Has anyone read Carol Dweck?

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I'm wondering if anyone's read up on Carol Dweck? She's a renowned psychologist, Stanford professor, and bestselling author - I read her book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success", and when I did, I couldn't help but see echoes of our struggles for acceptance and popularity. Much of Dweck's book revolves around this theme of distinguishing between those who have effortless talent or ability in something, versus those who put in effort and are more mindful in how they approach an endeavour - and she goes on to say that those in the former group tend to be more revered, more popular, more held up in awe. And I think this is where we on the spectrum tend to fall short in people's eyes, because due to our "spiky profile" (google that) we tend not to be very good in those things that are mainstream interests and so don't attract that sort of awe and popularity. I always figured that in a fair, objective world, people would admire us for putting in mindful effort and overcoming certain obstacles that we have to contend with, but alas it isn't so.

Dweck cites several anecdotes of people, NT almost certainly, who would either give up on pursuing some dream b/c they just didn't innately "have what it takes" and those who fervently pursued it even in the face of very unpleasant circumstances (think of the main character in the movie Whiplash, played by Miles Teller).

While you may not agree with everything Dweck writes about, I found some close parallels to my own life experience for sure - maybe you have too.

I think I understood the psychologist who wrote the bestseller you're describing. I read it was from 2006.

It seems logical to me that she's right.
You know, I was thinking about something banal I saw yesterday.

Sinner vs. Alcaraz (Tennis).
Sinner was feeling terrible.
For days.
But he didn't avoid showing up for the Cincinnati final anyway.
He even struggles to walk.
Let alone playing tennis.
But he didn't choose to not show up for the crowd.
Even when he wasn't feeling well at all.
You'd say: impossible to play like that...
But he has special mental abilities.
The match itself didn't matter; he would have lost anyway.
In fact, he retired, but after trying five games anyway.
He has a natural gift.
He didn't play professional tennis until he was 13.
He used to be the most skilled junior skier in the world.
Then he changed sports: he scored 20 goals a season.
He often dribbles with his left foot, which only a natural left-handed player can do.
He uses a right-handed racket.
That is, he uses part of his brain to train the opposite hand.
And vice versa.
I think he's HFA level 1.
He lost the match.
Apparently, yes.
But he learned several other things by losing.
Feeling bad.
Then he apologized to his opponent, who also tried to console him.
He was about to vomit, but he resisted and spoke to the crowd.
Apologizing because he came for them anyway: he apologized because he disappointed them, and he kept calm, saying something very respectful.
He said he was sorry because the crowd would then have to go to work or do something else.
He didn't think, wow, I threw away a possible victory (he never loses on hard courts, he hadn't lost in 25 matches).
The crowd understood.
I was wondering, did Alcaraz win and Sinner lose, or the other way around?
He's capable of lighting a match placed on the opposite side of the court without moving his serve.
But he always misses his first serve in public.
After a match he won, he shouted at his team to book a court so he could practice his serve again immediately afterward.
For him, it's a meticulous job of constant growth.
He had talent; I've been following him since he was 17.
I saw a champion without any tactics.
He improved by changing teams.
It took him only a few years.
Every time he says I did well, but I can still improve.
He always plays in finals.
That is, he recovers even when he's far behind.
He tries to play by practicing making mistakes and then recovering when he wants.
He apologizes when he wins: because he knows that those who lose feel bad.
Last year at the US Open he beat Taylor Fritz,
at Flushing Meadows they booed him.
In Italy he lost again, I think, at the Finals, but the crowd applauded Taylor.
He didn't expect it.
It's how you experience things that matters, not whether you win them.
Better if you win them, obviously
I don't know if he'll recover for the US Open.
Maybe so: if he stays upright, he'll still participate.
In the Davis Cup he won a match, then gave an interview and immediately rushed to help in the doubles.
He won that match too.
Draper is right; in Italy, tennis has always been a popular passion.
We watched Sampras, McEnroe; Lendl, Navaratilova...
Sorry for the off-topic example.
The point is to improve because you never reach the best possible condition; you can feel bad, even great, but the important thing is not to freeze situations.
As an autistic person, I always think like this.
I have to improve: I started when I was 4 years old and I've improved a lot.
I had special skills.
But they don't matter: what matters is what you do during and afterward and the mindset with which you implement them.
Mistakes are a prerequisite for improvement.
They're useful.
You know, when I was 19, I had an abscessed tooth. It was a holiday and my dentist was on vacation.
I had toothache for three days (neuralgia). I never took any medication.
I used ice for days.
Then I lost that tooth. I waited and had a new one implanted.
That's fine.
Resilience counts.
The strongest mind is a tempered one.
Just like forged swords.
I've often been told that I was the best at some things.
That phrase bothered me.
And it's illogical.
You can only be better than the previous person; you won't be forever.
You'll find people better than you in any field.
They complimented me on my math.
I, on the other hand, adored those who didn't succeed easily because they were less gifted in many things.
I saw them working hard to achieve their goal.
I thought: great!
They admired me because I didn't struggle, the others because they struggled.
I thought they were more deserving than me.
They worked so hard....
The alien, that's what they called me at school.
A tennis player in the semifinals made me laugh, he came from the French Athenae qualification.
very intelligent, 158 IQ.
On the dedicated camera, before meeting Sinner (they call him the alien), he wrote a farce that was the subject of a discussion among scientists: The Fermi Paradox.
Where is everyone? Fermi replied to the other scientists? If there are anybody....

