Interesting look into how you've reconciled your experiences with not fitting in. I find that place uncomfortable. Do you?

Raises all sorts of conversations about competence--about what that means and what each of us was designed (intelligently or not) to do. Your story is very familiar to me, but I've chosen to step back and not step forward. I'll gladly let another lead if they show the requisite competence, but I'll only grudgingly lead when pushed into the role by the absence of competence. I don't relish it.

I'd love to sit down over a beer or six and have THIS conversation. It's actually quite complex.

@chuckpo
Uncomfortable? No. Not really. Lacking in the “Comfort” of having some sort of “Group Support” maybe. When you “stumble” or “slip” there’s no-one to fall back on, no support. You have to be willing and able to get yourself out of that hole ... ditch ...

My biggest problem was I started several businesses ... guaranteed not to fail businesses ... that failed anyway.

I could “get” employees ... I could show them what to do and how ... I could get them interested and “excited” ... but I simply lack the ability to “Lead” them ... I set them up to do a job and then leave them to do it ... I have many other things to do ... and they wind up drifting around like a sailboat that has great wind but lost its rudder ... a lot of motion but no direction, no results.

I’ve always needed a reliable Alpha for them but Alphas and I don’t “get along” because I’m too “strong” myself. I can easily and happily work “with” an Alpha ... but Alphas ... NEED to be Alphas and tgat means they don’t actually Like being worked “with”.

That “lesson” was painful ... was uncomfortable ... it was a Wall I ran into repeatedly and took a long time to understand what the damn wall was ... not to mention expensive.

The only place I was able to be relatively successful was in contractual trades because I only hired pros and simply orchestrated the work but ... that meant the salaries were brutal and it’s hard to keep a crew like that busy job after job ... especially when others are trying to hire them away ... so, it was relatively successful but also short lived. At least it was profitable while it lasted ...

@Bay0Wulf, I find discomfort in that place between arrogance and humility. Nobody would think Michael Jordan arrogant if he said he was the best basketball player of all time. Because it's true, and demonstrable. Talking about competence or alphas or leadership--that stuff could come very near clouding the lens. I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on me. But, I'm not very comfortable extending what works for me to others. What the hell do I know?

One of the interesting things about Jordan Peterson's run, and why I say he's not leading anyone to do anything. We made Jordan Peterson. He didn't make us. Because what the hell does he know to be able to push that onto anyone. People build their realities--even 'followers', though they're willing to accept someone else's thinking as surrogate for their own--and probably a good thing they do in some cases--both good and horrifically bad.

At least in JP's case he has some theory to guide him, and he's not making statements outside of somewhat sound psychological principles. Who's going to be harmed taking responsibility? Though he probably should be clearer about what taking responsibility means to people lower on the competence scale.

@chuckpo
The old cow poke squinted at the sun ... and down the street to the body lying in the dirt ... shifted his chew to the other cheek ... and looked at the excited and jubilant young man.

Spitting out a stream of spit, he said; “The problem with being a gunslinger ... with being the Fastest Gun ... is that there’s ALWAYS someone out there who’s faster, a straighter shot, luckier, having a better day. It might be any one of those that kills you, it might be that age slows you down just a tiny bit, it might be any one of a thousand things ... but there’s always that one thing ...”

I dunno about Michael Jordan. Of course I’ve heard lots about him but was he the “Greatest”? I’ve heard that about lots of Sports Stars and noticed that they were the “Best” according to stats ... at least in some facets ...
Who decides one is “Greater” than another? At what point does that fall away? Babe Ruth was the “Greatest” but there are many now who are amazingly “Better”.
Times change, the yardstick takes on different shapes ...

I tend to think Peterson is a pretty bright guy and I appreciate him sharing his fount of knowledge. I wouldn’t mind taking a week long canoe trip with him but I wouldn’t necessarily trust him to read the water ...

