For one, math was supposed to be hard. People say, "~Oooh calculus~" as if it's some scary monster. I would say, "What, calculus? I finished that in 10th grade." Well, calculus 1 and 2, at least. That was the highest they offered at my high school, so I took online math classes from the nearby university my last 2 years. Of course I aced all of those classes. What did you expect? Math was one of those things that just came easy to me. They kept saying, "Do the homework and study because that's the only way you're going to learn." I just wanted to tell them, "There are exceptions to that rule."
Saturday, December 15, 2012
A New Beginning
"It's a hard college," everyone said. "Even high school valedictorians have to study hard there." And I was just thinking, "I'll believe it when I see it." I had enough experience doing things that were supposed to be hard.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Hard Work vs Talent, and the Ironic Story.
There are many things that cannot be known for certain, but the fact that different people will require different amounts of hard work and effort to accomplish the same things is surely true. How much variability exists in natural abilities and how much can and cannot be overcome through pure effort are things that I cannot answer.
To say that many of my past efforts were with the intent of providing insight into the truth of this matter... well, you might say that that's an understatement. "What have you learned?" you ask. What have I learned, I wonder...
Perhaps the best answer is... nothing. I was one person. How could I hope to form any meaningful conclusions from the analysis of only one person? It might seem that I put a lot of effort into the things I did, and, well, I suppose I often did, but it wasn't optimized effort. It wasn't effort with the pure goal of improvement. I mean, what would you expect? I wasn't completely willing to give up enjoyment for the sake of improvement. It wasn't that there was no overlap between the two; it was just that it will always be true that I could've done more. As such, I can't say that my efforts or abilities represent any limit. They aren't the limits of my own abilities, so it would be ridiculous to look at them as the limits of human abilities. The other point was that I was also not representative of the average person. It's just true. I was certainly not your average person.
I think it's ironic, you know. Most people would look at me as someone who was talented, someone who was gifted, and yet here I was, writing a story that was perhaps as much hard work and effort as it was talent. I could've stuck to what I was good at, right? I should have, maybe. But now you have to ask, what do my results mean?
If I were to write cruelly, I would say that everything I do supports the fact that there are things that are nearly impossible to do if you weren't born with the necessary talent. Do you think you could do everything I can do? I wasn't born with every talent in the world, but I definitely had a lot of natural talent.
And, writing out of the extreme opposite perspective, I would say that, while maybe I had the benefit of some natural abilities, a significant amount of what I was capable of was the product of hard work. Plenty of the things I became able to do were things that I initially couldn't even imagine being capable of doing, ever. But, really, if you give it a lot of effort, there will be many times when the things that seem really hard will eventually become easy. Basically, anything I can do is something you could probably become capable of doing too, if you tried hard enough. Besides, I have experience of overcoming a lack of talent through hard work. Just ask me about my days of running cross country. Huh, what do you mean that story didn't exactly have a happy ending?
Another big question is: is there an ability to learn, or to pick up things, to improve? Is that what intelligence is? And if so, can you improve your ability to improve? Can you make yourself smarter?
Definitions of intelligence aside, there may be an ability to learn, but it might not be a single ability. For example, you might think of the ability to learn subjects in school. That might not be specific enough, so you have to go deeper. Split it into an ability to learn history, and an ability to learn English, and to learn math. And maybe that's not enough. It's an ability to learn math based on logic and theorems, and an ability to learn math through examples, and an ability to visualize geometry, and so on.
The questions go on of course. Maybe you can't improve your general ability to learn, but it is possible to improve in small areas. To what extent it is possible I can't say, but, for example, you can improve on your ability to improve at new rhythm games. Now, can you take your improvements in learning rhythm games, and use them to also improve quicker in other genres of video games? And, if so, can you take your improvements in learning how to improve in games, and make yourself able to learn more quickly in general? If I had to guess, I'd guess that it's possible, but it could depend on your natural ability to inherently know the relationships between things that often seem unrelated. Now, can you improve that ability?
The practical side of me says that, while it might be possible to make yourself a smarter person, the amount of effort it would require would probably make it a worthless goal. There are times when you have to give an extreme amount of effort just to do something that others can do easily. I have enough experience on both sides to know that. With such a broad goal, not just to be better at one thing, but to be smarter in, essentially, everything, surely it would require even more effort. And, not only that, there's no general well-known method as to how to become smarter. What do you do, attempt to copy the strategies of those who seem to be smarter than you? And what if it's not possible? You'll spend your life trying to reach a goal that was never obtainable in the first place.
The dreamer in me says that this is something that cannot be proven impossible. You can't say with certainty that it can't be done. However, it is possible for me, as a single person, to prove that it can be done. And not just me. Anyone out there. That story is there to be written. And the story doesn't have to be black and white. Success and failure do not have to be the only two words to describe the end result. Even if you are unable to truly become smarter, I believe that the story of the attempt to do so is one worth writing.
