what it is, and I've had to learn a lot of lessons about acceptance over the past few years since I went over the high wall.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Quote: I still "feel normal" to me
We all do that.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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yep. The difference between me and most people is I'm certifiably mad.
So my "normal" is not very normal for most people. Nor was it my normal for most of my life.
And yet, for me, there has been no major internal shift in how I process myself. Intellectually, I understand that I'm different than I was before, but beneath all that I still feel the same as before I went mad.
And I realize this is a phenomenon people experience generally. The only difference perhaps in my case, is it's so clear I'm not the same. In some major ways I'm not even the same person I was before.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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The important thing is are you mad but functional, or just plain useless?
Clearly you are the former. Complete sanity is overrated.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I am and I'm not. I've got high IQ which I'm told helps with functioning when it comes to mental illness.
At the same time, I rock myself, I talk to myself, I can't control when I "daydream", and this is all punctuated by bouts of mania and psychosis though the meds help.
It makes it difficult for me to find work, and keep a job, which sucks. Also, there's no way I can work in software development anymore, despite me having the technical ability to be good at it, still. I can't manage myself, or my time, much less a project to the degree necessary to be effective.
When I left software, I did it of my own accord. However, I always thought I'd have the possibility of going back again. As of now, that's probably just not in the cards.
And I feel a sense of loss around that.
What you see of me is the lucid and heavily medicated end of me. And you don't see my behavior, body language, or general cadence or you'd know I was mad right off.
That's an employability killer. I've come to understand that.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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You need to look into working from home doing software development for a sympathetic employer. Hard to find but I have a friend who is, shall we say a little bit, manic and she programmed very successfully from home for several years until a separate health problem interfered. Her company got together physically only four time a year. Conference calls were common, not video conferencing, just shared whiteboards, I believe. So these jobs exist.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I had something like that out of Santa Monica (i live near seattle) last time i worked in the field.
it worked for awhile, and then it didn't, although there were other reasons. The guy thought he could short change me on my pay. Tried to get me to write for $25/hr 1099, and I was like no way, i can't afford that, so insisted he pay me W2 so he takes up half of the Soc Sec expense. It worked, but I still felt cheated.
A combination of that, and just the general difficulty i have in managing my own time, I decided to leave.
Still, it almost worked. Maybe I could find something like that again.
I thought about doing ODesk/Upwork, but then again, time management and task management. I'm not so sure i'm up to it.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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If possible, try to find a remote job working for a government, city, county, state or federal - they have quotas for disabled employees and they are all supposed to be trying to increase the percentage of remote workers where possible. Also Government jobs are generally less demanding on deadlines - although there is more accountability for time spent usually. In addition, they have better attitudes with working around disabilities (mostly).
As far as the high IQ you mentioned, I had a similar problem. When I was working as a professor at university (I held the Chair of Computing for a time), I had a lot of intellectual equals and generally kept within that "sphere" for friendship. Once I left to "get a real job" I lost touch with a lot of them and found it hard to socialise with "regular" people as I found them slow and/or dimwitted in general (and often overly obsessed with sports). Dancing with them was fine but conversations were really hard work!
Luckily I ended up marrying an ex-cheerleader who also was a genius! Happily ever after, so far - although she had a accident and suffered major brain damage it didn't reduce her IQ, just slowed her down a bit and causes memory drop-outs now and then.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Relatable content. I married a genius too, although I'm the one that ended up with a disability (i'm schizoaffective)
Hey, dr. compsci.
how the hell do I implement arden's theorem in order to turn a finite state machine into a regular expression?
I've never been able to do it. I'll buy you beer if you can show me how. (c#, C++, java, I don't care)
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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Give me a minute... (or two...)
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I think you'd enjoy Mihaly's work: [^].
What I find interesting is his combination of an emphasis on "total immersion" in the "state of flow," Quote: Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.
combined with a very Stoic (as in Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations") view of the ability, and necessity, of/for the individual to create their own mental life;Quote: What I "discovered" was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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Great quotes. I'll definitely look up his work.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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codewitch honey crisis wrote: I still "feel normal" to me - the crass hegemony of the mind.
That is a wonderful thought !
«Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?» T. S. Elliot
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it's hard though, relearning what my limits are. that's probably been one of my major challenges becoming disabled. That and not being sure I can trust myself anymore.
When I was growin' up, I was the smartest kid I knew. Maybe that was just because I didn't know that many kids. All I know is now I feel the opposite.
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I'm absolutely positive that I'm dysfunctioning at an level...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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