@Bay0Wulf, somewhat different conversation. You'll never have consensus, but you'll have as close as it gets with Michael Jordan. A few fans will inevitably say Lebron, a couple will even say Kobe--have a sprinkling of Chamberlain, Russell, and even Jabbar--a Shaq voter, along with Magic and Bird. But, the vast majority will say Jordan. Having been able to watch all of them, since we have video, I don't think it's close. My favorite all-time player was Dennis Johnson, and I really liked Larry Bird. Dennis wasn't even a great player, and Larry simply wasn't Jordan. I'm not sure why we're talking about this because my point was about arrogance and then ultimately what it said of us to rank order our own competence among a set of people. Babe Ruth is still considered one of the greatest pure mashers of all time despite most people not even really knowing what he ever did. The context changes, statistics change, nutrition--tons of factors. There's only a handful even in the conversation, and the PED bit clouds that quite a lot. Hard to parse that kind of stuff. But, anyway that's just a sports discussion.

I'm totally a Jordan Peterson fan, though I'm really watching to see where it goes now. He's filthy rich, so I'm unsure how that will impact things. Are his 15 minutes up? Time will tell. I'd love to have a conversation with him about psychology. I try to figure out which theory he uses. Sounds quite pscyoanalytical, but it could be one of its derivatives. Obviously, he talks a lot about Jung. He's mentioned narrative (stories), as his only foray into modern theory that I've seen. It'd be a fun conversation.

@chuckpo
Ummm as far as sports go ... I haven’t followed it at all since it became a multi million dollar career path ... so ... there ... I’m sure there are people out there that are considered “Great” but ... even were I to meet them at a gathering, they’d be of less interest to me than the big spider that lives in my tool shed ... I actually like the spider ... so they simply aren’t anything to me.
As far as Jordan goes ... as I said, I tend to like/agree with what he says/talks about ... I like that he words it in ways I can recommend to other people ... which I do ... but I don’t really think he’s saying much that’s new or astounding. I like that he seems mostly like a normal guy who’s had normal problems and worked his way through them and can share “homey insights” with people. I like that he’s not some stuffed shirt that is so impressed with themselves that they think the stuff they vomit are ”pearls of wisdom”. It’s not like I’m ever going to find myself ... or buy a bumper sticker asking ... “What Would Jordan Do?”

I’ve read/studied all the “Great” psychological theorists of the last hundred years or so and I’m completely uninterested in their assumptions though Freud was a complete wackjob Jung? Oh ... well, I think they make stuff too complicated ... instead of looking at a ball of yarn as a ball of wooly string, they spend their lives trying to figure out how one loop relates to the other loop when it’s ALL related to the fact that when you unroll it, it’s just one long wooly string.
As a kid I was sent to one psycho babbler after another and I found them boring and tedious and my favorite game was “mind f*cking” them ... at 10 or so I was playing “Lucy with the Football” ... “C’mon Doc, give it kick ... I PROMISE I Won’t...”. My father used to tell them up front that I was going to Jerk them ... to be careful ... it was so funny to see them roll their eyes and assure him that it wasn’t going to happen ... but it was absolutely hilarious to see their faces when I closed the book on them after a couple/few weeks.

I suppose it was nasty looking back ... even though they honestly are morons ... Here I was, this bright, earnest, clean kid who cooperated with them completely ... and they bought it ... right up til I dropped a hammer on their theories ...

Oh well, I guess you could say I think more of the big spider in my tool shed than I do of people engaged in psycho ... stuff ...

@Bay0Wulf, wow. You never ran into a good therapist?--one of the problems in the field is prospective clients have no qualification whatsoever on how to pick a therapist. They don't have any idea what therapy is. But, it's disappointing someone didn't have the conversation with you that even unintelligent children are fully capable of resisting therapy. The pretend TV idea that the therapist tricks unengaged clients into healing is simply silly. The client is always in charge of their own therapy. You weren't even a willing client since it sounds like your parents forced you to go. It actually makes sense that you'd embarrass who you considered to be your parents' agent. Did they ever get your message? There's no mystery to counseling. They're just ppl on your side willing to sit iwith you n the place you are. I'm sorry you had a bad experience.

@chuckpo
Mostly it was the school or guidance counselor that decided I had to go ... and often decided who ... though my folks later chose some higher end types.

Honestly I wasn’t interested in being “shrunk” not at 10 and by the time it might’ve made a difference I had major trust issues (of course, most of these “buzzwords” didn’t exist then).

The schools and my folks were frustrated because I blew any test I took ... that I actually participated in ... out of the water. School at every level was boring ... what do you do when a kid tells you that school is boring? Maybe they should’ve asked me what I meant ... maybe I should’ve realized that “boring” wasn’t actually a useful answer ...

