I know not everyone of us has a special talent, but many of us do. Some are just incredible. So, what are they??
Edit: Please don’t be humble. Let it out. Be proud of it and share so we can marvel.
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I’m a software developer and for some reason I have the knack for breaking anything I touch.
I once wanted to add a calendar from a URL, and assumed that putting it into the “add calendar” entry would do that. Nope, turns out that just creates a new calendar with an invalid name. I kept getting emails about having a folder with an invalid name that my work’s IT team couldn’t actually remove.
That’s a gift that a QA team might pay a premium for.
I learned as a developer that I can see the flaws in systems before most other folk which led me to become a system architect. I had one boss ask me “when you look at a forest do you just see paths for fire to spread?”
I have what I can best describe as a general knack for reverse engineering or understanding other people’s work the hard way. I learned to code by reverse engineering original DOOM, and back when I worked at a hobby shop my manager called me a mad scientist because I would, among other things, mix up my own paints to see if I figured it out. I also pick up how existing codebases work pretty quickly, which would probably be useful if I actually got hired. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’m naturally good at making disparate connections and taking in a whole area of a business/tech etc and understanding it. But any ideas I then have are seen as too hairbrained or rediculous or out of the box or impossible and put down by others instead of being seen as clever and interesting and useful.
@BackOnMyBS ruining my life
I, too, make some doosy decisions that end up being harmful for me.
@BackOnMyBS For me it’s systematic avoidant behavior. I try to avoid risks so hard it is slowly ruining it 😄
@BackOnMyBS I tried being a risk taking hedonist type person and masking as hard as possible but I just didn’t enjoy it and I ended up around people with no respect for the safety of others. They were willing to overlook emotional peculiarities like autism as a result of the same attitude which led to being around legit criminal psychopaths haha
that was me in my motorcycle years. it was fun, intense, and exciting, but risky af. i knew 3 people that died.
@BackOnMyBS yeah when people get hurt and die there’s no fun in it unless you see yourself as some sort of bluesy morose reflective type. people who willingly take on unnecessary risks acting like that became disgusting to me. for me it was the car accidents and the blackout drinking. i still can’t bring myself to drink because it makes me remember how bad people can get with it. it just doesn’t feel safe.
I am insanely good at word bomb
what’s word bomb?
a game where it gives you some letters and you have to use them (in order) to make a word within the time limit, the prompts get harder over time until there is only one person remaining
example 1:
- it gives prompt ‘and’
- you could give it: ‘and’ or ‘land’ or ‘random’ etc.
example 2:
- it gives prompt ‘ngl’
- you could give it ‘angle’ or ‘tangle’ or ‘anglerfish’
The book “Collaborative Intelligence” is on the 3 most-common of the 4 innate-mind-languages we think in.
- Visual-thinking
- Auditory-thinking
- Kinesthetic-thinking
It totally ignores the 4th.
- Implication-Pattern-thinking/Abstract-Thoughtshape-thinking
which, from what I’ve read, is possibly more than 50% of the physicists people.
I think in abstract-shapes, which means that instead of seeing the appearances of something, I need to see how it works, before I can then abstract-out its thoughtshape, which is what my mind holds onto.
I’ve no internal-visual, which is falsely-labeled “aphantasia” ( no-imagination ) by psychology.
I’ve plenty of imagination, but it works within the mind-function that I have, not in some mind-function I don’t have.
This difference allows me to “see through” appearances to more fundamental/underlying reality, much more easily than more-conventional minds do.
As Temple Grandin’s TED talk on kinds of minds pointed-out, however, I’m mindblind to many things that the more-common mind-functions catch:
She wouldn’t have put the emergency-generators at Fukushima at the bottom of a pit, beside a tsunami-infested sea, because she would have seen them flood ( she thinks in movies ).
I wouldn’t ever have noticed any potential problem, because I’d have been “looking at” the function withing each generator, & feeling the beneficial-protection of having them not easily attackable, or something.