Where are the aliens?

Space-time dimensions are theoretically not just three, but 42.
We know about 9% of them, and do we want to say we know astrophysical physics?
A being from the 4th dimension can see us.
We can't see it.
We can only see a segment of it (perhaps) for a fraction of a second, then that's it (poof!)
We can't see it anymore.
He won't be able to see the one in the dimension just above his, so up to number 42.

The Superworld presupposes the existence of the Higgs Boson, supersymmetric particles, and hidden, coiled dimensions. The author's opinion is that, in the absence of new experimental data, the theory has proceeded in total anarchic freedom, lacking the experimental data to guide, modulate, and contain it. Fortunately, the LHC produces a lot of extremely important experimental data. As always, the concreteness of the data will lead theoretical physicists to come to terms with nature and give us realistic theories. Furthermore, this mechanism should be present in different cases and in different ways, thus producing more than one Higgs boson. Unlike the Higgs boson, supersymmetric particles may not exist at all. It is paradoxical that none of the supersymmetric particles have been observed and there is currently no plausible explanation for why they should be so heavy. Furthermore, new experiments are underway to understand the nature of dark matter and to prove or deny its existence in the form of new particles and new interactions.

Enrico Ermi actually died as an alien.
Ettore Majorana, who was considered a genius on a higher level than Fermi (a Nobel Prize winner for physics), considered him superior to anyone even at his level.
He compared him to Isaac Newton.
He was autistic with Asperger's syndrome; a spark of energy shone within him that shone intensely from his gaze.
He wrote down hyper-complex mathematical solutions in notebooks and cigarette packets.
Fermi once challenged him.
Choose a problem from the book to solve.
He was his professor.
It involved calculating an expression, an integral if I remember correctly, which Fermi had to calculate using the blackboard and Majorana from memory. Fermi wrote down passages at such a rapid pace that he filled a normal-sized blackboard with them. Majorana was turned away, staring at the floor. When Fermi reached the result and said, "There, I did it," Ettore replied, "Me too," and gave the numerical result.
He had calculated, I think (from memory) the solution 1.27 from an unwritten integral, from memory.
I'm not sure of the number; it was mnemonic.
It was the exact same result as the one written on the blackboard. Fermi was speechless.

The work took Majorana to Leipzig, Germany, for six months, where he helped Heisenberg with his work, which led to the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Then he disappeared years later, rediscovered by chance by Simon Wiesenthal's group in South America. Nine key points on Majorana's face matched, and his ears are more distinctive than fingerprints.
He was with Adolf Eichmann.

What matters in the end?

Talent is always working on it because you improve it and never lose it.
Then we all pass on. We're aliens after all:
all of us, that's where we are! Here, and we even see each other.
Life is here: even if the meaning of life itself could be improved (always)

Huck Finn




Huck Finn