Wasted potentials

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I respect your thinking as it is offered in the wasted potential thread.


Damnit, this doesn't count, this was supposed to be a private message.

CRB You win.

Last edited by SB2 on 02 Jan 2006, 11:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am also thinking of how much Aspie could help advance science and stuff. Im not crying about it I think It would help the whole world to have more aspies doing stuff that we are good at like Science.

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I think the other end - that there is nothing you can do - is also unrealistic. Helen Keller's story is famous for a reason.



I agree that discrimination against aspies just because of AS is evil, just like the discrimination Neuroman faces for other reasons. I wonder if there was less of this in the past before AS was labelled?

Not everyone with Aspergers is good at science.

We do have something in Our Lives that We can though to aspire too.
It is a matter of believing in Oneself and not worrying what other truly think that is what truly matters in Our Lives that matters in the End.

We have to find the inspiration in Ourselves to make it matter for Ourselves. It matters not what We are but what We strive to Become that is what Truly Matters in the End.

For that Teaches Us about Ourselves and what We can or can not do.
For We are the Sums of Ourselves and it is within in Us to Make that difference for Ourselves and to Show other what We can do. So they will see Us for Who We truly are in the End.

This reminds me of something by an Aspie that I read two or three years ago. He basically said that Aspies tend to work well below their skills, abilities, work ethic, and experience. That's certainly true for me, and I bet it's true for many here.


MOC, this isn't exactly what you were aiming at (based on what you say above), but it's what preoccupies me when I think about wasted potential:

When I was young, I had all kinds of ideas about what I would do with my life that have not materialized. The reasons for this are
(1) no one can do everything; we have to pick and choose a few things to pursue in life;
(2) one of the things I picked was getting married and having kids, which consumes an unbelievable amount of time and energy I no longer have to devote to the other things I might have picked.

Lately I've been feeling a lot of...remorse? regret?.....that I didn't know about AS when I was much, much younger. I might have made very different choices (such as staying single) that would have enabled me to pursue the ideas I had for myself when I was younger. (On the other hand, I would have been alone, and would have missed out on all that is rewarding about a family, so it's certainly not "all bad" that I didn't know about AS back then.)

And one can say all one likes about motivation and cite examples of people who have families and still go on to write acclaimed works of literature (like Hella Haasse, a Dutch author) or contribute to science or whatever, but I don't work like that. If every person has a plate that can be filled with pursuits in life, then the point at which my plate becomes full is much earlier than the point for those people--or even for most "normal" NTs. Managing daily life with a family consumes almost all my energy. I had no idea that would happen, but it did, and here I am, despite all my talents and abilities.

Besides which, who's to say those famous examples were very successful at the family part of things? I've read about famous authors with families, for example, who always locked themselves in their writing room and only came out for meals; their children described them as very distant. Not what I'd call successful.

If you would be willing, i would be interrested to know what some of those other ideas you had for yourself were.

Not to discount the choices you made because you chose the noblist of all paths. Its just that i am a curious person.

There a billion lives I could have lived based on choice I might have made. At the moment, I'm wasting a lifetime thinking about it. Maybe tomorrow, I might just try and think about something else. Just for a change.

No problem . I don't know that I agree with you about the "noblest path" thing (I assume you mean having a family?), though. I never really thought about it in terms of doing something noble.

Other possible paths I might have taken:

* Careers: mathematics professor / researcher / artist / theoretical astrophysicist
* Lifestyles: living alone, speaking 30 languages

The possible careers aren't "out of the blue"; I have a mathematics degree and was for a time studying both art and astrophysics (though not at the same time). I have taught undergraduate mathematics at the university level before. I studied computer graphics and used to be a programmer, before my last two kids were born. I have always been obsessed with languages and frankly I can't believe I never have learned more than two (I've tried, but lack the motivation to stick with it outside a classroom).

