How do you cope with the fact that you are stupid?

[Anonymous No.11435115]

Okay, I guess many of you guys have been through this (especially math/STEM majors, I guess): you learn about a guy who has done more at the age of 14-18 than you in your early twenties and you get thoughts about being fucking worthless and "why am I even trying" kind of thing.

Does this happen a lot to you, /sci/? Does it have a name? How do you cope with it?

[Anonymous No.11435121]

why the fuck do these threads keep happening?

[Anonymous No.11435128]

>>11435121
Because.

[Anonymous No.11435130]

>>11435121
NEETs trying to justify not doing anything with their lives

[Anonymous No.11435133]

>>11435115
I vastly overestimate my own intelligence and rationalize my lack of success by making excuses like "I don't work hard enough" but in the back of my mind I believe I'm going to wake up one day and become super motivated to unleash the full power of my genius and make a paradigm-changing discovery but in reality I'll look back at my life when I'm 80 with disappointment and regret still believing the delusion that if I had only tried harder I could have changed the world.

[Anonymous No.11435137]

I read Faust and understood that knowledge doesn't make you happy

[Anonymous No.11435138]

I let this very fact motivate me. Everyday is a chance to better than yesterday.

[Anonymous No.11435145]

To quote Tom Lehrer
>It's a sobering thought to think that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 3 years.

[Anonymous No.11435149]

>>11435138
Yep, same for me. If you will try to reach the standards of top talents in you studies, you will definitely accomplish bigger goals.

[Anonymous No.11435162]

>>11435115
It's called intellectual insecurity. I got over it within one year of uni.

[Anonymous No.11435229]

It's simple. I ask myself "Do you enjoy doing this?" If the answer is yes then I keep at it. I don't expect to be the best mathematician in the world. I just do math because it brings me pleasure and life is short. I enjoy my own personal discoveries and I am satisfied with that.

[Anonymous No.11435271]

>>11435130
this. crab mentality is rampant on /sci/

[Anonymous No.11435341]

>>11435271

[Anonymous No.11435360]

>>11435115
i’m at that point for many years now since i’m in my third decade. but at the same time i see the ordained “smart guys” wasting their time on dead ends or trivial pursuits because they got sucked into the “hard math and theoretical physics” sub-universe. so at least i can do experiments and arbitrate their nonsense, and i entertain the thought that one day i may have a thought that comes to fruition. you know like Faraday or Rubbia or even Veltman

[Anonymous No.11435405]

>>11435115
I know that i am kind of a smart guy, but not top material desu. I guess now my goal is to make some contribution to my field (even if small) and have a comfy life. It could have been worse i guess.

[Anonymous No.11435522]

>>11435115
I cope by telling myself that I have plagiocephaly + some other forms of craniosyntosis, which I do, so I would have never gotten anywhere. My cephalic index is 95 and my height length index is definitely well over 80.

[Anonymous No.11435861]

>>11435128
Based Ramsey Theorist

[Anonymous No.11435911]

>>11435115
You're not stupid, you're just not that interested in whatever it is you're trying to learn. These geniuses or extreme overachievers you hear about actually enjoy the stuff they learn. The work is fun to them.