How do you guys deal with the fact that there have been so many gifted people to have existed that we will never be...

How do you guys deal with the fact that there have been so many gifted people to have existed that we will never be able to compare to? Hell even on this board I feel severely overshadowed by most of you guys.

How do you deal with your mediocrity?

Drugs and alcohol

/thread

not being constantly depressed over the fact that you're a mediocre individual and that no amount of effort will change that

Define "define".

Stop comparing yourself to other people.

Sounds corny, but think about little girls. It is pounded into their heads at a young age, mostly concerning the looks of other girls. Their physical prime is subjective and short, and once past it, they're reduced to their inner substance.

You will never be happy with yourself if you put yourself down about your inability in a non-constrictive way.

There will always be someone smarter than you, more respected, more remembered. You'll be lucky to achieve anything of significance in your life. It's no reason to give up on being the best you you can be user.

probably from all the gifted bullshit I was fed as a child which is currently crumbling in uni. Also just the fact that I like to browse wikipedia pages of people like Euler or Erdos and look at all their accomplishments, which makes me depressed as I'll never achieve a fraction of their intellect.

meant to reply to

See guys, if this dipshit can be happy being remedial, you should feel blessed to just be mediocre.

Only right post on this thread

I had that mindset a while ago. It keeps you away from getting anything usefull done. I makes you think "why should I have a look at this problem if [insert famous mathematician here] already tried to solve it but he couldnt?"

All those math experts are humans like you so they probably are thinking the same. You need to tell youself "whatever im doing it is unique and good and fuck what the experts"

Everyone goes his own way, using the internet you have more information on your hands than einstein ever had, thinking about what one could do is more question of self esteem.

It should be
"...fuck what the experts are thinking"
Im on the phone ona bus sry 4 the bad writing

What this guy said. Also, the way to stop comparing yourself to others is to set attainable goals for yourself that you care about. You may not be able to accomplish everything someone else can, but at least you can accomplish something important, and possibly more important than they will, if you have good judgment and determination.

Many smart people have really poor taste when it comes to what to work on (most obviously in math but also other areas). Or, they get complacent in their abilities and don't accomplish anything.

Science is part hard work and part luck. Not being the smartest person in the world doesn't mean you won't discover something new and interesting.

Just deal with the cards you were given user. Optimize your potential and do the best you can do and you will be happy.

how do gifted people deal with the fact, that they will most probably never accomplish anything worthwhile?
I at least can say, that Im not smart enough.

I wish I could tell you what it is like. To feel like you're truly working towards something good. To think that you will make a difference, not only in your eyes but in the eyes of the world.

But the world isn't watching. It never is. Instead we're locked in damp basements working grueling hours on something which in all likelihood will be insignificant and ignored by our peers. Because that is the harsh reality that comes with doing science. For years you will feel like what you do makes no difference. The stress and the pressure slowly building up to a point where you feel like you just can't take it anymore, only to be taken away temporarily by some minor achievement like getting another degree, or a publication in that slightly higher up journal you've been hoping for.

But it always returns. That lingering sense of insignificance. The realization that everything you do, however brilliant it may seem to your close or even distant colleagues, is incomparable to things which have been done before you. Even if you make it you will feel like it was all just luck. That you happened to be in the right place at the right time. That that tenured position wasn't really right for you, but you got it anyway, for no apparent reason.

Years beyond, when you are widely regarded as an expert in your respective field you will still have that feeling. That you do not really know what you are doing. That it was all luck which brought you there. That you are an impostor, living the life of someone else.

But this isn't true. You will not be an impostor. What you have been working on, however minor the problem may seem, has relevance. Everyone before you likely felt the same way. You cannot become great by trying to be great, but by wanting to do something with such a conviction that you become great in the process. Remember this in your years to come. It will comfort you.

I tell myself that I'm a very small gear in the huge science machine

>you will never be as great as niel degrasse tyson or bill nye

>Stop comparing yourself to other people.

>Don't think of the polar bear, user!

Pls no. Anybody but those asshats.

