Same here. I think it’s because working on myself made me neglect my connection to everyday life. Working too much on yourself, in your own way, makes you a little bit incompatible with everything and everyone else. Wizard power (as I see it: A powerful mentality, independence, the ability to go ahead of everyone else) is best developed in isolation or smaller groups, but social connections are important for success in life.
The feeling which caused me to switch was that of a pyramid being upside down. If you work on top of the needs hierarchy while neglecting the bottom like I did, you’re putting yourself at risk, and this creates anxiety which is justified and thus hard to shake off again.
In my way of looking at this, Einstein had a bit of wizard power, and he had trouble getting recognized for it once he made his discoveries. Most people did not have much reason to believe that he was a genius, as he didn’t have a lot of social proof. Tesla also leaned too much towards his intellectual pursuits, I think. He didn’t have much in terms of money and friends, and this seemed to cause him difficulties even though he was such a competent person.
An alternative route I’ve thought of is becoming a social wizard. Those people who have an unnatural amount of charisma and the ability to read people like books.
About being nerd sniped—I think many things do bring some benefits. The problem is, even though you can do anything, you can not do everything. There simply isn’t enough time. I like this quote, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.”
A thing which I can’t put into words well but only warn about vaguely is the consequence of learning many new things too fast. When I do this, I face the same thing as OP does—I basically become another person. If I want to get back, I have to reverse my mindset, attitude, values, cognitive models, priorities, etc. and not just remember what I learned before, so for me, learning isn’t purely additive unless the new material is close to what I learned before. Even switching from “work mode” to “socializing mode” takes me a few hours at least.
Same here. I think it’s because working on myself made me neglect my connection to everyday life. Working too much on yourself, in your own way, makes you a little bit incompatible with everything and everyone else. Wizard power (as I see it: A powerful mentality, independence, the ability to go ahead of everyone else) is best developed in isolation or smaller groups, but social connections are important for success in life.
The feeling which caused me to switch was that of a pyramid being upside down. If you work on top of the needs hierarchy while neglecting the bottom like I did, you’re putting yourself at risk, and this creates anxiety which is justified and thus hard to shake off again.
In my way of looking at this, Einstein had a bit of wizard power, and he had trouble getting recognized for it once he made his discoveries. Most people did not have much reason to believe that he was a genius, as he didn’t have a lot of social proof. Tesla also leaned too much towards his intellectual pursuits, I think. He didn’t have much in terms of money and friends, and this seemed to cause him difficulties even though he was such a competent person.
An alternative route I’ve thought of is becoming a social wizard. Those people who have an unnatural amount of charisma and the ability to read people like books.
About being nerd sniped—I think many things do bring some benefits. The problem is, even though you can do anything, you can not do everything. There simply isn’t enough time. I like this quote, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci: “As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.”
A thing which I can’t put into words well but only warn about vaguely is the consequence of learning many new things too fast. When I do this, I face the same thing as OP does—I basically become another person. If I want to get back, I have to reverse my mindset, attitude, values, cognitive models, priorities, etc. and not just remember what I learned before, so for me, learning isn’t purely additive unless the new material is close to what I learned before. Even switching from “work mode” to “socializing mode” takes me a few hours at least.