I decided that teachers mostly were stupid ... it seemed they really didn’t know the material ... or worse, they were lying. I got introduced to a school “library” when I was 5 ... it was boring (elementary school library) but I walked to school and walked past a town library every day so I went in and talked myself into a library card ... the librarian thought it was “cute” ... meanwhile I was stopping off at a local bar and “talking to the guys” on a regular basis ... not really talking at first, just listening to what they talked about and then going to the library to read up on the stuff they’d been talking about ... the librarian thought it strange that I spent all my time in the reference section.
By the time I was 10 I was actively getting into disputes with my teachers over the ... nonsense ... they were “teaching”.
Things never really got much better ... in the 9th grade I walked out of a Latin class, hitch-hiked to Boston and began skipping school by hanging out in the Library, Museums and sitting in on college courses ... when I could get in the door ... for 3 months solid ...

While I’m sure things could have gone better, I’m not unhappy with how things turned out.

I’m not sure any “therapist” would’ve made any real difference. Sometimes I wonder if things would’ve been ... better ... if I had been a bit more “normal” but that was never really an option.

I’ve pissed people off all my life by being an apparent “know it all” but what REALLY pisses them off is that I never enter into a conversation about something I’m not sure of and whenever they “check” my facts ... I actually Do Know what i’m Talking about and ... I know dozens of topics ... there’s really no forgiving that...

And with that I’m done with this conversation ... actually I don’t know why I went with it this long already ... or a couple responses ago ...

@Bay0Wulf, if learning is as important to you as you suggest, and you've had some consternation with who and what you are in relation to most others, it's hard to imagine passing up the opportunity to sit with someone that can be your personal sounding board. Just a thought. If you were to do such a thing, and given your experience, how would you approach finding that counselor now? Interesting question.

I've some training in educational psychology that kept me around achievement environments, with an emphasis in psychometrics. I was astounded who my children's schools ran out as their TAG representatives. TAG = talented and gifted. It didn't take long to realize they picked the wrong people to run the program. TAG is NOT 'organized and compliant'. They were after the wrong kids, and it was systemic. They scared my son off in two minutes, and he sabotaged the tests to intentionally fail. I really didn't care, because I don't think that's where life is anyway. But, it was an eye-opener. How can a non-talented and gifted teacher administer the talented and gifted program? The gal we talked to literally didn't understand what I was talking about. I thought about the people in our world who are in control of what 'smart' is, who are in control of everything. I think very few people are qualified to see someone special if they ever ran into somebody. For example, I think MLK Jr. was special--not that he was perfect before somebody has to bring up his flaws, but the way he (and very few others) understood social change. All of the noise I've made about aggrieved groups being forward thinking--I figured that stuff out from studying MLK Jr. He gets NO CREDIT while he was one of the most unique figures in history. I don't think it's because he's black. I think it's because people don't understand how beyond us all he was in that one characteristic. Very impressive person.

Full circle. Funny thing about the uber-intelligence explanation for why an individual might piss others off. You may be seeing things like others can't. You could also be self-indulgent or gravely wrong or even crazy. That's something to be grappled with. How do you know? How do any of us know? That's where the balance between humility and arrogance comes in. The Michael Jordan example was dealing with arrogance. If you're the greatest basketball player in history, is it arrogant to say so? If you're smarter than most others, is it arrogant to say so? Is it not pretentious to feign intelligence in some kind of play for humility? It's worthy of exploration, but often we're hamstrung from pursuing those types of conversations, because we're taught those types of statements can ONLY come from arrogance. They can, but not necessarily so. It's uncomfortable ground, I think. That's why I was asking you if it made you uncomfortable to distinguish between your own competence and that of others. There are layers of social constraints.

Another question: Have you ever sat in any conversation that was over your head? Now, I'm not suggesting you have to know everything. It's impossible. It's extraordinary how much we don't know. There's just way too much to know. But, sifting through the unknowns to grab onto some speculative constants, can you carry yourself forward through a conversation with experts where you don't have a lot of information? I take that as sort of a measure of intelligence. It's not like a mensa number (don't get me started on them), but it defines something of a band of intelligence you may occupy. It's one of the tools I use to assess where someone may be at--along with science and religion, believe it or not. Look for the weak point in thinking and/or understanding. It's usually available, and people often give you the information boasting how smart they are and how dumb you are, haha. Anyway, just curious...

