Hidden Talents and Special Abilities

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I relate to this--I was really into schematics as a kid, but I didn't know any algebra yet, and beyond Ohm's law I didn't have any quantitative knowledge of circuit, but I could "see" the current flowing through the various components in my head, and "feel" the signals "rising" and "falling" as they propagate through the connections. I've always been really into network-y things of all kinds, which helps me internalize trail maps, circuits, and most lately signaling pathways in cells.

I also surprised myself at how good I am with assembly. Sometime last fall I started this online course (http://www.nand2tetris.org/), and found that not only could I design things like an ALU or whatever and often have them work the first time without any "bugs" (no doubt because many of the rules of logic design I'd internalized as a kid the way others absorb social skills), but even though I had never seen assembly before, I could write simple programs in that without bugs too. The assembly language used in that course is certainly not as complex as, for example, x86, but still, the learning curve was really fast.

The things that I feel may actually be my greatest special abilities, however, are ones I can't really prove I have. They involve chemistry/biochemistry--I feel I have a sense of the driving forces that make drug molecules bind to proteins, and that make proteins themselves fold. I don't know how many of you know that much about protein structures, but there's a database called the PDB that has lots of structures of molecules bound to different proteins. I used to try and predict the binding affinities and then compare them to published data, and sometimes I'd do very well (a 0.8-0.9 correlation). Unfortunately, getting someone to synthesize a molecule and test it for you is very difficult/expensive. I'd also like to try designing enzymes--it's a really big problem now in biology, and I'm curious how well I'd do.

I feel sorry for those of you who were criticized for your talents. My talents were very much celebrated as a kid. Unfortunately as an adult, it's easy to feel that nobody cares, and then after a while I lose motivation. Particularly, it would be great if some girls found my talents romantic, but I haven't had that be the case. In general, people aren't looking for special talents in others, so they don't ask about them, and when I try to find them in others, it seems they aren't there. It's also getting harder and harder to express my thoughts, since they have gotten more abstract as time went on.

I think that the vast majority of people have no particular talent. You can be totally "ordinary" , have absolutely no talent, work hard on little things that you like and find your way in the vast majority of unknown and untalented people like you, and be happy. That is pretty much what everybody does.

Also, I don't think that people will ever love or recognize YOU “for your talent” (because you have no merit as it came without working on it).

People will love you or recognize you for the “little things that you do”, day after day, for your little efforts.

Being a single parent to my two youngest daughters, I have to agree with you. Sometimes, a truly worthwhile talent can be as simple as being able to make someone smile, or helping another person in need in spite of facing your own difficulties at the time. It's all about turning ordinary situations into extraordinary ones, and that ALWAYS takes effort. But it's always worth it.

As for my 'special' talents, I've had to work very hard to shape them into what they are now. Sometimes we can have gifts that only really shine when we overcome obstacles that may otherwise stand in our way, and in my case, I've had to overcome some very serious confidence issues throughout most of my life. Nothing worthwhile ever comes without effort.

Keep in mind too, that some people who have some great skill or talent worked a great many years to get there because it was their passion. Not all talents are inborn gifts--some have to be worked for. My perfect pitch is inborn (and is more of a pain in the ass than a gift), but most of what I do came from years of study and practice. I paint, draw, and code web sites, but I studied, went to school, and worked for those things--I didn't start out being talented in them. Most successful people get that way through sheer determination, endurance, hard work, and knowing how to exploit opportunities when they come up.

Lots of people with inborn gifts have trouble putting them to profitable use, or have so much trouble with executive function that they have trouble managing their lives. Nicola Tesla was a prolific inventor, revolutionizing the electrical industry, but died in debt. Pierre Curie, pioneer in radiation research, was run down by a horse-drawn cart, possibly because he was lost in thought. Alan Turing was convicted for being gay and accidentally poisoned himself with chemicals from an experiment (or committed suicide, it's not known for sure). I often think that many talented or gifted need "minders", somebody who is fantastic at executive function and dealing with the public.

God knows I need one, and I'm not even a genius.

I discovered I'm pretty good at cooking all sorts of things after the age of 50! I can search the web and adjust recipes to get what I or someone else wants.

Today I seared some steak on a little cast iron grill and then baked it in the oven. Then I put some Pepperidge farm puff pastry in the oven to cook while I ate the steak.

To me that's such a wonderful thing, to discover a talent after many years, that one didn't even know that one possessed.

So many people think "I have no talent," but haven't actually tried enough things yet. There are so many things that one could be naturally talented in without even knowing it.

Good for you, for learning such an important skill, and for being willing to try something new.

I think talents are developed from perhaps an above average ability in some area that people work a lot in that area and have a passion for it so they become talented in that area.

In my case, my mental "processing speed" as well as reflexes & reaction speed are completely ridiculous; "cat-like reflexes" doesnt describe it. I can also track/process a monstrous number of things at once. Very useful when driving; I'm aware of the position of every single thing all at once, at all times, without overloading, and can react very fast if something suddenly comes at me.

