I’m a programmer. Sometimes I solve a really hard programming problem in a clever way with very few lines of code, and I feel like I’m the smartest person in the world. Other times I can’t solve a really simple problem and I realize that I’m actually a moron that gets lucky sometimes.
That’s programming for you, hah.
Sidenote: For what it’s worth, I think you’re pretty smart to solve things like that. I’m probably not as experienced as you, but it’s kind of telling that I’ve never had that feeling of an elegant solution.
Smart enough to get into a phd program but dumb enough to think doing a phd was a good idea.
I was thinking of working on a PhD, but enough people with a PhD have told me not to that I’ve decided maybe I should listen to the smart people and not do it. Best wishes to you, you tortured soul!
I agree with those people, don’t do it. Not unless you have a very specific reason for doing so like wanting to be an academic (you’d have about as much success with this as trying to be a professional athlete) or a phd level industry position.
Was gifted kid, always the smartest, highest test scores. Then I got older. I know I’m above average intelligence in lot of things. But smart enough to know how stupid I can be, that I have lots of faults, limitations. There are many kinds of intelligence, and always more to learn
Same boat. Got used to (and still ocasionally) being praised for practical applications. Limitations and faults aplenty.
According to the (probably fallacious) contrapositive of the Dunning–Kruger effect, this means you’re both pretty smart. Congrats (?)!
Username checks out.
(For those angry at the old place–ism, here, I’ll translate: I can’t help pointing out that your username matches what you said so well.)
People always tell me I’m smart. And I definitely have some things I’m good at. But I’m pretty dumb about a lot of stuff, but I think that’s pretty normal.
Honestly, I try not to think about people in terms of smart/stupid. Everyone has a complicated set of strengths and weaknesses that are slowly changing all the time. Just labeling someone as smart or stupid is overly simplistic.
That sounds pretty smart.
I share this perspective. I’m often told that I’m smart, but I’m really just normal I guess.
The more people I meet, the more I realize there’s a bunch of knowledge out there I have zero clue about and I realize it’s not about being smart or dumb; we just all have different strengths.
I agree with this completely.
I’m smart enough to know that there’s a lot I don’t know, and I took enough psychology classes to know that IQ tests are basically made-up nonsense. Comparing your intelligence to others is a losing battle and a waste of time.
Could not agree more. I tested high as a kid but never took it to heart. A quick trip to the library (long time ago) showed how deeply flawed they are.
I am objectively quicker at some things than many people but I’m often humbled as soon as I step outside the areas I have specific knowledge in.
I watched too many people bitch and moan about vaccines and masks during a pandemic… I dont think I’m smart, the bar is just too low.
Same boat. I think I’m average, but the bar seems so low that I’d up that to above average.
I’m smart. I work a smart person job with a lot of really smart people, which makes me feel not smart at times because a lot of my coworkers are smarter than me. I’m also insane though.
I would say overall I’m below average. Fairly dumb. Bottom 30% of society.
I don’t mind it too much. I know a lot about cinema and film history so I’m happy with that.
Same here lol. Don’t know that much about movies either though. I’m fairly slow too especially socially but somehow I tricked a woman into loving me… so that’s nice.
I don’t know anything about you other than this but from this your life sounds so sweet and minimalistic. I want to be happy like I perceive you to be.
I’m a complete idiot. So probs 30% to 40% smarter than the average American Republican.
I got very good grades at a top university in a stem subject. Most people regard me as smart. My professor who supervised my masters thesis regarded me as smart. I guess I can consider myself smart.
My brain power helps me with my job, otherwise I do the same things as everybody else.
My best life decisions came from equanimity, introspection and honesty with myself, not from being smart.
me too, AND I went to med school. I consider myself to be very slightly above average, and still hugely capable of being an utter moron in many instances.
My doctor friend almost lit our shared apartment on fire after lighting a candle near the curtains. The smartest people can do the dumbest shit.
If he hadn’t seen the curtains light up that would for sure have been a house fire.
I can easily believe that lol
I always felt I was “smarter than the average bear” (I think I just dated myself), but I had no solid evidence growing up, besides my mother insisting that I was very smart for my age. I almost skipped 2 grades in elementary school because I was reading adult books before I even started school, and I could write just as well. But my math knowledge was just average, so they didn’t want me to get behind if I missed a couple grades.
