I wonder if I’m having some sort of lame self-image crisis. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe it’s an ego thing, I dunno. I used to think I was smart. Moreover, I used to know that other people thought I was smart. I think that’s the important one for today’s topic of discussion.
These days, at work, I’ve got a lot to do – and by that, I mean a large number of relatively smallish tasks to accomplish. It was, over the course of the project, split between design work, and object engineering. The design work was interesting, and challenging, and the object engineering (OE) work that was involved in realizing the section of the design I was responsible for was again, challenging and interesting. It put me in a relatively unique position of actually being able to iterate very quickly, and redesign things on the fly. Not only was it interesting, it was fun, and I’m pleased with the results.
But the other part of my work has been relatively simplistic, and with the exception of some weird bugs I’m having trouble finding, incredibly … uninteresting. Partially because I kept getting my responsibilities towards that side of things shifted around – I inherited the design work from a guy that quit, then it got transferred to someone else after I’d finished most of it, then I got it back, then I got the OE side of it as well, and blah blah blah. I’m now not really fully responsible for it, but also am. It’s a weird combination of responsibility for someone else’s decisions, fixing mistakes I’d made previously, and just trying to figure out how it all fits together. Because responsibility for it essentially changed so many times, and in such an indistinct manner, it became really hard to “own” the thing. Probably suffered somewhat as a result, even if the current incarnation is pretty close to the original concept.
But I digress. The problem is, I don’t really get a chance to really put my mind to anything in a coherent, novel way anymore, and instead, I find myself chasing little fires, making small decisions, and fixing numerous mistakes. In some sense, that’s what design *is*, and in another sense, I want a sort of grand intellectual/conceptual *challenge*, and I feel like that’s at least in part missing from my day to day experience.
I dunno though – that’s not quite the entirity of it. And though I wrote the above sort of searching for something that would make the concept click, I think the fundamental problem is that I’m not really consistently in the 99th+ percentile at *whatever* anymore. Time was, I could pick up anything and very quickly be better than most people at it. Maybe not 99th percentile, but certainly 80th+ very, very quickly. Now, I’m not sure whether I’m simply not presented with the challenge, or whether I’ve simply become mentally complacent, but I guess in some sense, I simply don’t feel like I’m impressing anyone anymore.
I’m proud of the design work I did for the game this year – I think it’s really quite cool, and if we’d had a little more time to implement some features, I think it could have been even quite a bit *better*. But it is what it is, and I think it’s uniquely *mine*. But I guess in some sense, I’m not sure anyone cares. And part of me’s not sure why I give a shit whether people care or not, except that I remember when people used to, and though I feel like a completely egotistical jackass for saying so, I miss that feeling.
Hm.
I know what you mean. It sounds so jerky to even think it, but I miss intellectually dominating in my peer group even without trying, and having people acknowledge it.
Wow, see, even having just read it back to myself, it sounds incredibly egotistical and self-involved. My head must be ginormous.
Having to actually prove myself to people is work. Boo work. I think it’s really the self-confidence that it brought that I miss. Like, I knew that I wasn’t the best athlete or coolest person, but I knew that people knew I was smarter than most of them, and not because I acted like an obnoxious know-it-all (at least then — I can’t say anything for my obnoxious know-it-all-ness now :D) but because they simply knew I was better at being “smart” (whatever that meant at the time) than they were. I defintiely wasn’t jerky about it when I was younger, but it made me confident, and as a result, it was how I viewed myself and defined myself. Like, my best friend was the social, likeable one. My sister was the cute, witty one that everyone had a crush on. I was the smart one. Like that.
So, yeah, we are growing close to 30, and I know it’s beyond time that we had evolved in our self-definition, but it’s hard to leave that confidence behind and second-guess ourselves and our niche in the workplace and among our peers. I suppose it’s normal, but not having had to deal with this particular thing before, it’s scary to constantly have to re-evaluate to see if we are showing ourselves to be valuable at work or even marginally competant among friends.
I imagine this is why so many beautiful people resort to plastic surgery — even without consciously trying to, they and others around them had defined them by their looks. I imagine they take the advantages this affords them for granted, until they start to see age take effect. Then they get this desperate feeling and feel the need to do something, anything to get back what they had naturally, by unnaturally means if necessary.