You NEED to have all-4 innate-mind-languages working on any product/service that you’re going to release, as each has its own mind-blindnesses.
Don’t leave any 1 of 'em out!
But being of the least-common ( & ignored by much/all of the psychology profession/industry ), is a kind of superpower, when their prejudice isn’t grinding on one’s validity, fersure.
: P
that’s super interesting! thanks for sharing. now, I’m think about reading that book. maybe my library will have it.
I’ve no internal-visual, which is falsely-labeled “aphantasia” ( no-imagination ) by psychology.
It means you don’t have mental imagery. People with aphantasia can still have an imagination.
Conceptual thinking apparently. I guess most people think with words. I think with concepts, visuals, emotions, and other sensory inputs. It means I can understand things much more quickly by associating concepts. And combine those things quickly to make something new. I rarely need to memorize all the details of something if I can extrapolate those things from the conceptual models in my head as needed.
But it does mean that every word that I use needs to be translated from a concept first. Translation takes time and energy, just like it does for the majority of people who speak multiple languages with widely varying grammatical patterns.
This is relatable. It’s very useful for doing science, but the problem then is that you have all of these ideas in your head that are impossible to express succinctly because you need to invent new words, so it’s very hard to sell the idea to anyone, and you end up working alone on everything and achieving very little.
Ooh, I think I’m the same way. How can someone figure out how their thinking works, be it conceptual, language, visual, etc?
I am good at finding things because I think about things in context of their place in the world.
At my job, I am good at finding problems in data because I know how all the files work and how our systems interlink. If something is missing, I know where it gets taken from and work backwards from there. If some additional is there that shouldn’t be, I know the rules of why things get taken and can figure out why.
At home, I can find objects easily because I know what they are used for and have a good memory, so I can easily remember the last thing an item was used for and start there. This helps a lot with a partner who has ADHD and is constantly misplacing things.
My finding skills have also been great for finding stuff on the Internet, but Search Engine Optimization is slowly degrading that. I am still very good at finding deals on things people need on Craigslist though, as I am very good at figuring out which listings are good and which are ads just based on the description given.
During one of the tests I took during my autism diagnosis, I had to look at a particular pattern for a few seconds, and the doctor would then flip the page and I’d need to identify the correct image among between four to seven very similar images (progresses from four to five to six to seven). If I were to choose the correct image, she’d turn the page to the next image I’d need to memorize. If I were to get one wrong, I’d get a second try on it. If I guessed incorrectly again, the test would end.
The doctor told me not to worry if we don’t get all the way through the book of images, that no one ever gets that far. Well…I did get that far. I made a mistake on one image toward the end of the book among seven images total, but I got it correct on the second try. I had narrowed it down to those two before I chose incorrectly.
Every correct answer after about halfway through the book was making the doctor make faces showing she was kind of in awe. After the last one, she said “Welp…I guess that’s how that test ends!” It was that test, I think which contributed to their diagnosis that my cognitive processing speed is in the 99.9th percentile. The diagosing doctor said she never seen a score as high as mine.
And that was honestly a good thing for me to learn about myself; I’ve always felt like my brain goes waaay to fast. I speak well before thinking, I act pretty much on instinct, and that has led to me queering more than one relationship in my life. It will be an extremely useful thing to have in post-apocalyptic times, I’m sure, but I have to force myself to slow down these days.
Congrats on the super power!
just a funny one:
following instructions, apparently?
as a youth, we had a guest lecture at school (computing) and were given a software tutorial to follow. i completed it and the instructors were impressed, to my absolute confusion.
“i just… followed the instructions?”
