

Advice to the Bright and Young - DaniFong
http://daniellefong.com/2008/05/15/advice-to-the-bright-and-young/

======
hhm
Dani, this is a wonderful essay, really. Thanks a lot.

I had many problems related to what you mention there. Long story short: some
years ago I got to my nation's newspapers because of my own small game studio
and of my work on the local game dev association, and I got to speak to lot of
conferences with very prestigious people, but I always felt empty, and I
always felt I was more and more of an imposter. I rushed doing activities not
because of my interest on them, but because of how they could help maintain
and enforce my own image... and so on and on. Also I actually was starting to
feel more and more stupid, because I wasn't doing the things I love most, and
that I think I need to feed my mind.

Finally I decided that was stupid, and I decided a first step to find myself
would be to shut the mouth up. I stopped caring a lot about press and related
stuff, and despite I eventually did some note most of the times I sent the
media to colleagues that I felt cold talk better than me about the different
subjects. I dropped out from forums and disappeared from communities which
only helped my ego grow. I just kept working quietly with a few clients, and I
even started filtering my clients only to do the most interesting projects,
which could again give a boost to my brain and let me feel again that I was
doing something worth, and not just something that gave me money while making
the others feel I was actually worth.

This was a lot of time ago, and that was like a slow career reset for me.
These days I'm much happier about my work, while being a lot more slow profile
(now I'm rarely called from the local press, as a remnant of my previous
career, and because of my current activity I'm now teaching and giving some
conferences).

But I think I have a lot more to learn yet. I loved your article, and despite
all my growth in the latest years, I found interesting ideas in your article
which I think I could use to improve my life a lot more. Thanks again.

Only wish I had read this some years later (the more years, the better).

------
aneesh
"Prodigies [inevitably] become ex-prodigies."

There's some truth to that statement. One of the best pieces of advice I got
was from a college professor whose course I took in high school: "You're
headed for great places. Don't sacrifice your childhood/youth just to get
there faster."

At the time, I didn't really appreciate the advice, but looking back, it gets
truer every day. Take some time to appreciate the little things.

~~~
keating
The irony of being a prodigy is that it is indeed a facade, because it's not
that the achievements are new, just that the achiever is.

This is why it feels empty. Because although you did something a few years
earlier than other people, lots and lots of other people already did it, are
doing it, and will be doing it soon.

The rat race is one of relative achievement. One can pile on all the plaudits
and laurels in the world and it still comes down to jumping through other
people's hoops for approval.

The only thing that doesn't feel fake is absolute achievement -- when you do
something new, regardless of age, and regardless of media coverage or getting
puppy snacks from the outstretched palms of condescending adults.

~~~
timr
I think it's ten orders of magnitude easier to say "do something new," than it
is to actually _do something new_. It's tempting to believe that prodigies
burn themselves out because they get cynical about the "rat race", but many
burn themselves out by trying to revolutionize the world at a young age,
without realizing that the world is a damned hard place to revolutionize. (You
can see this phenomenon in the kid in the cited article -- he's ten, and
already convinced that he's going to revolutionize a branch of astrophysics.
That's a dangerous kind of immodesty.)

Obviously, it's good to strive for creativity and novelty in your work, but
you also have to maintain a sense of perspective: if you've set your goals so
high that your definition of "achievement" is isomorphic to "originality",
then you're probably in for a lifetime of disappointment. It's a hard problem
to be original -- there are a lot of other people in the world, and most of
them are trying to be original, too. In fact, being original is a lot like
being famous, because you can strive for it, but your success is largely
determined by what other people do; it's probably bad to condition your self-
esteem on the actions of other people.

For what it's worth, here's my half-formed philosophy: you have to do whatever
it is that gives you a sense of personal satisfaction and contentment. Your
accomplishments don't have to be great; they don't have to be original; they
don't have to make you famous. As long as you can look in the mirror in the
morning and feel excitement about the day, you're doing pretty well.

~~~
DaniFong
I referenced Feynman at the bottom of my article.
[http://scienceblogs.com/thescian/2008/03/what_are_worthwhile...](http://scienceblogs.com/thescian/2008/03/what_are_worthwhile_problems_f.php)

Perhaps I should have described another trap. It is too easy to grow up with
the sense that one should work on only grand things.

"The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the
ones you can really contribute something to. [...] No problem is too small or
too trivial if we can really do something about it."

~~~
timr
That's a great pointer, Danielle. Thanks.

------
aswanson
It's plain to see that the wisdom being passed on here was painfully earned.
Some people never make it out. Congrats on surviving and coming through
stronger, reclaiming your life.

------
ecuzzillo
How prodigious do you have to be for society to push you along like this? I
accelerated a lot, because I wanted to get to the good stuff, and I felt
burned out occasionally when I did too much pointless work unrelated to what I
liked, but otherwise was fine, even in the heavier semesters.

Basically, I figure there are two reasons to accelerate. One, it's dumb to
waste time on things that don't matter (like the two years of high school math
over which are distributed about six weeks of material, also known as algebra
II and precalculus); you wouldn't want to waste your life in high school any
more than you'd want to waste your adult life.

Two, you have only so many years of real productivity, I'd say between about
18 and 39 (upper bound varies by field and individual), and you want to spend
as many of them as you can doing real work that has an effect on the world,
rather than education.

------
sealedidentity
Beautiful article. As one who almost burned out, I can attest to the many
truths that are seen in the article. Great article, Dani.

------
edw519
This is exactly the opposite of my story.

My father taught me to read when I was 2 and from that point on, _everyone_
encouraged my parents to "fast track" me. I was tested, examined, and prodded
by psychologists, doctors, teachers, and "experts". I even passed the
preschool entrance exam before my older brother (he's been paying me back ever
since lol).

Finally one day, my father, of all people, said enough. I would mainstream
with all the other kids because he didn't want me to be a "freak". To this
day, I really don't know if it was a wise decision or a snap judgement.

So I sat in class, bored to tears for the next 12 grueling years. Looking
back, I had no choice but to "let my love of something pull me" as the OP
said. So I learned a musical instrument, started several small businesses,
made home movies, and published my own magazine. I excelled in everything
outside of school and did poorly in class. I wonder what college admissions
officers thought about a self-published C student with perfect SAT scores. I
think my magazaine did more for my future that anything from school.

After a great college experience, I spent years of torture in corporate
cubicles, bored to death no matter what the job was. Only when I found a way
to do my own software startup, did everything fall into place for me. I'm
finally living the life I was always meant to live.

So this would-be prodigy ended up being a late bloomer. I don't know whether
this is better or worse, but I sure am glad I finally ended up where I belong.

Thanks for thought stoking essay, DaniFong.

------
keating
Alas that our minds learn by trial and error and not taking advice. In fact,
the brightest people tend to be the ones who have a driving need to find out
for themselves and not listen to what other people say about it.

~~~
Alex3917
"Tell a man that there are 400 billion stars and he'll believe you. Say a
bench has wet paint and he has to touch it."