And we can’t get brain surgery to make ourselves smarter. The solution is clearly to give our friends and coworkers lobotomies. 😀 I ::heart:: our friends! Tee hee.
I really hope this comment doesn’t make me sound like a big-headed jackass.
I should proofread before I post about how smart I think I am. How embarrassing. Heh. 🙂
You know what your problem is? You need to hang around more stupid people. I’ve got lots of stupid friends, and while it can be frustrating at times, it’s also good to be king.
Just kidding… more like Emperor!
It sounds like some people around here have “better kid syndrome.” (yes, I just made that up) 😉 You grow up within a limited pool of peers and you excel in one area over everyone else. As time goes on, your ability to excel provides you with new opportunities, until you reach a certain level.
For smart kids, they typically aren’t the “popular” or athletic types, but they comfort themselves with their intellectual capabilities.
But over time, assuming a relatively functional meritocracy, those intellectual capabilities provide opportunities that equal those capabilities. You get into better universities. You get better jobs. But once you’re there, it turns out, everyone else is “in your league.” Your competition isn’t limited by where your parents chose to live. So while you might be in the 99th percentile amongst the general populace, amongst people who have risen to a similar place to you, you’re right at the middle.
Reaching whatever level brings something of a crisis for a lot of people. They no longer stand out in the crowd, and if their ego is defined by being better than others, it’s problematic. They were never “popular” or athletic, but now they don’t even have the ability to trounce others intellectually. The more closely wed people are to the identity of being “better”, the more difficult it is.
Imagine what it’s like for the high school sports hero when they hit the big leagues of college. It’s probably a very similar process.
I guess I would say I was “fortunate” to always have had people around me that never let me get a fat-head. Sure, in high school, I could see perfectly well that I was in the top percentage, but there was always somebody around me that did a little better and reminded me of my limitations.
One of my best friends in college was awesomely intelligent (i.e., literally awe inspiring). Still is. He has always been able to pick up incredibly complex ideas quickly. I remember when a visiting professor showed up, who was at the top of his field. My friend in college quickly became his TA and the professor would want to hash out ideas with him.
Getting in conversations with him, on topics that have substance, really drove home the point that there are really fucking smart people out there, and I’m not one of them.
Entering the work force, again there were people picking up concepts and analyzing situations so quickly and accurately, it boggled my mind.
As a result, basically the only time I come face to face (or face to screen to borrow a phrase) with how stupid most of the world is, is online. As Chad said, if you want to feel smart, surround yourselves with idiots.
When I bothered with the IGN Boards, it was amazing to go from speaking with someone IRL who made me feel like a dope, to having dopes tell me how smart they thought I was.
In any case, my point is this: Seppo has to go back to the IGN boards, get into some arguments, and then he’ll feel much better. 😉
It sounds like a combination of things and I’m dealing with similar things as well.
One: It doesn’t say so in your entry, but are you the slightest bit tired of working on the same project? I know myself and by page 18 of a 22 page comic I’m looking on to my next idea. That’s my biggest problem creatively. I’m bored of my current thoughts so quickly that I lose interest in the now and look to the soon. Just taking a stab here.
Two: What a_b, chad, and eingy said. I remember back when I was in high school I was the art king and then I went to college and found a bunch of other kings. The funny thing is that as far as my major went, I was still pretty much near the top of the class (with a few other guys).
Three: You are the smartest man alive. Remember that.
I think another part of the frustration and vague insecurities is that there are no real metrics of our preformance at work. You hear a comment here and there that lets you know how your managers/coworkers feel about you, but largely, you go in, do your job the best you can, and hope it was good-to-awesome, and not asstastic, but you don’t really know except by your own partial judgment.
It’s not like my self-worth is determined by others giving me a number at the end of the day, but it would be good to know if I was doing a 30% vs 60% vs 95% satisfactory job.
Validate me, dammit! 😀 In that vein, I got a mid-year performance-based raise yesterday. Yay! Now I know for sure that I’m the king of this hill. Bwahaha! Suck on it, losers!
Ok, I kid.
YOU feel dumb???
Man, aside from my classmates, a lot of my friends were “average” in terms of scholastic abilities. I spent a lot of time with my karate buddies and for the most part, they weren’t too good with the book learnin’. Then I got to Berkeley and was in for a rude awakening. Then I meet you and ei-nyung. Man, I need stupider friends. 😀