I'm 20, brilliant and totally lost

http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2009/10/20/20_and_brilliant/index.html

by d4ft • 17 years ago

122 128 17 years ago

dotcoma• 17 years ago

Lucky you! I was 20, brilliant and totally lost. Now I'm 36...

The title of this thread and your post almost replicated the lyrics to Counting Crows' song, All My Friends (which is one of my favorite songs). Oh, HN.

dschobel3• 17 years ago

To quote the famous (unfortunately hoax) Vonnegut speech:

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

bmj• 17 years ago

On the other hand, we have John Milton lamenting his 23rd birthday (http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/milton/sonnet7.htm):

  HOW soon hath time, the subtle thief of youth,
    Stolen on his wing my three and twentieth year!
    My hasting days fly on with full career,
    But my late spring no bud or blossom sheweth.

  Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth,
    That I to manhood am arrived so near,
    And inward ripeness doth much less appear
    That some more timely happy spirits indueth.

  Yet be it less or more, or soon or slow,
    It shall be still in strictest measure even
    To that same lot however mean or high,

  Toward which time leads me and the will of heaven.
    All is, if I have grace to use it so,
    As ever in my great taskmaster's eye.

gnosis• 17 years ago

Youth is wasted on the young. -- Mark Twain

adamhowell2• 17 years ago

"You cannot catch what you do not drop."

I'd never seen that before, what a great quote.

tsestrich• 17 years ago

What if someone threw you something?

adamhowell2• 17 years ago

Sorry, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic or not.

But obviously the quote's saying that if you're handed everything it means nothing. But if you lose it and have to fight to regain it, you learn its true value.

eru• 17 years ago

Then you can't catch it.

Alex3917• 17 years ago

Sounds like something from the Tao.

heed• 17 years ago

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis

prpon• 17 years ago

There's a crisis brewing every quarter year of your life, if you let them be your crisis. There are some crisis that need intervention and help but whatever happened to a simple kick on the butt to move ahead and go do something useful?

d4ft• 17 years ago

This guy writes a weekly-ish advice column for Salon. I'm not usually an advice column reader (nor a salon one), but the dude has a way with words and interesting perspective (ex-rocker alcoholic turned writer recovering addict)

Tichy• 17 years ago

What good are video games? Since I also always wanted to create them (and still haven't created a great one, just small ones): for me I think they are part of a greater quest against loneliness. Sure, creating a vaccine would be nice, but loneliness is also a killer (I don't have numbers, but it is not only suicides - also older people who just die when their spouses die and so on). Maybe they are not for everyone, but games were important for me in certain stages of my life - they helped provide save havens in times of emotional turmoil, they helped to get together and connect with people, and so on.

Maybe games are not the best cure against loneliness, or the only one. Maybe I should have just become a therapist. On the other hand, maybe one day my game will help some other scientist over a depression and enable him to finish working on that vaccine.

I don't subscribe to the notion that only vaccines are "really important" - even stupid things like fashion play a part in the bigger picture. Ultimately, one has to ask what are we living for. Sure, somebody has to create those vaccines to enable us to live on, but working on the question on what to live for matters, too - otherwise, why not just die.

aswanson• 17 years ago

Well said. I've stated before that in the end, life is a series of aesthetic choices.

unalone12• 17 years ago

Video games fill the role that any art does. They help us find ourselves and fill us with a static strength that we can't get from people, who are constantly changing as fast as we are.

I've actually always had the opposite reaction as that teacher in the article. I've never felt interested in science or technological process. It fascinates me, but I shudder at the thought of spending my life dedicated to it. I want messier things to spend my life achieving. But then, I also identify a lot with the person that wrote this, though I don't feel as beaten as he does, so this might not be a particularly unique perspective on the matter.