Starting from my present position, the things I currently wish I had the time and energy for (and am currently trying to make the time and energy for) include:

* Writing a first-order logic theorem prover in C++, just to get experience with both

* Completing my distance-learning study in French, then moving on to Russian, Mandarin, Italian, Welsh, Portuguese, Spanish, Norwegian, Swahili, Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish (not necessarily in that order)

* Learning more about string theory and quantum mechanics -- I'm currently reading The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, which is a definite topper; he ties things together in ways that really help me see the big picture

* Learning to play the piano by learning pieces I like; currently trying to learn Scott Joplin's The Entertainer and Erik Satie's Gymnopédie III (I have no musical background, but so far it seems to be going okay)

* Creating a table-sized graph of the history of evolution, based on Richard Dawkins' The Ancestor's Tale

* Creating a table-sized graph of the history of the Delta and Memphis "schools" of the blues (my favorite kind of music)

* Getting back into drawing

Unfortunately, my life is filled with episodes where I begin with enthusiasm and a well-thought out schedule for accomplishing all these things, which peters out within a week because I just can't manage it on top of all the demands of daily life. I have no reason to expect it to be any different now, but I still hope .

grayson WOW your awesome!!

YOu have done some of the things I have only dreamed of but I still want to do. It sounds like you have already done alot of things. Those subjects all sound really interesting. I want to learn more about them but then again the motivation factor comes into it.

I would like to learn more about.
Mathmatics
Theoretical Physics Relativity and stuff im not so sure if string theory is on the right track.
I would like to write a fantasy book
I want to learn a little more about linux OS and C and C++ programming languages but I don't want to really do computers as a job some sort of science would be more interesing I think

As for learning langauges that would be awesome to do too but i want to learn about some of the other things on my list before I learn about them and Im not nessicarry going to do every thing on my list

Thank you for saying that. That makes me feel really, really good, even if I don't entirely agree with your assessment of me .


I am happy about some of the things I've accomplished. I do feel like I've managed to do several of the things I wanted to do. I guess there's always an unrealistically huge list of things left that I still want to do.


Sounds like we have some common interests! What do you do for work / school now?

Not much I dropped out of school eairly cause of bulling so I have to do make up courses before I can enter any thing I want to do now.
I am about to do some computer Networking and electronics course because it allows me to get into a computer networking course but im thinking about weather I want to study some thing else instead of that when I finsh that course. At the moment I am teaching my self stuff about linux and am running it completely instead of windows. Im about to get a second computer and try and set it up as a duel boot windows and gentoo and play around with setting up networks and stuff between my computers.

I plan in the future to try and get into some of the areas of study that I like. Im just unsure of how I should go about it.

Maybe I'm wasting my potential. I'd like to study math, physics, science, biology, medicin, genetics, history and geography at the same time, but this is impossible. I chose to go for medicin which may prevent me to reach a similar doctoral level in other studies.

But that's not a problem, as I'll know I've chosen at least one study I like and will try to reach my greatest potential in that field. As I don't think there's a definition of what my full potential is, I'm equally happy with the thought that I might not ever reach it but have done everything I could to raise the bar when possible.

And what if something or someone made it impossible to me to even thrive for it? Well, I guess I would just deal with consequences and alter my personal goals; relying on the things I said above. I'm not trying to speak for everybody here, but I could settle for that.

Grayson,
if i may comment on a few of your paragraphs!
every other item not covered herein, AMAZING.

But you remain faithful to yourself and you take the first step. I admire your courage to try.
Keep trying. You never know what might become of your latest endeaver.



Acting as a role model and setting an example for the next generation of human beings, IT IS THE NOBLEST OF ALL.
Working hard, and pursuing the most you can give, to your own situation, IS NOBLE.

Homemakers have the most thankless jobs in the world and theyare always on duty 24/7 365 days a year. Also, each decision they make could have dire consequences for the most basic of all political structures. Also can have the greatest benefits. The basic wage; sense of pride.






it is obvious that your mind is all too curious. You have too much potential and to much curiosity.
You can do anything you desire, and you wish to do everything to satisfy your curious nature.
I don't see the humor in the irony either, but god gave you both qualities for a reason.
Your job is to figure out why. And if you do, will you please let me know your investigative process. I am curious to find out.

There was this girl I went to high school with, and while she was extremely poor, she had the potentinal to do amazing things in life, but she wasted many opertunties, so that is the biggest example of wasted potentional in the world to me.

That is one of the main things I was trying to get at with this thread or though im very bad at trying to convey my thoughts accorss to others in forums. I think potental being wasted just because of fintical situations or people always being told that they can't do some thing is some of the worst wastes of potential out there.