Thought I'd edit and throw this in here. I think there are some very bright people on this site. There are some exciting conversations I'm really thankful to be part of. A real pleasure.

@chuckpo Jordan was the best... and the only player who would tempt me to watch an entire game rather than a highlight reel.
John Stockton was among my favorite players... because that's the position I played, and how I wish I'd played it. I also really appreciated his approach to the game... he regarded it as a job. If interviewed after a loss he'd merely say something to the effect of... no one likes to lose, but we did. There are 100 games left in the season.

@An_Ominous, Stockton was a class act all of the way--well, except for once. A true game general--few like him.

@chuckpo For a moment there I was kinda wondering what you were thinking... when you said your favorite player was Dennis Johnson I thought you said Dennis Rodman
Big difference there.
I remember DJ, my dad liked him a lot. The thing my dad admired most about players wasn't their ability but their dedication, as he put it their "hustle." My dad's favorite player was John Havlicek.

@An_Ominous watched DJ in the 78 or 79 finals as a Sonic playing the Bullets, I think. That Seattle team was great. I was a DJ fan after that. Followed him to Phoenix and then to Boston. He died coaching in Austin some years ago. He was way too young.

@chuckpo
how would you approach finding that counselor now?

I have no interest. I did ... once ... I thought I really was going crazy.
I went to sleep as a passenger in a car as a 185 pound guy in prime physical condition and woke up 3 days later being told I should allow both legs at the knee and right arm at the shoulder to be amputated. Having been told no ... they informed me I would never walk again, have useful function of my right are and severe nerve damage in my right hand rendering it useless. After living in hospitals for almost a year I was living confined to a hospital bed in my living room. After another 6 months I was on the verge of losing it (whether it was completely freaking out or long term pain meds or both I don’t know) and could not envision a future path. I requested a therapist of the insurance company and was denied. Thankfully I owned a truly massive library of books I had bought but hadn’t had time to read. A few more surgeries later, I got to where I could walk ... sort of ... and had forced alternate nerves to drive my hand ... I’ve only moved straightline forward from there ... now, for fun and a workout, I enjoy spending days in the woods running a professional grade chainsaw and muscling 400+ pound tree lengths into the bad of my truck.

@chuckpo
TAG = talented and gifted.

I think I was really too soon for this but I did get put into a pilot program of that sort.
It was a real zoo ... every “freak” was put into it ... freak as in ... what? Advanced study type? The problem is it was all ... what I tend to refer to as “eggheads”.
These people were brilliant ... no question ... but they were brilliant in only ONE Thing ... the Math ones could “do” math like nobody’s business, the Literature ones could quote endlessly obscure writers, the ... well, maybe you get the idea ... but, I swear, if you got off the subject where they were prodigies, they could barely feed or dress themselves. Okay that might be a bit of an exaggeration but maybe you get the drift.
They were Single Focus Geniuses who were barely in touch with reality ... I would guess that these days most of them would be diagnosed as having asperger’s syndrome.
Personally I’m a generalist. I know lots of people who know way more than I do ... in their chosen field ... I never deny that ... but, in a room full of people with different specialties, I’m usually the only one who can intelligently converse with all of them. I don’t mean that I’m anywhere near good enough to discuss minutiae but I’m not stuck sitting slack jawed with glazed eyeballs either ... I’ve actually caught static for this because ... even though they hear me “holding my own ... not indulging in nonsense” with others, they seem to resent that I can understand THEM and a couple other groups. I find that to be odd.

@chuckpo
You may be seeing things like others can't. You could also be self-indulgent or gravely wrong or even crazy. That's something to be grappled with. How do you know? How do any of us know?