Quarrelsome• 17 years ago

I think the real question is who is someone to suggest that X is more "worthy" than Y? Without the benefit of hindsight and ability to see all the possibilities with and without X and Y there is no evidence behind the statement.

ax0n3• 17 years ago

At least he recognizes he's lost now, when there's plenty of time ahead to fix it. A lot of people won't see it for another 30 years.

joe_the_user4• 17 years ago

Oh, but he also "recognizes" that he's brilliant, the two realization should exactly cancel each other out...

unalone12• 17 years ago

Brilliance isn't particularly difficult. A lot more people could be brilliant than are brilliant now, if they only put a little work into it.

bfung• 17 years ago

Totally agree. Being academically successful is one thing while leading the life you want is another. Most average people figure out how they fit in our social order ok. I think the appropriate quip would be "Welcome to the real world, now get off my lawn!" Move on, nothing new here.

ax0n3• 17 years ago

I'll agree. Many labels are worthless used in reference to one's self. "Brilliant" and "Hacker" among the big ones. They don't really mean anything until someone else recognizes it in you. IMHO, it takes a genuine hacker (acknowledged as such by peers) calling someone else a hacker to make it count. I would say the same applies to "brilliant."

While it might do wonders for one's self-esteem, being called "brilliant" by high school teachers doesn't impress me much. In contrast: If Brian Eno says someone is brilliant, I am quite likely to take his word for it.

dsplittgerber• 17 years ago

The advice given is probably worthless. The student obviously has issues with authority, his goals being dependent on the validation of others etc yet that isn't even discussed. It's basically a generic "feeling lost is good for a while" answer, which every smart 20-year old should be able to give himself.

mrshoe• 17 years ago

Given society's strict schedule for youth, the timing of getting lost is key. Around college graduation time is a great time to get lost. Your drive has carried you through 17 years of education and you are free to find yourself at that point. Getting lost in junior high, like I did, is just bad timing. High School and college become a holding pattern in which you get lazier and lazier. Luckily it doesn't last forever.

dschobel3• 17 years ago

The conflation of doing well in school and brilliance is amusing.

Don't most people figure out the distinction in HS?

joe_the_user4• 17 years ago

It depends on how "brilliant" they are!

This whole thread is an endless font for quip abuse, mod me down quickly so I learn my lesson...

clistctrl• 17 years ago

The women did it to him, I've said it before, and i'm going to say it again. If you want to be king of productivity, avoid girls.

unalone12• 17 years ago

Procreation isn't productive?

freakwit• 17 years ago

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1240

zackattack3• 17 years ago

Stop downvoting him. Sublimated sex drive is an incredibly powerful force, and drives thousands of people to take up positions in society (doctor, lawyer, programmer) instead of wandering the earth, content with food and drink.

giardini2• 17 years ago

Is sexual sublimation considered a valid psychological concept these days? Isn't this part of Freud's theories and isn't most of that considered defunct?

rads• 17 years ago

If you want to be king of productivity, avoid anything other than work and feel empty inside.

skinnymuch3• 17 years ago

Until hardcore depression sets in.

josefresco• 17 years ago

Sounds like typical depression setting in, something he's probably unaware that he's been fighting for years. Sometimes your problems aren't new and unique (no matter how 'brilliant' you are), and it can benefit you to reach out to people whom you may not think can help you at first.

unalone12• 17 years ago

Is that really depression? I think that what a lot of us confuse for depression is really contentment. This guy is happy to live his life as it is, but for the worry that he ought to have a drive.

gloob• 17 years ago

I would suggest that if he's worried, he's not content.

mattmichielsen• 17 years ago

Sounds more like existential thinking to me. I don't consider that directly related to depression. I have often felt the same way he does in not really knowing what to do with my life, wondering about the meaning of life, etc. I think that's just the human experience rather than depression.

Mongoose• 17 years ago

This article is a good in conjunction with last week's "I Was Told I Was Very Smart." http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1346357.html

An interesting trend in those labeled remarkably intelligent is a tendency toward stymied feeling of self-worth.

joeythibault3• 17 years ago

There's a lot of research available now in education that says that positive reinforcement works, but not when it's talking about intelligence.

For example, students are much better off when you say, "you worked so hard on that project, it really shows that you cared about what you were doing" as opposed to "your project was great, you are so smart".

Children understand the difference between hard work and smarts (where smarts are natural ability and hard work is a virtue).

Later in life those students that were positively reinforced for working hard are better off than those that were simply told they were smart. Which is a nice reference to what it takes to be a startup founder (smarts are great, but only when paired with strong work ethic. However a strong work ethic and tenacity could overcome a natural gap in ability).

auston• 17 years ago

Did that guy just complain about being able to own/drive a Ferrari?

joeythibault3• 17 years ago

Cary should have saved his time and just said "join the navy". I'm not advocating military service. But if this student doesn't want to stay where he is, doesn't know what he wants to do and doesn't have the means to relocate, it's probably the most stable situation to let him think about his/her own future.