It doesn't take incredible intelligence to become multi-millonair

>inb4 I would rather be very smart than rich
>inb4 I would also like to be very smart

If you are mediocre in respect to greatness (good) then you are also mediocre in respect to suffering (bad). If in response to: "think of les Africans" you say: "my sufferings are unique and so incomparable" then by your own logic, your achievements are also unique and incomparable. You should take refuge in mediocrity or stop comparing yourself to other people.

You are trapped in a bad way of thinking, perhaps you will become the most excellent mediocrity alive?

>implying they aren't a big deal

I don't have to deal with it because I am 6'5" 225 lbs, 2% body fat, 11 inch penis Olympian and CEO making 500k/yr studying at the Institute for Advanced Study with a Doctorate in Mathematics from Cambridge and a Doctorate in in Nuclear Physics from ETH Zurich.

I speak 5 different languages, I have a 10/10 Victoria Secret model girlfriend and I am only 22 years old.

Have you tried just being yourself though user?

Thanks bud. Now I'm gonna spam this shit. I'm really happy now. You made my day. Holy fuck thank you.

Jokes on you, I am 65 ft tall with 2250 lbs, 200% body fat, 110 inch penis triple quadruple Olympian level, CEO, CTO, CFO, CMO, COO, CIO and CSO of every company in the western world making 500 gorillion dollars every day teaching at every Institute on the planet as a Professor in Mathematics, Rocket Science and general smartassery.

I speak 5000 different languages, I have three hundred 20/10 Victoria Secret model girlfriends and boyfriends and I am only 6 years old.

You couldn't even try being yourself while being near me.

How do you deal with the fact that even if you graduated from a top 10 college and work 16 hours a day you will not really achieve much on your own and even the achievements you make in a team will take a long time and not be big?

Being creative > Being smart

When will MODS start banning this threads?

This r9k cancer is too dumb to be discussed.

This

Lol bro, I'm a former D-1 rugby player, have abs at 6'1" 240 lbs, worked as a bouncer, Did army ROTC in college turning it down for 70k finance job, and I bench somewhere around 420 lbs. I grew up on base and boxed since I was 8. I've got the quickest hands I've ever seen in person from a non professional fighter, especially at my weight. If my gf wants to talk chit I'll let her do it to a point before pulling her away. If some guy gets in her face? I'm either gonna do the responsible thing and get the bouncer or pick him up and slam his phucking neck into the concrete.
What do you weigh… 190 lbs? Bench maybe 275 lbs? Lol. You have no idea what it's like walking around as big and as strong as someone like me. First of all, 95% of men walk in fear of you, and 95% of the other 5% of men are just retarded.
Literally the last 3 altercations I've been in with other males ended with me giving them one back hand slap and knocking them to the ground (I'm terrified of hitting most men and either killing them or putting them into a coma)
Any type of altercation, verbal etc. whether it involves girls I know or guys I know just mildly amuse me as I know I can step in and regulate the situation in a split second if things get serious.
Take your tiny, wanna be, hard pretend phaggot ass elsewhere pussy.

>implying true creativity isnt intelligence

Why did I read this in an australian accent

Jackass, your life is defined by what you choose to do. There are a fuckton smarter people than me, but nobody will give a fuck about that if I'm simply doing useful shit that those people aren't doing. Strive towards something meaningful and you'll realize hard work is basically the only thing that matters.

>hard work is basically the only thing that matters.

What matter are smarts and drive. Just working hard will not take you far without the smarts to find the right thing to work hard on.

Okay, drive matters, which translates to you having motivation for hard work. Kinda figured that could go unspoken.

Smarts is overrated. If you have a desire to do something, you'll either find a way to succeed, or you won't. Nobody should be living with the anticipation that they'll accomplish nothing because they're not smart enough. If you haven't yet succeeded, either you're in the process of moving forward or you've given up. If you've given up, maybe you didn't really care. Just fucking try

its not about where you are, its about constant continuous improvement. as long as you are a little bit better of a person tomorrow than you are today, you're good.

>Smarts is overrated. If you have a desire to do something, you'll either find a way to succeed, or you won't.

Well with smarts you are more likely to find a way. How are you going to work hard on something that requires creativity?