“you’d be surprised how many can’t do that!”
in hindsight, i do wonder if it’s a slight autism “perk” just because i think literally and follow instructions accurately so long as they aren’t vague. i wonder if some people will struggle with specific instructions but excel at parsing vague things.
it’s just so funny to me to get complimented on that specifically. but also the student teaching assistant was definitely flirting, which baby autistic me DID pick up on but considered mostly irrelevant to the strange praise??? xD
I had a similar experience. I’m not a computer programmer, but I took a computer programming class in high school. We had an assignment that I completed like normal. This was a long time ago, but if I remember correctly, it was something about making 3 separate programs, then making another program that all it did was run the 3 other programs in sequence. Apparently, I was the only one in the class that did it right and everyone else bombed it. All I did was follow instructions. I have no idea how anyone else didn’t complete the assignment correctly. Did they just add their own desires to it? Did they disagree with the instructions? How did they mess it up??
Problem solving, and spotting issues or risks before they happen - I guess I learned that skill the hard way when I was younger. I also do computers for fun in my spare and im a bit good, although everyone who doesnt know computers well thinks im some kind of tech wizard, when really I just know how to search engine well and follow instructions. And im good at switching off and going on autopilot in an emergency, im good with first aid and serious incidents.
I’m incredibly quick at learning music/songs by ear, mostly singing cuz even tho I’ve played a couple instruments for… God 15 years… I still can’t fucking find a tune on them to save my life
But if I hear a song with coherant lyrics 1 or 2 times then I can repeat it from memory acapella, instrumental solos and all, with perfect accuracy on lyrics and like 95% accuracy on the notes due to my iffy singing voice
Probably related: on the fly ad-libs replacement of lyrics. Like coming up with a weird Al parody on the spot (not saying mine are as funny or anything just giving an idea). I can even make them coherent and properly rhyme for a verse or two sometimes if I’m really on a roll. Too bad I get so embarrassed in front of people that only a few have seen it IRL, but it’s always been a hit at the DND table when I needed to improv tavern singing or something
I’ve got a similar power, maybe a step lower than yours. I managed to complete and compete in higher levels of orchestra band without actually learning how to read music. I would be able to play the song after hearing it a few times. I use sheet music as an instruction (if needed) on which notes to play (this note equals this fingering on the instrument) rather than speed/tempo of the song. Applies to whistling/singing too.
And very similarly the on the fly ad-libs which makes for some funny “jokes” I can throw around with friends as I’m not very good with actual jokes.
But if I hear a song with coherant lyrics 1 or 2 times then I can repeat it from memory acapella, instrumental solos and all, with perfect accuracy on lyrics and like 95% accuracy on the notes due to my iffy singing voice
Woww! That is some Mozart level stuff
Min/Maxing? In any sufficiently complex game I can determine something that would be an efficient path to victory and pursue it harder than anyone else. I seem to really have a knack for making something work precisely to what I want even if it struggles in other respects.
It’s most apparent when I play Stellaris with friends. I self-impose a penalty not to play particular builds that are the best at my min/maxing preference but my not-tryharding play-style will still put me at twice the research output of the next player extremely quickly. Granted my empire has extreme and exploitable weaknesses that theirs doesn’t but my gamble frequently pays off.
I have a harder time making it work in Civ6 but that’s likely because I play it really infrequently. I believe I’ve figured out what needs to be done to make it happen though.
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I have lots of ideas, concepts, etc and they are always ahead of the time. I will expose them and people look at me like I’m weird, saying I’m wrong and/or it’s is impossible, being angry at me (?). Then when it happens I see nobody.
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I expose what seems like an evidence and natural for me in domains like psychology, sociology, anthropology. People think it’s incredible and asking for my PhDs. I was at a 4 months seminar. I listened but never really talked. At the end, I give my synthesis of it and it sent in the final document. But, the professors didn’t think about this interpretation before I exposed it.
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I never learned anything following the methods at schools. I learned a long time after finishing schools that I am self-taught. For example, I went to Iceland for holidays and began learning the language. I don’t know how and why.
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I like to say what I want and it actually help the people. I told a psychologist to have more self confidence.
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I also can “see inside the people” or “read inside of them”. Some are like open books. This can be scary for the person. I’m used to it.
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If I don’t have to be humble at all, people of any degree are amazed by my knowledge and ““intellectual capacities””.
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