Just saying...

3 years on a boat or sub and he'll know EXACTLY what he wants to do (and will have a lot more means to act upon it).

sokoloff• 17 years ago

The disaster of that plan is you may very well figure it out 3 months in, and then have a multi-year effectively prison sentence to serve out.

I have deep respect for those who do serve. I just don't think that recommending it as some kind of default "until you figure it out" is remotely a good idea.

raintrees2• 17 years ago

But when it really comes down to it, isn't almost anything a good thing to do "until you figure it out?"

The lessons we learn are to be found everywhere. Hindsight makes me laugh at how so many of my "lessons" were around me at all times, in even the most mundane things!

I keep forgetting that for me, it's all about the journey, not the destination.

HistoryInAction2• 17 years ago

Strongly disagree. Most of the services, especially if you're a "catch" for them will go a long way to let you explore your interests on behalf of the country, whether that's a PhD program in an area with national defense implications (most of them) or testing new equipment. A "prison sentence" gives a great disservice to those who are adrift and choose to serve.

(Needless to say, the financial/educational benefits due to the updated GI bill are also quite attractive)

shpxnvz• 17 years ago

he'll know EXACTLY what he wants to do

I think it is more likely that after three years he'll know exactly what he doesn't want to do.

joeythibault3• 17 years ago

hahaha. touche.

SamAtt• 17 years ago

I honestly thought this was terrible advice. The problem this kid has is everyone has praised him seemingly since birth and so he thinks everything is simple. The mere fact that one teacher saying his dream was silly could throw his life into chaos shows he's underprepared for the world.

In fact, the only reason he seems to feel lost is because he doesn't stick with anything beyond the initial thrill.

Rather than narcissisticly wandering the world and becoming even further ingrained in this "do what's easy" philosophy I say jump into the real world. Join a startup and realize the joy of working against insurmoutable odds. Where not only do people call your dream silly but a lot of them won't even meet with you to hear you out.

Then he'll get enough backbone to pursue his own dreams

unalone12• 17 years ago

Why not do what's easy? It's a lot more fun, and as you do it you learn. Never assume that just because you're drifting through life you're not growing as a person. I find that I learn and progress just as much in my idle states in life as I do at those critical moments that throw everything in relief.

I also think it's very, very bad advice to tell somebody to follow a dream that they don't entirely understand. I've had both: Dreams where I only vaguely felt I wanted something, and dreams I couldn't help but pursue because I understood them so completely. The latter dream is valuable and absolutely worth pursuing. The former dream isn't really a dream at all, and pushing too hard at it will only make you feel that maybe dreams aren't worth following after all. Following the wrong kind of dream will burn you out in the worst way.

scott_s2• 17 years ago

The good stuff - the learning that, I think, matters and helps you actually grow - happens when you get past the easy beginnings and push into the hard stuff.

akl• 17 years ago

I disagree that there's a specific reason for his feeling lost; this is probably due to still feeling some of that myself (I'm nearly 25), though.

That said, I joined a startup as his age. Younger, actually - I was 18. It was a good experience in that I learned a great deal of technical knowledge very quickly and it laid the path for the career that I've formed since then, but it's not a remedy for a spiritual problem.

I'll qualify my experience to say that the first startup I worked at was not a good company; our president was arguably a snake-oil salesman in a lot of ways, and myself/the other engineers often worked 'deathmarches' leading to a moment where I was literally told during a doctor's appointment that I would have a heart attack before I could legally drink if I didn't find a new job.

I don't regret the job, overall; I learned a lot professionally and personally, and the next startup was far more successful. I do regret not wandering a little more, though, and he should take this opportunity.

morphir2• 17 years ago

I praise you for these insightful words of wisdom. Thank you.

nostrademons4• 17 years ago

The majority of startups also don't stick with anything beyond the initial thrill. That's something you have to learn for yourself: no external organization is going to hand it to you.

When I started actually completing projects (and I was older than this guy is), it was largely because I'd tried a bunch of things in superficial depth and found that they weren't all that satisfying. I bounced from a physics major to philosophy to sociology back to physics and finally ended up with a CS degree. I tried out orchestra and guitar and bass and taiko and sailing and fanfiction and sci-fi/fantasy and programming as hobbies. I "learned" dozens of programming languages by website & academic paper before actually settling down to write some code. I needed that experience to figure out for myself what I really considered important and was willing to put the time into learning well.