How are you defining smarts? IQ? SAT scores? Grades? Starcraft skill?

If there's something I wanna do, and I'm willing to commit to it, do you really think I'm gonna let someone else's metric decide my life for me?

Howabout people should fucking try shit for themselves and decide if they can handle it, without regard for what other people think of their level of intelligence

like what the fuck kind of life do you think people should live?

>How do you deal with your mediocrity?

In a trillion years time, no-one will know about or care about Newton or Galileo or Einstein either.

Are you kidding me fuccboi?

I'm a former French foreign legion warrior, stand 6'8 at 300lbs but still have rock hard abs you could cut coke on. I turned down my army career for a 400k/year job fucking your bitch, and I curl around 420lbs. You think you can box? Boy, I took lessons from Mohammed Ali before he quit teaching me because I was too savage. You're girlfriend wants to talk shit? Hell, I'll listen to her bitch about your little dick, then Ill fuck her. Some other guy talks shit to her? I don't know what then, it's never happened while I've been there. They just look at me and cower. You only weigh 240lbs? You think that's impressive? Bruh you have no idea what it's like being a walking brick of testosterone. 98% of men walk in fear of me, and the other 2% just want me to fuck them.

Literally the last 3 altercations I've been in, I can't talk about because there's still an ongoing investigation of which I'm a prime suspect. You're terrified of hitting most men in case you put them in a coma, bruh I jack off to that thought. Come at me.

Just walk away you mark ass bitch, you might think you can regulate a situation in a split second but I'll end it in half that time. A fucking 1/4 second bruh. Come at me.

I took an IQ test as a child and got around 140-143, can't remember exactly, and I'm pretty much a dumbass now. I don't feel smart, and suck at mathematics, so I assume since IQ has been proven to fluctuate during adolescence my own simply went down. It's depressing to think I may have been able to achieve something great, but my environment and my shitty choices have condemned me to a lifetime of mediocrity and social estrangement. It gives me conniptions, it really does.

>have abs at 6'1" 240 lbs, worked as a bouncer, Did army ROTC in college turning it down for 70k finance job, and I bench somewhere around 420 lbs. I grew up on base and boxed since I was 8. I've got the quickest hands I've ever seen in perso

>Did army ROTC in college turning it down
If you weren't contracted you didn't really "do" ROTC, since all the substantial stuff is the last two years

tl;dr stolen valor lite

My aspergers and life of being the 'smart kid' caused an influx of highly abnormal effects of being 'mentally outclassed', even in immediacy.

I cringe and become highly self-aggressive, biting myself and hitting my head, screaming into my muffling hands because I couldn't understand something I've had 2 minutes to look at.

I see an equation with prerequisites a mile list long and the people here (and /a/ for some reason) solve it and arrogantly shit all over it whereas it's strides, if not by time decades ahead of even my more educated colleagues in our advanced math classes.

The mediocrity should not make you feel overshadowed but should make you realize exactly the emotional output you desire from seeing these same instances.
Go and learn it. And if you can't, master how much you can to be satisfied, and don't focus on a fragmented picture that causes a fragmented psyche.

They are the same exact thing.

Dont feel bad, the future is for the mediocre because the academia complex has been churning out degrees for faithful sciencism adherents and people with the primary attribute for real science, skepticism, are shouted down when they seek to disprove instead of prove.

You arent dumb, you've probably just put your efforts into getting good at something else that lets you use your imagination unhindered by dogma.

If Archimedes were alive today he would be thought an idiot.

Sometimes I dream of being a great mathematician or physicist, so great that I'll be remembered for centuries as one of the best minds humanity has ever produced.
Then I remember I'm studying engineering at a university that isn't even top ranked in my third world homeland, and even at this second rate university I'm not top of my class and have trouble with some of the coursework.
>tfw completely and utterly mediocre

Just be glad OP that you arent a complete retard who will be cleaning shitholes

>be shit at math
>IT'S ALL POLITICS YOU GUIZE

You forgot to include your argument

this
just do what you love and make life good, don't worry all the time about these things.

This is true, to a tee, for the humanities
Not so much real science

There is no real science, all thought is good thought in the correct context.