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Comment by deepGem | Hacker News Reader

Twice exceptional people often appear to be "average" but find an "average" or normal life enormously frustrating

Like all correlation to causation misconceptions, most people read this and imply the converse. I find the normal life exceptionally frustrating, so I must be exceptional, hence I must do a startup. I am questioning if this is indeed true. I believe that this is a misconception, being frustrated with day to day life doesn't make one exceptional. Getting out of that frustration and finding something that they can be less frustrated with, perhaps makes people exceptional. One can just be frustrated with day to day life purely because of laziness, for instance.

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> I find the normal life exceptionally frustrating, so I must be exceptional

Isn't this just the mantra of the millennial?

The mantra of the millennial is more like "Sure I might have no job prospects, no money, no home, a ruined environment, and a boss that treats me like crap .... but it'll be better once all the selfish old people die"

"Sure, I might be deep in debt, I'll never afford permanent housing, the government's gone fascist, and the biosphere's ability to support human life is rapidly collapsing, but at least I've got a scone while the world burns."

Hey, I like scones. If it makes you feel better, us Gen Xers have it worse. We're stuck in mid-level positions at work and when the boomers blocking our advancement finally croak, some young, ambitious millennial will simply be promoted over us. Because if we were any good, we would be in upper management by now.

On the flip side, I'm just young enough to not have any sort of pension through my employer(s), and I'll get to watch Social Security (and/or the entire economy) completely collapse right before I reach retirement age.

It was more a generational characterization than a personal one. I have no debt, some assets, and no scone.

I could walk out and buy a scone, but every time I think to do that, I get to the shop and see that one of their scones would more than double my calorie count for any given meal. So then I don't.

most people read this and imply the converse.

I am not responsible for strangers on the internet reading my comments and twisting them to mean something I did not intend at all. I have been online long enough to know that it is not possible to open my mouth online at all without someone, somewhere wildly misinterpreting my words and having zero desire to make a good faith effort to actually understand my point. I do my best to frame things carefully, but, to some extent, I have simply had to make my peace with the fact that people are gonna people and there is nothing I can do about that.

Yes, you mean well and I don't mean to imply that people are misinterpreting your words. People understand things differently. They read correlation and imply the converse. I have done it so many times. Another analogy - Alan Turing was a great computer scientist, he was also a long distance runner. The thought process in my head after reading that sentence, "To be a great computer scientist it's good to start long distance running". This is because I like running and my brain perceives it as the path of least resistance to achieve mastery over a subject.

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