And you ask, "Is that your story?" and I say, it depends. Don't you see? All stories vary when the perspective from which they are written is changed, and all stories evoke different emotions when the true feelings of its characters are changed. It is my belief that these things are the keys to transforming a recollection of events and a list of facts into something more- into a story. "So, what is your perspective? What are your true feelings?" And, with a reply that feels heavy, weighted down with its meaning and its implications, and powerful, proclaiming an alternate way of viewing the world and of living, and definitive, defining some kind of truth, some kind of certainty behind the person I was, I take a deep breath to, slowly, and with a sense of absoluteness not normally present, answer,
They vary.
To say that many of my past efforts were with the intent of providing insight into the truth of this matter... well, you might say that that's an understatement. "What have you learned?" you ask. What have I learned, I wonder...
Perhaps the best answer is... nothing. I was one person. How could I hope to form any meaningful conclusions from the analysis of only one person? It might seem that I put a lot of effort into the things I did, and, well, I suppose I often did, but it wasn't optimized effort. It wasn't effort with the pure goal of improvement. I mean, what would you expect? I wasn't completely willing to give up enjoyment for the sake of improvement. It wasn't that there was no overlap between the two; it was just that it will always be true that I could've done more. As such, I can't say that my efforts or abilities represent any limit. They aren't the limits of my own abilities, so it would be ridiculous to look at them as the limits of human abilities. The other point was that I was also not representative of the average person. It's just true. I was certainly not your average person.
I think it's ironic, you know. Most people would look at me as someone who was talented, someone who was gifted, and yet here I was, writing a story that was perhaps as much hard work and effort as it was talent. I could've stuck to what I was good at, right? I should have, maybe. But now you have to ask, what do my results mean?
If I were to write cruelly, I would say that everything I do supports the fact that there are things that are nearly impossible to do if you weren't born with the necessary talent. Do you think you could do everything I can do? I wasn't born with every talent in the world, but I definitely had a lot of natural talent.
And, writing out of the extreme opposite perspective, I would say that, while maybe I had the benefit of some natural abilities, a significant amount of what I was capable of was the product of hard work. Plenty of the things I became able to do were things that I initially couldn't even imagine being capable of doing, ever. But, really, if you give it a lot of effort, there will be many times when the things that seem really hard will eventually become easy. Basically, anything I can do is something you could probably become capable of doing too, if you tried hard enough. Besides, I have experience of overcoming a lack of talent through hard work. Just ask me about my days of running cross country. Huh, what do you mean that story didn't exactly have a happy ending?
Another big question is: is there an ability to learn, or to pick up things, to improve? Is that what intelligence is? And if so, can you improve your ability to improve? Can you make yourself smarter?
Definitions of intelligence aside, there may be an ability to learn, but it might not be a single ability. For example, you might think of the ability to learn subjects in school. That might not be specific enough, so you have to go deeper. Split it into an ability to learn history, and an ability to learn English, and to learn math. And maybe that's not enough. It's an ability to learn math based on logic and theorems, and an ability to learn math through examples, and an ability to visualize geometry, and so on.
The questions go on of course. Maybe you can't improve your general ability to learn, but it is possible to improve in small areas. To what extent it is possible I can't say, but, for example, you can improve on your ability to improve at new rhythm games. Now, can you take your improvements in learning rhythm games, and use them to also improve quicker in other genres of video games? And, if so, can you take your improvements in learning how to improve in games, and make yourself able to learn more quickly in general? If I had to guess, I'd guess that it's possible, but it could depend on your natural ability to inherently know the relationships between things that often seem unrelated. Now, can you improve that ability?
The practical side of me says that, while it might be possible to make yourself a smarter person, the amount of effort it would require would probably make it a worthless goal. There are times when you have to give an extreme amount of effort just to do something that others can do easily. I have enough experience on both sides to know that. With such a broad goal, not just to be better at one thing, but to be smarter in, essentially, everything, surely it would require even more effort. And, not only that, there's no general well-known method as to how to become smarter. What do you do, attempt to copy the strategies of those who seem to be smarter than you? And what if it's not possible? You'll spend your life trying to reach a goal that was never obtainable in the first place.
The dreamer in me says that this is something that cannot be proven impossible. You can't say with certainty that it can't be done. However, it is possible for me, as a single person, to prove that it can be done. And not just me. Anyone out there. That story is there to be written. And the story doesn't have to be black and white. Success and failure do not have to be the only two words to describe the end result. Even if you are unable to truly become smarter, I believe that the story of the attempt to do so is one worth writing.
And you ask, "Is that your story?" and I say, it depends. Don't you see? All stories vary when the perspective from which they are written is changed, and all stories evoke different emotions when the true feelings of its characters are changed. It is my belief that these things are the keys to transforming a recollection of events and a list of facts into something more- into a story. "So, what is your perspective? What are your true feelings?" And, with a reply that feels heavy, weighted down with its meaning and its implications, and powerful, proclaiming an alternate way of viewing the world and of living, and definitive, defining some kind of truth, some kind of certainty behind the person I was, I take a deep breath to, slowly, and with a sense of absoluteness not normally present, answer,
They vary.
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