Shana• 17 years ago

Thank you for this- you make my life sound so much more normal.

dubcomesaveme• 17 years ago

ha, myself a physics to economics to cognitive science major early in college, now settling in on Computer Science to sit down, gear down, and actually MAKE some stuff.

In the short term, it's a financial drain to spend extra time during your college years to try everything that interests you. But in the long run... WHO CARES. Better to spend a couple years finding yourself in your early 20s than having a mid-life crisis when you're 40.

caffeine3• 17 years ago

Seriously? This kid unloads his complete existential disillusion, and your advice is "join a startup"? HN is starting to smell like Kool-Aid..

motters• 17 years ago

He doesn't sound all that brilliant to me. Anyone who gives up just because someone tells them that their ambition is worthless is certainly not a true visionary. People who really are brilliant are usually knocked back many times before they have their first success.

unalone12• 17 years ago

It's funny, 'cos you're pidgeonholing the guy while telling him that he shouldn't let people pidgeonhole him.

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

An interesting argument, but one with which I don't agree. To give up on something because someone else says its undoable is certainly un-brilliant; but I can understand being demotivated by someone's argument that your goal is worthless.

Recall that the guy is in South America, where many millions of people still live in the most grinding poverty; I can understand why a teacher would argue that since videogames are toys for rich kids, it's self-indulgent to devote oneself to such a thing when only a day's journey from the university (or maybe less) there are people with no clean water, access to medicine, etc. Now, I actually think a South American videogame compny would be a fine thing in the bigger context: it would create jobs, diversify the economy, could lead to new educational tools and so on. Videogames certainly stimulated my interest in computers and technology and still do. But while he may be brilliant enough to become a fine game programmer/designer/businessman, I can't blame him for being socially and economically immature enough that he's not able to see how it all fits together.

so my answer would be 'you love video games? Then make some, the world needs better games, because games can be powerful learning tools'.

techiferous• 17 years ago

This kid's real problem is [insert projection here].

jseliger• 17 years ago

[if you think you're brilliant, you're probably not. The most brilliant people I know tend not to think of themselves in terms of brilliance.]

jongraehl• 17 years ago

No, they're just smart enough to know that certain signals don't help them.

_pius• 17 years ago

In fairness, the kid didn't actually call himself brilliant.

10ren2• 17 years ago

I think his advice is: find facts. You can't make decisions without facts - at least, not well-informed ones. Facts about the world and facts about you. Facts that aren't written anywhere. Things you can only learn by experiencing them. Know thyself.

jimmyrcom4• 17 years ago

The 'I want to make video games' for a living is like hearing a teen girl enthusiastically brag about having great style sense and wanting to be a fashion designer or a poet because the things she writes are 'deep'(depressed with loaded words). These statements are so common it can feel disgusting. The counterstrike neckbeards of my generation would always go into CS half assed, learn java and usually not do it as a hobby. The new WOW generation are doing the same thing now. If someone wants to be a game programmer I think it's better to have a passion for programming and math first rather than a passion of games. As far as programming the internet is a better resource than any school could be. As far as game companies hiring people I think there's a better chance in getting a job if you're really great at art and creating environments. People have always been full of shit, but the only one you can blame for letting it affect you is you.

unalone12• 17 years ago

I'm younger than this guy was in the article. My next door neighbor just went off to college to become a fashion designer. A handful of my friends became poets. A few friends of mine are forming a video game company.

I don't see the point in bashing somebody because they like something. Very often, those people that try something and turn out to be terrible find what they love in the process. Why insult them?

jimmyrcom4• 17 years ago

It's not insulting them, it's looking at them as if they're naive because they don't know half the other guys or girls also secretly want to be the some thing. I have yet to meet anyone that's become a poet as a career choice. It doesn't pay. Only a handful of those girls ever become fashion designers. It's like looking at a little kid saying I want to be a policeman, fireman or doctor. All the little kids at 5 years old seemed to pick one of the three. You give them encouragement with a smirk and always expect things to change. The professor has the right to his opinion and to give his personal recommendation when asked. A person who has the balls to tell you you're wrong when he/she really feels that way should be respected not demonized. This should not be an earth shattering visionary destroying event if he recommends the contrary to what you want based on experience. I think the author exaggerates and throws the blame outward way too much.

soundphed• 17 years ago

Your analogy falls short at the end there...

