Designgeek
Well-known member
- Joined
- Dec 12, 2004
- Messages
- 865
Never fear, Silicon Valley is full of geeks who weren't much on sports and can't do "small talk" but have been building our future for decades.
For me the pattern with sports was, I could never get the hang of "ball in the air" sports, but I was decently good at "ball on the ground" sports (e.g. soccer) and also enjoyed swimming (including some team competitions where I was decent but not great). Many years later I figured out why. Mild dyslexia.
The stereotype of dyslexia is that it affects reading, however that's not always the case (and in elementary school I was reading at graduate-school level). In my case it was trouble with math, and I only figured it out after college when volunteering to make "get out the vote" phone calls. Consistent pattern was digit inversion: 555-2368 would become 555-2638. Once in about every five to ten phone numbers.
I started experimenting with this and discovered it also affected my perception of objects moving toward me through the air (i.e. without a comparative reference to the ground, where normal perspective could operate): in other words, it screwed up my ability to play baseball, football, etc. The visual effect is something like what happens when you stare at one of those optical illusions that can either be a tunnel sticking out of a page, or a tunnel going into a page, and it seems to flip back and forth between the two. But when the object is moving on the ground, normal visual perspective has something to connect with, and there isn't a problem.
The difference between not-knowing about this, and knowing about it, was the ability to deliberately compensate for it: which made the difference between a D- in undergraduate social science statistics, and an A- in graduate social science statistics.
(Interestingly enough, I could barely get algebra in highschool but did OK in geometry; also was smoking marijuana during the year I took geometry. Now the current research shows that marijuana can help minimize the effects of dyslexia, because it reduces the secondary signal-paths of dyslexia sufficiently that they do not interfere with the primary perceptual signal paths. Also seems to help the manic phase of bipolar disorder, as I've seen with a couple of close friends. However, too much pot can make you stupid, so check with your doctor before deciding whether to try this.)
And the point of this story is, don't assume your perceptual systems operate in the same way as everyone else's, and don't assume they're operating normally 100% of the time. There may be glitches in the wiring that only show up occasionally, but often enough to create errors that have secondary effects such as a sense of inability that becomes a source of anxiety. Minor disabilities are not the same thing as inability; you can study what's going on and learn how to compensate, and then start undoing the emotional & personality baggage that might have accumulated along the way.
For me the pattern with sports was, I could never get the hang of "ball in the air" sports, but I was decently good at "ball on the ground" sports (e.g. soccer) and also enjoyed swimming (including some team competitions where I was decent but not great). Many years later I figured out why. Mild dyslexia.
The stereotype of dyslexia is that it affects reading, however that's not always the case (and in elementary school I was reading at graduate-school level). In my case it was trouble with math, and I only figured it out after college when volunteering to make "get out the vote" phone calls. Consistent pattern was digit inversion: 555-2368 would become 555-2638. Once in about every five to ten phone numbers.
I started experimenting with this and discovered it also affected my perception of objects moving toward me through the air (i.e. without a comparative reference to the ground, where normal perspective could operate): in other words, it screwed up my ability to play baseball, football, etc. The visual effect is something like what happens when you stare at one of those optical illusions that can either be a tunnel sticking out of a page, or a tunnel going into a page, and it seems to flip back and forth between the two. But when the object is moving on the ground, normal visual perspective has something to connect with, and there isn't a problem.
The difference between not-knowing about this, and knowing about it, was the ability to deliberately compensate for it: which made the difference between a D- in undergraduate social science statistics, and an A- in graduate social science statistics.
(Interestingly enough, I could barely get algebra in highschool but did OK in geometry; also was smoking marijuana during the year I took geometry. Now the current research shows that marijuana can help minimize the effects of dyslexia, because it reduces the secondary signal-paths of dyslexia sufficiently that they do not interfere with the primary perceptual signal paths. Also seems to help the manic phase of bipolar disorder, as I've seen with a couple of close friends. However, too much pot can make you stupid, so check with your doctor before deciding whether to try this.)
And the point of this story is, don't assume your perceptual systems operate in the same way as everyone else's, and don't assume they're operating normally 100% of the time. There may be glitches in the wiring that only show up occasionally, but often enough to create errors that have secondary effects such as a sense of inability that becomes a source of anxiety. Minor disabilities are not the same thing as inability; you can study what's going on and learn how to compensate, and then start undoing the emotional & personality baggage that might have accumulated along the way.
. So, again, welcome aboard!!
).