Despite this, I was a solidly C+/B- student for most of my schooling. I aced the tests placed in front of me, but I hated homework, so I just didn’t do it most of the time. I understood the material the first time it was presented to me; I didn’t understand why I needed to continually go over it in my free time. It felt like a waste of time. Plus, I had a hard time learning from the teachers. I did much better if I just read the textbook on my own, rather than sitting through a lecture.
In high school, I was failing a few classes. My mother thought I considered myself stupid and was afraid it was wrecking my confidence. Apparently, when she was a kid, she also thought she was stupid. She was failing a bunch of classes, while her eldest sister was getting straight-A’s. She got her IQ tested and found out she was actually the smartest of all her siblings - her eldest sister actually had the lowest IQ in their family!
So my mother made it her personal mission to prove I was smart. After all, you’re supposed to inherit your intellect from your mother, and my mom had a genius IQ. She hired a psychologist to give me an official IQ test, and to no one’s surprise, I tested in the genius range too. So I finally received validation that I was smart.
It didn’t fix my grades, though. It turns out, I was getting poor grades because A.) I refused to do homework, which lost me half my grade points alone, and B.) I was bored in class and didn’t really pay attention. I would find out 20 years later that I have ADHD, which is why I couldn’t pay attention in class. I have very poor auditory learning skills; when people talk to me, my brain shuts off. So lectures were the absolute death of me.
I joined the US Air Force right after high school, and unfortunately, the military requires you to blindly obey orders and not think too hard about things. Everything is dumbed down so the mission can be accomplished, even in the most stressful of scenarios. The Air Force has the strictest tests to qualify for service, and we tend to have the highest intelligent people in the armed services, but it was still a drag. I spent too many years trying to argue logic and reason with my superiors and coworkers, which fell on deaf ears. So I eventually got complacent and started doing the bare minimum to accomplish the mission and get through my days. By the end of my 2 decades of service, I feel like my brain has been through the blender and I feel much dumber than I used to be. Could also be some added PTSD, too.
Now I’m retired at a young age and living a quiet, relaxing life out in the countryside. I’m not too concerned anymore about being smart or dumb, just as long as I can live in peace.
Are you trying to make you home servers accessible to the wider public, or just accessible to yourself/family/friends?
If it’s the later, running a wireguard VPN server on a publically accessible, cheap VPS with your home servers and connecting devices as “clients” works well. I’m in a similar situation as you and did so to access my home automation and media servers from “the outside”.
Smart enough to:
See the gaps in my knowledge
Know there are gaps I haven’t even found yet
That I have and will continue to do dumb shit
Yeah, very smart. External validation for years since being tested at like 6 and being told my options were staying in public school and skipping to 5th grade or going to private school where my needs could be met within an age appropriate setting.
Then there were all the tests since where I would score in the 98th percentile or higher.
The most impactful was my professional experience where my coworkers were a decade older than me and I found myself being brought in as an expert on stuff for Fortune 500 CEOs, US cabinet nominees, etc.
And yet there are times I’m straight up an idiot. Like not thinking that I can move the silverware off the napkin and lift it up to my face instead of bringing my face to the napkin. Sometimes my SO will do something simple like adding sugar to cereal I find too bland so I don’t eat it, and my brain breaks with the realization that was always an option.
Brains come in a variety, and while I was lucky to get one that aligned in where it excelled with what society measures and values, I’ve generally found that many people are gifted in some aspect of their brains - it’s just unevenly valued by the world around them.
Gifted 2E kid who could “do so much with her life if only she tried”
I can do tests like you wouldn’t believe, but outside of that context, I’m about as average as it gets!
I was tested as a kid with a 140 IQ but did my best to get that down to average levels with pot as a teenager. Every report card “… has a lot of potential if they applied themself.”
Sadly, I didn’t cure cancer. I got really into cooking and then computers, slowly realizing that while I might be smart on those tests, I am not really emotionally intelligent or particularly good at getting my crap together to make things happen.
Life kind of carried me along. I did lots of cool stuff but made major life decisions on a whim.
Everything changed when I met my wife (we weren’t married before I met her, that happened later) and combined my abilities with hers. I finally feel like I have a place in the world and know what I’m going to be doing a week, month, or year from now with some certainty. Feels good.
I am very smart in a single field of study and very dumb in normal life. Yay neurodivergence…
