What do you mean by intelligent? What are the specific things you’d like to do better or more easily?
Possibly annoying: Can you set aside your concerns about being intelligent? It’s at least possible that they’re taking up some of your attention which could be better spent on the things you’d like to be intelligent about?
I’m sorry if I came across as wanting to be “smart” for some sort of status reason. I just have become remarkably aware of how often I tend to “zone out” how long it takes me to solve problems or make decisions. I guess the initial intent of the post was to see if anybody has been where I’ve been and found a way out. A slow decline into cognitive stagnation, followed by, hopefully, a renewed passion for learning. My interests are usually focused on electronics and engineering, but I get distracted by music, fictional literature, movies, and computer games. I bounce around so much that I don’t really gain much expertise in anything not related to work.
My father always said that you should shoot for the moon so that you will at least hit something. I guess my “Moon” goal would be to learn enough to become a great inventor.
My apologies—after I posted, I realized that what I’d said sounded unfriendly, but I wasn’t sure what to change.
I didn’t think you wanted to be more intelligent for reasons of status. That literally never occurred to me—I tend to think of being intelligent as fun and useful, and probably tend to underestimate the status aspect.
What I had in mind was that “being intelligent” is a vague goal, and it might be useful for you to be more clear about the details so that you could pursue it more effectively. It also seemed to me that the other posters, though they came off as friendlier than me, were guessing about what you meant, and you could get better advice if you asked a less general question.
And part of being intelligent is knowing what you mean, so it seemed as though asking you for more precision might lead to good practice.
Two possible angles on your situation: Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher—I’ve just started reading this, but it looks promising. The premise is that the whole culture is oriented towards having single specialties, but some people’s minds don’t work that way, and they’re happier and more effective pursuing the interests they’ve got. I haven’t gotten to the parts about how not to be paralyzed by indecision and how to make a living, though.
Another possibility is that you’re mildly depressed, and should be looking at getting more sunlight and exercise and such. Please note that I’m guessing from not very much information.
I don’t think inventors start by learning huge amounts. They mix tinkering and learning.
I’m realizing that what looked like status issues wasn’t so much that it looked as though you were trying to get high status by being intelligent as that it looked as though you were trying to avoid low status, and the low status issue was self-imposed.
At that point, I was twitching pretty hard, because while this may or may not be what’s going on with you, I’ve got similar issues around competence—again, conceived as a single lump of a trait. And if I hadn’t been for this discussion, I wouldn’t have realized that this is a big chunk of what I’ve been beating myself up about.
What do you mean by intelligent? What are the specific things you’d like to do better or more easily?
Possibly annoying: Can you set aside your concerns about being intelligent? It’s at least possible that they’re taking up some of your attention which could be better spent on the things you’d like to be intelligent about?
I’m sorry if I came across as wanting to be “smart” for some sort of status reason. I just have become remarkably aware of how often I tend to “zone out” how long it takes me to solve problems or make decisions.
I guess the initial intent of the post was to see if anybody has been where I’ve been and found a way out. A slow decline into cognitive stagnation, followed by, hopefully, a renewed passion for learning.
My interests are usually focused on electronics and engineering, but I get distracted by music, fictional literature, movies, and computer games. I bounce around so much that I don’t really gain much expertise in anything not related to work. My father always said that you should shoot for the moon so that you will at least hit something. I guess my “Moon” goal would be to learn enough to become a great inventor.
My apologies—after I posted, I realized that what I’d said sounded unfriendly, but I wasn’t sure what to change.
I didn’t think you wanted to be more intelligent for reasons of status. That literally never occurred to me—I tend to think of being intelligent as fun and useful, and probably tend to underestimate the status aspect.
What I had in mind was that “being intelligent” is a vague goal, and it might be useful for you to be more clear about the details so that you could pursue it more effectively. It also seemed to me that the other posters, though they came off as friendlier than me, were guessing about what you meant, and you could get better advice if you asked a less general question.
And part of being intelligent is knowing what you mean, so it seemed as though asking you for more precision might lead to good practice.
Here’s one of Eliezer’s essays that might be useful—you don’t need to be a magical person to have great achievements.
Two possible angles on your situation: Refuse to Choose by Barbara Sher—I’ve just started reading this, but it looks promising. The premise is that the whole culture is oriented towards having single specialties, but some people’s minds don’t work that way, and they’re happier and more effective pursuing the interests they’ve got. I haven’t gotten to the parts about how not to be paralyzed by indecision and how to make a living, though.
Another possibility is that you’re mildly depressed, and should be looking at getting more sunlight and exercise and such. Please note that I’m guessing from not very much information.
I don’t think inventors start by learning huge amounts. They mix tinkering and learning.
I’m realizing that what looked like status issues wasn’t so much that it looked as though you were trying to get high status by being intelligent as that it looked as though you were trying to avoid low status, and the low status issue was self-imposed.
At that point, I was twitching pretty hard, because while this may or may not be what’s going on with you, I’ve got similar issues around competence—again, conceived as a single lump of a trait. And if I hadn’t been for this discussion, I wouldn’t have realized that this is a big chunk of what I’ve been beating myself up about.