A teenage girl bragging about her fashion sense or poetic style does not directly equate to the statement 'I want to make video games'. Unless, of course, you are implying that anyone who makes that statement has already tried and failed at creating successful video games and are now doomed and hopeless before they even hit the campus floor (as I am assuming that teenage girl is because, well...her poems suck).

I wanted to make video games. I went to a school specifically for that. I made it halfway through. The reality (to me, at least) was that the industry was just not worth it. The average lifespan of a game developer is 5 years...before total burnout ensues, and you are left entirely drained, hopefully with some bank though. But above all that, I decided to drop out because of a very simple and fundamental reason: It took all the mystery out of games...the X-factor, if you will.

This is not just refined to games of course...I feel that this happens all over the place, and the simplest answer as to why could just be that we as humans LOVE to learn. Just the prospect of learning some new language or about a new technology can spike a persons motivation to new heights, even if it is short-lived...we keep going.

jimmyrcom4• 17 years ago

It's like the people who audition for american idol. They secretly feel they can sing at the highest but only a handful of them are good at singing. If they knew there's a huge amount of people that think they're geniuses at singing and actually suck they'll more carefully re-evaluate themselves. Turns out there's a huge amount of people that got CS majors just because they felt it fitting after spending half their life on the computer playing games. Programmers that don't have side projects and don't do it for fun will be way inferior to those who do.

bitwize2• 17 years ago

I'm 32. I still want to make videogames but I don't want to work for Shit-A. I want to hole up in a log cabin somewhere and code till my eyes ache. Like Jeff Minter. (I seem to recall a comment from John Carmack along similar lines when he wanted to try a rendering technique: something like "I did what I normally do. I locked myself in a hotel room for three days and coded it up.")

Oh well. Until I have that log cabin in the woods my day job involves robot submarines, which is as awesome as it sounds.

Arun2009• 17 years ago

The dude is not nearly as brilliant as he thinks he is. I've seen better.

unalone12• 17 years ago

You don't know him. Don't be an ass.

toadstone2• 17 years ago

my advice would have been: think harder

toadstone2• 17 years ago

I wasn't being flip. His head is full of mush and delusions. He is unsatisfied with his academic success, girls, and hobbies because they do not cast him as some kind of mythic hero. He needs to get rid of that illusion. Throwing himself into the army or a startup company would just be feeding it. Once he stops doing things only to aggrandize his self-concept, he might find something he actually finds interesting or beautiful and from that will spring endless energy.

moldenke• 17 years ago

This happened to me (although I was not brilliant). My social awareness (or whatever you might want to call it) only developed when I started university, and it made me look at what I was studying with disgust. Having said that, I think the advice given by Salon sucks. There is no "finding yourself" this is bullshit, there is only "making yourself". You have to choose and you have to throw yourself after your choices, there is no way to think yourself into life.

I always liked this Baudrillard quote: "The modern ideal is to make your life what you want it to be. In reality, that is what you do when there's no other solution."

callahad• 17 years ago

Could I ask what path you ended up making for yourself, and any insights you had on the way to discovering that particular direction?

roc• 17 years ago

I find that having a quality is inversely proportional to how often you talk about it.

UpFromTheGut• 17 years ago

I hate to be pedantic, but I think "negatively correlated" would be more correct. Even though people know what you mean, it gives the phrase less meaning in case you meant to use the technical definition.

teeja• 17 years ago

"I'm learning to play the guitar, I draw, I read, I think, but I don't feel I exist.As if my biggest priority in life were enjoying it, learning to live it. But I want to do something else, man. I want to have a voice."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemianism

xcombinator3• 17 years ago

I think one can't say to himself he is brilliant, this is so dangerous.

My father tells me how much surprised it is when he sees back their school mates,now that he is retired, they expected the brilliant people in class to success.

This is what really happened:

The brilliant people(3 hipersmart guys) took a normal job and lived a normal live. People that had enormous problems in school, became presidents of big companies, made their own restaurants chains,got political power, became famous as scientific researchers...

Wow: Nobody would have expected that!!

I think those brilliant people were very good at learning and memorizing when the answer is known, but not so good facing risk and failure, fighting against unknown.