I think I see many things that others don’t ... simply because of the diversity and accessibility of my knowledge database ... information can be mated with other information that may not seem complimentary but when moved into the right positions, the parts “fit”. For instance, though it drives people nuts, I relate many things to plumbing. I know they’re different but ... they’re the same as well ... I’m a pretty good plumber to me it’s simple and easy and I’ve done a lot of it ... to me the circulatory system is basic plumbing ... electricity is basic plumbing ... electronics (I trained in Advanced for Submarines) is basic plumbing ... computer electronics and logic is basic plumbing ... it all involves the “flow” of some “thing” from one place to another through a series of controls ... obviously all the components are different and the “thing” is different but the action/result is similar ... I drove a top neurologist nuts because while he was explaining my nerve damage, I was repeating it as simple electronics (which honestly is all the nervous system is)
Could I be “wrong”? Yes. Of course. I think I avoid this by breaking everything, regardless how complex, Down to simple basic units of previously known constants and “build the image” up from there. By making sure I have a solid foundation, I can usually be sure that the final construct is either correct or, easily tweaked if in error.
Could I be “Crazy”? That’s interesting ... I tell people I’m “crazy” all the time ... not as in demented but as in “seeing” things from completely “Un-normal” points and perspectives of “view”. Do I believe I’m “insane”? Yes-No-Maybe ... what’s your definition of “sane”? If it’s to be the way 99.9% of the current society chooses to be, then I am definitely UN-Sane
Who’s to Say? Define crazy.
More importantly prove to me that your definition of the term is in any way valid.
Honestly, I simply don’t GAF what other people might think ... or even what they might think they know. I require proof. A term like crazy is pretty esoteric and therefore eludes a simple definition.

@Bay0Wulf (1), you can read all of the books you want on any particular psychological theory and miss what's valuable about counseling. Just sayin'. You can also find for yourself a strategy and be alone and miss the meaning in life. We're still sort of talking about psychology as a topic without talking about why people study it and what it means to be human, and why it's good to talk about it with others, or even why it's good to have primary attachments and what that is. And, you didn't answer the question how you'd go about finding a counselor.

(2) I think you're probably able to talk with competence in any topic because of high verbal reasoning. I mean, I don't know that. It just seems to fall out in your descriptions of how you think about yourself given your experiences in life. I imagine you draw contextual information from the material, while ignoring 'incidental' information--like the specific math in someone's speech. Your 'minutia'. That along with some personal assumptions about epistemology can take you a long way. Anyway, just a guess. Thanks for sharing some of your story.

What would it mean for you if you were mistaken about counselors only in that all counselors aren't the same? What if there was a counselor who could keep up with you who wasn't afraid to call you out on your efforts to resist the process? What are the implications of someone understanding you? What if someone actually understood you and accepted you just like you are?

Anyway, interesting conversation. The last questions were mostly rhetorical--something to think about. Again, thanks for sharing what you have. And, personally, I think the feelings you describe make a lot of sense given the circumstances under which you operated.

@chuckpo
Have you ever sat in any conversation that was over your head?

Yeah ... well ... Of Course. Well, sort of ...
How do you know, or discover what you don’t know, unless you deliberately seek these conversations out?
I mean, I rarely find myself in a conversation where I can’t find at least a rudimentary “handle” to get ahold of ... where I can’t grasp at least the general tenor and overall tone.
Sometimes I find myself having to go off and look into a subject because I didn’t know enough about a useful topic (what I consider useful).
On the other hand if I wander into a conversation with some people on higher level math, I will quickly wander back out. I can do some of it and have never had a situation where my math was insufficient for my needs but ... while I can do it and probably could get much better ... like I’ve often explained to people ... I can change the 5 speed transmission in my mustang but that doesn’t mean I “Want to”

And, you didn't answer the question how you'd go about finding a counselor.

Really? I thought I did.
I very plainly wrote; “I have no interest.”
The books I had amassed were not psych books ... maybe a couple ... but I meant I was able to keep myself sane by stuffing information into my head rather than dwelling on my predicament.

@Bay0Wulf (3), well, you sort of took off on the crazy part. You seem to be keenly aware of that word and maybe it's had some significance in your life. But, as I intended it, it's merely one of a set of possible explanations that to exclude it would be remiss. I haven't noticed anything you've said that would even make me consider you're crazy. You'd have to convince me it was so. I've noticed no disconnect or pathological inconsistency. Again, a great topic to navigate.

@Bay0Wulf

And, you didn't answer the question how you'd go about finding a counselor.

Really? I thought I did.
I very plainly wrote; “I have no interest.”

No, that does not answer the question of how you'd go about finding a counselor. It almost feels like you don't want to answer it like the question is a setup. It's not. But, you don't have to answer the question. We're adults. We can run with scissors.

