I’m surprised by how much I know. It perhaps shouldn’t be surprising given that I have both autism and ADHD and that makes me enthusiastic about learning basically everything, but I’m chuffed with how well rounded my knowledge is.
I studied biochemistry at university, but over the last 5 years or so, I’ve been doing a lot more reading in topics like the history and philosophy of science, philosophy more generally, political theory, disability theory, queer theory, economics, design, programming etc… My knowledge in each of these areas is relatively shallow, but I seem to be pretty good at forming lateral links between things I know, which means I can be quite fun to have in depth discussions with. It helps that I got a hell of a lot smarter when I stopped being so attached to my identity as a smart person and learned how to say “no, I haven’t heard of $thing, tell me more” or “I think I’ve heard of that, but I’m not sure — remind me?”
A year or so ago, a friend who studied English called me “well read” and it gave me a bit of an existential crisis. “But I don’t actually fully read most of the books I talk about. Many of them I just skim them until I find a chapter or two that’s most useful to me!”. Turns out that that kind of reading strategy is typical of people who are well read.
My late best friend was a historian, and one of the things I loved about our friendship is arguing with him about random shit. His background meant he often approached an issue in a completely different way to me, and we’d often ask questions or make points that would require the other to go away and think about it for a while before forming a response. I think he’d be really proud of me (and also aggravatingly smug due to him being a significant driving force behind me getting more into history).
I’m surprised by how much I know. It perhaps shouldn’t be surprising given that I have both autism and ADHD and that makes me enthusiastic about learning basically everything, but I’m chuffed with how well rounded my knowledge is.
I studied biochemistry at university, but over the last 5 years or so, I’ve been doing a lot more reading in topics like the history and philosophy of science, philosophy more generally, political theory, disability theory, queer theory, economics, design, programming etc… My knowledge in each of these areas is relatively shallow, but I seem to be pretty good at forming lateral links between things I know, which means I can be quite fun to have in depth discussions with. It helps that I got a hell of a lot smarter when I stopped being so attached to my identity as a smart person and learned how to say “no, I haven’t heard of $thing, tell me more” or “I think I’ve heard of that, but I’m not sure — remind me?”
A year or so ago, a friend who studied English called me “well read” and it gave me a bit of an existential crisis. “But I don’t actually fully read most of the books I talk about. Many of them I just skim them until I find a chapter or two that’s most useful to me!”. Turns out that that kind of reading strategy is typical of people who are well read.
My late best friend was a historian, and one of the things I loved about our friendship is arguing with him about random shit. His background meant he often approached an issue in a completely different way to me, and we’d often ask questions or make points that would require the other to go away and think about it for a while before forming a response. I think he’d be really proud of me (and also aggravatingly smug due to him being a significant driving force behind me getting more into history).