PS: There was a time I got 10 over 10 score in some exams like math when a lot of people didn't pass. I felt great(and superior) about being considered intelligent, but at the same I felt frightened about losing my position, so I stooped asking stupid questions (what would they think about me).

Later I discovered I love asking stupid questions, and I love testing new things, often it goes bad, so I felt liberated making enough grades and not being ultrasmart, but feeling this stupid man can kick some smart asses if I work hard.

skinnymuch3• 17 years ago

"People that had enormous problems in school, became presidents of big companies, made their own restaurants chains,got political power, became famous as scientific researchers..."

I doubt this very much.

xcombinator3• 17 years ago

Well, maybe it sounds like when I say "had enormous problems" that they didn't pass courses, or were stupid, they passed(with great pain through) and they were not, but I'm talking about boarding school with military discipline(and physical punishments) in Europe.

I think is difficult to understand this, specially for american people.

The fact that some people don't quite understand is that making a successful restaurant or company is as difficult or more difficult that study and fill an exam.

morphir2• 17 years ago

I think this article roots to the kids narcissism - just because you have an high IQ, does not mean you will become somewhat more important, more powerful or more successful than "Joe the plumber". Let me ask you this: Was Godel happy? Was Alan Turing happy? Even though they both were brilliant and had academic success, still - their personal lives was pretty much a sad state of affairs, and depression characterized their lives. Brilliance and success is not happiness. You are 20 (!) - I was around 25 before I found my academic passion, which by that gave me a inner calm. I wish you the best of luck. But to expect every piece to fall at place at the age of 20 is plain naive, actually a bit provoking. In addition to the large tasks here in life (like education and career) the small enjoyments like coffee in the morning, listening to the birds, getting a proper workout - is what keeps you smiling, or at least, it's what makes my day swell.

joe_the_user4• 17 years ago

Well, "Joe The Plummer" wasn't a plummer and wasn't named Joe but he was still more successful as a media sensation than this kid has been so far.

Still, I think you put a finger on the Kid's narcissism. But consider, we're getting closer to a society where being well-thought-of in High School really seems like as good a guide for your chances of becoming a billionaire as anything.

I mean, Sara Palin resigns as governor of Alaska because being a manager is kind-of a hassle but still seems to be taken seriously as a potential president. Now it's starting to make sense...

giardini2• 17 years ago

When asked them what they want to become, a number of nerdy boys I know (cousins, nephews, etc.) have answered "I want to make video games!". Knowing that it is a competitive subfield of an already-competitive IT industry, I always encouraged them to look for alternatives.

The guy should get a physical. He may have low thyroid, anemia, etc. The cure may be as simple as taking an iron tablet occasionally.

ErrantX• 17 years ago

I was above average intelligence in a school with a slightly below average age group. As a result I stood intellectually taller than my peers and breezed through.

I was brought up with my parents doting on me telling me I was brilliant and destined to great things.

As a result I was a little shit at 18.

It was university that brought me crashing down, gave me social skills, got me laid and focused my education. But that was only by luck (I changed course at the last minute - my original choice would have been easy as school).

However it never found me a purpose or passion (beyond an enjoyment of "hacking" and programming). I left university a much nicer person but just as lost.

Now it's only 18 months later but I have a real serious career and a passion and am doing pretty good. Again that was total luck.

Sounds like this guy is just getting to the "lost" section; don't worry it will figure itself out. It might take a couple of years (I know a guy who it took till about 31 to really sort out what he wanted). But the fact he is asking means he is on the right path.

Best advice I believe you can give people like that is dont think too far ahead - I still want to be a millionaire playboy at 30 with 10's of businesses behind me. But thankfully now I know that is just a dream to help drive me to whatever success I do end up with. It might well be as good as that - probably not. But hell, ill bumble along ok regardless :)

Or in summary: this shit generally works itself out so long as you work hard on the moment in hand.