@chuckpo
It’s not about not answering.
As I have no desire to do so it’s a relatively moot question.
I suppose I could ask my brother who’s a doc ... or some of the many relatives who are involved in the medical industry ... for references but ...
Honestly, over the years I’ve seen very few people who were “helped” by therapy / counseling ... mostly they come out of the experience “odd” ... worse for having had it ...
As I said, I saw lots of them up until I was 16-17 and got nothing useful out of the experience.
I think that therapy / counseling is a bit like hypnotism ... it won’t work if you don’t honestly want it to work.
I can’t conceive of a situation where I would open my “self” up to someone I don’t already Trust and Respect and there’s like two people in the world that I’m even close to that level with.
Frankly, I don’t understand how people do that ... with a stranger ... but then, in First Grade Catholic School they told me about “Confession” ... I might’ve been barely 5 but I thought that was a pretty big crock too ... so maybe I’ve had trust issues all my life ...

@Bay0Wulf, I just thought after so much experience with what you consider to be bad counselors and after having read so much and thinking about it so much, you may have some kind of insight into what would make a good counselor in theory. However, you've clearly defined a space where no counselor could be good, and you've associated the profession with disingenuousness. I'll also just reflect back that you've shown some resistance to the idea of opening yourself up to anyone, and so maybe that's worth thinking about. You sound like you feel a lot of people haven't been there for you--you've had to go it alone--you've had to depend on your verbal reasoning to navigate your life, in almost an adversarial set of experiences. Tough place to be. I don't know how old you are, but there's neuro-biological research suggesting we are designed for attachment to others. We're not built to isolate ourselves from others, and in fact, you seem to be lamenting to some degree how your intelligence takes you further from fulfilling relationships with others. You seem resigned to that reality, and you don't seem totally happy about it. Anyway--just some observations.

@chuckpo
I dunno ... you seem to think I’m “unhappy” or “displeased” with the way things have gone in my life ...
(Which, by the way, seems to be the stock in trade of the entire psych industry ... to the point they rather reinforce one’s displeasure... after all, if people aren’t displeased, what is the purpose of a psych?)
I can’t say I am.
Sometimes I wonder what my life would’ve been like if ... but there’s always an “if” ... there’s always the path ... or several ... unchosen.
I can’t offer insight on what might make a “good” counselor because I never met one that I considered to be “good” ... which is odd since I’ve always had people who sort of use me as one which I don’t mind but still find it odd.
As far as “totally happy” is concerned ... I’m not sure that I could be that ... or would even desire that ... I like problems ... difficulties ... something to solve, something to overcome.
Had the accident not occurred, I’m sure my life would be different but I’m not sure about “better”.
As it is, I have pretty much everything I need, most of what I want.

A long time ago on Bleeker St. in NYC ... before the accident ... one bright sunny day a cable network (cable was brand new) was doing a thing ... putting together a show. I was “wandering” down the sidewalk and a mic got stuck in my face and a gal asked; “If you could have ANYTHING at all, what would it be?” I don’t recall even hesitating before I replied; “Nothing.” The video guy almost dropped the camera and the look on her face was ... well, maybe you an imagine ... She said; “Nothing ...?” I answered, as long as I have my health and I have my mind, everything I want I’ll get when I want it.” With that I walked away.

I guess I would prefer the accident didn’t happen. The damage to my ankles makes it impossible to go backpacking ... or use SCUBA Flippers ... but otherwise, I suppose the answer remains the same.
I don’t see anything wrong with that.

100% with your thought that the left sees a world of hapless, helpless victims who need to be shown the way. It’s ironic they don’t see the narcissism in this approach.

This is perfect.

@Peter_Lemonjello I think that falls under "Delusions of Grandeur"...

You are so right about critical thinking skills. “Brainwashing”? The more accurate description is gullibility. No amount of government tinkering can fix a gullible media consumer.

Wasn't it the NYT who hired that racist Korean marxist bitch to their editorial board> Talk about brain washing!

Preaching to the?

[babylonbee.com]

If you want to really understand the gutless NYT, check out Mark Levin's well cited new book, "Unfreedom of the Press". Chapter 6 is all about their nefarious reporting relative to the Holocaust. Which is why they will always be referred to in my mind as the NY SLIME