Also useful when gaming, naturally.

On the downside of this, I'm utterly unable to focus on just one thing at a time. If I try to do that I'll start spacing out, worse than when I normally space out.

And of course any sort of major sensory issue happening absolutely WILL distract me from every single other thing if it occurs. Typically, super-loud sounds are what set me off the worst. Fortunately that doesnt happen all that often.


My OTHER talent though is doing things like these: https://imgur.com/a/DLH78

Yes, those are all my photos. I got into this hobby a few months back, and have been absolutely loving it. Started out with the basic Rubik's Cube that everyone's heard of, but... now, that one is very easy to me. I've now got all sorts of challenging and bizarre twisty puzzles like these. Some of them get REALLY weird. The ones in this set are all cube-shaped, but many are not. Or there are "jumbling" puzzles, where pieces can be entirely pulled out of their "orbits" and re-attached in nonsensical places, by doing special turns. Do enough of this, and you reach a point where it's fully "jumbled", which typically means "nearly unturnable" because pieces are actually blocking possible turns. Those also change shape. So yeah, they get pretty crazy.

I've found this hobby to be a natural fit for me. Alot of these havent been nearly as hard as they look (like that first one at the top) but plenty of them can get very challenging (the exploded mess at the bottom). They tend to ALL be very intimidating at first. The "Roadblock", on the far left of that group of 6 in that one photo, I'd expected to put up quite a challenge indeed, but... it took me maybe an hour to do the first time, and frankly it was pretty easy. But it sure looked like it wasnt going to be!

So yeah, doing that sort of thing I guess would be my other talent.


EDIT: ooooooooookay that imgur post just farted out 10 comments in 3 minutes. What.

Now THAT is an interesting talent! Being able to process so much information at once would prove to be very useful in any number of real world situations. And I can see how that would also allow you to solve some of those mind-melting puzzles (somebody actually designed those things? Wow, they look awesome!!)

As a side note, where you mentioned about not being able to focus on just one thing at a time, have you ever tried meditation? I don't know if it would be possible to perhaps reduce the number of 'elements' you are focusing on over a period of time, with the aim of eventually getting down to just one. There are also visualisation techniques where you can implement a 'trigger' of sorts to help you. In this case, you could incorporate an 'imaginary dial' that would allow you to reduce the number of things that your brain is trying to grasp at once. I used something similar a few years back in the form of a 'switch' that I would imagine turning off whenever I got really stressed, and it worked surprisingly well. I 'remember' it looking a bit like a light switch, and just hearing the click-sound of the switch in my mind would actually make me feel quite relaxed, and my stress levels would immediately go down.

I agree with this whole-heartedly! It's never too late to discover our talents, and as you said, this is indeed a very important and useful one.

Do any more of you have talents or abilities you would like to share? They don't have to be anything spectacular, just something that you feel is worth a mention. It can be either a natural ability, or perhaps something you have had to work towards

I feel that since I'm good at a lot of specific things, if I try to talk about them, it sounds like I'm boasting.

It would still be interesting to hear about them

I'm good at memorizing things, noticing things that other people can't see, dancing, singing, writing, reading, making up stories, building things with Lego, loving the universe, loving all beings, and being happy.

Better than talking about the weather or sports.

This is pretty much the same reaction I have whenever I look at them. Particularly the *really* weird ones. The ones in the pic were all cube-shaped, but they get really wonky when they have the stranger traits (like shapeshifting) but then also are not cube-shaped. Though the non-cubic ones do also tend to be bigger.

Just to show them, there's some more here: https://imgur.com/gallery/xJGxz

Includes some non-cubic ones. And I genuinely have no freaking clue what in the world that bottom one is. The thing's very existence baffles me.

It's a very fun hobby, really. The interesting part is that it really just isnt as hard as it looks. I started out by learning Phillip Marshal's "Ultimate Method", as he calls it. Instead of memorizing a million algorithms, his method focuses on simply UNDERSTANDING the cube, so that you learn how to apply logic to it instead of 97 memorized moves (which is the exact number of algorithms used by the most popular speed method). The stuff learned by solving that can then be applied to... everything else. It's so much more satisfying to REALLY solve these rather than just repeat things from memory. But yeah, the basic Rubik's Cube looks so impossible at first, but... it really is pretty easy. It's just intimidating.

Now as for the bit about meditation, I've tried things like that before, but... well, it's sorta like the traditional problem with autism in general, I've always found it basically impossible to slow down sensory input. Heck, when I'm sleeping, I always have my iPad blaring out a very loud static sound the whole time, to drown out all other possible noises so that I can sleep. Otherwise, I get insomnia.

I've just always found it so hard to focus... it's frustrating. It caused me no end of trouble back in school. And unfortunately aside from driving and gaming (and avoiding physical harm too, I guess), the whole "speed" thing doesnt have too much practical use, impressive though it may be.

That sounds totally awesome! Having a positive outlook is so important in any situation, although some find this harder than others. But it sounds like you've really nailed it with your list of talents. I'm sure many people would find this very inspiring.