EDIT: I see a few people trashing the armed forces option. I couldn't disagree more. If you make the decision in the right way and understand what your signing up too it could be a great experience. No need to worry about your ling term future for the moment :)

nalbyuites• 17 years ago

Having gone through a similar phase recently, I can relate a lot to this guy. In my case, I was just plain lazy and irresponsible. For me, sitting about and wondering about 'the purpose' was a way of justifying not working in my grad courses. How many people really do manage to find their purpose in life? I would take SamAtt's insurmountable odds and extend them to every second of life. In all the moments that you have till death, you can do so many things, sitting and moping should just feel wrong. (I wish I followed my own advice.) I don't know the guy, but I feel such thoughts arise from an easy-going and leisurely life. People growing up with uncertain futures and/or troubled circumstances/times (in the so-called Third World) seem to be much clearer about what to do. Making meaning of your life is much easier when you have a hungry family to feed back home. You can't be bothered about your 'true calling' then. I don't know which case is better for an individual's peace of mind. Being more aware of one's mortality can help, perhaps.

wicknicks• 17 years ago

Its time to say "Hello World".

sup7rstar• 17 years ago

The cause of this acquired imbalance, the woman. :D

symptic• 17 years ago

It would seem to me this young man has already set the gears into motion by knowing he doesn't have the answers and by making an effort to question his life. Many of the responses in here speak so matter-of-fact-ly that one person's opinion is right or wrong, but the truth is, no one knows the secrets behind what makes for a good life.

Life happens and it's all about how to take it in. Be it thrusting yourself into hard, difficult situations or taking it easy to learn and enjoy the subtle nuances of life. There is a particular equifinality in life where the same solution can be derived through different approaches. No one here is in the right or the wrong.

My personal opinion is that "getting lost" is less the solution, but rather the gentleman should "stay open," if you will. Wandering is merely one action that tends to incur openness, but it may or may not be the correct approach for any one person in particular. Learning to appreciate life is what he's learning "the hard way" currently and I would venture to say he'll experience that 'click' in his head sooner than his doomsday-ridden mind is anticipating.

Realizing how fortunate we all are to be here in this cultivated "world" of intellectualism--of the attitude we all have developed through our own stories similar to this boy's--discussing the merits of self-realization (who I am) the requisites of self-actualization (what I can do) is what is important here. It's quite the privilege.

sirbyt• 17 years ago

There's no such thing as being brilliant. You can do brilliant things. If you feel you have a talent that other people don't then pursue that talent. That's what 'brilliant' people do.

If all you have is good grades and no ambition, you're not brilliant, you're an idiot. Now start doing something about it.

RevRal• 17 years ago

You need something to propel you forward. Declaring that you're brilliant after you accomplish something is sometimes fun, but feeling that you're brilliant 24/7 is like putting a brick wall in front of you.

People don't often realize that most experiences, and feelings, are common; but, it is the lack of skill to communicate that makes us feel lonely.

I say, learn to communicate well. And be around people who know how to communicate well. I think this is very important to a person's happiness. Especially people who are, indeed, above average -- perhaps even for their sanity.

caffeine3• 17 years ago

Dear Tired and Lost,

Welcome to your life. You are the latest man in a chain many thousands of years long to wake from his deep sleep and discover that he is incomplete without a purpose.

First, the bad news: the pain won't go away by itself. It will get worse, like a constant implosion dissolving your heart from within. During sex and danger the pain may abate - and then come back, strong as before. Be warned, though; ignored for too long, the pain can numb. Then your purpose has abandoned you, and you are lost.

The good news: if you find your purpose and live it, the pain will go away. As I said, you are the latest inheritor of this burden - many have walked this road before you. They have left you way markers - the world's great spiritual traditions - to help you find your path.

You must open yourself profoundly to the world around you. Find a teacher, meditate deeply, question incessantly. Test yourself at every opportunity. Find your true purpose, and give yourself completely. Do so, and you may be enlightened, suffused with joy at the wonders that have always surrounded you. Fail, and die an anonymous end to a vacant life.

Happy hunting.

c00p3r• 17 years ago

Relax, all the really painful things starts after 35 for a man afrer 25 for a woman =)

allenp• 17 years ago

Not to be too literal, but to answer the kid's question, "What are games good for?" Raph Koster's A Theory of Fun for Game Design sets out to answer just this. Essentially his argument boils down to that games are made to teach us things, that they can be used for amusement, and that they allow us to have experiences that paintings, film, or music don't have the capacity to deliver.

Quiark• 17 years ago

Actually games are at least as useful as movies. And when a talented guy wants to be a director or actor, nobody tells him that it's nonsense and he should do something useful instead. So this was not fair from the teacher.

I'm 20, brilliant and totally lost

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