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smart friends that never made it life...

brainhulk

Diamond Member
I have 3 friends from all the way back to grade school and middle school who were all extremely smart. We all went to "gifted schools", and I consider them smarter than me. They all used to do better at math than I did and had what I thought were good parents.

2 of them fell to drugs and partying in high school. The other one dodged that bullet, only to go to stanford to be taken by excessive partying.

Anybody know people like this? I guess I. Am looking for answers why some people know and maintain their priorities and others do not (despite being brilliant)
 
Book smarts don't necessarily translate to real life intelligence. Someone can know all the facts in the world and still be incapable of making wise choices in their own lives.
 
Can't say I know off hand anyone like that and I knew a lot of people in the advanced classes, gifted programs, and what not.
 
Sometime's people don't want to brilliant; they want to have fun. If they are happy with their set of choices, who are we to judge?

They could have a great career and reputation, but still be miserable inside.
 
Being brilliant is a challenge for some people. Life poses so few challenges that they fail to develop a work ethic. Takes a while to get the message that life takes work if you want to get anything out of it. Combine that with the Grateful Dead and LSD and you get my friend from college. Took him 6 years to graduate yet he still did it with a double major in physics and general sciences.
 
that was like valedictorian after valedictorian at my high school, year after year. top of the class, then down to coke and whoring and whothefuckknowswhat within a year in college.

i suppose it could be the overbearing parents leaving less time for socialization then the sudden freedom of college with inability to adjust to a new, metered lifestyle.

but then, none of these people were very conservative to begin with--I guess they liked to party anyway, but it was just too easy in college.
 
Had a friend that was about as smart as I am, 6 credits from graduating with a CS degree, ends up failing out of school due to playing WoW all day (literally would stand in one of the major cities for hours waiting for raids to start). Got the first girl he ever slept with pregnant. Has 2 kids and now works as a gas station manager in the podunk town he was born in.
 
one friend immediately comes to mind. super smart without even trying, very artistic and analytical at the same time, now i think he lives with his mom and works in construction or something. he's 32. the thing is, he just didn't care. aspiring to lofty heights just never interested him. he just does things that interest him for a while, regardless of their practicality or pay (or lack thereof).
 
Yeah a social, very clever guy who partied through college a lot but still got through ok, but never quite (at least so far) figured out what to do, so did the teach english in asia thing and his facebook statuses could just as easily be coming from a 21 year old. He basically just spent too much time smoking weed.
 
Had a friend that was about as smart as I am, 6 credits from graduating with a CS degree, ends up failing out of school due to playing WoW all day (literally would stand in one of the major cities for hours waiting for raids to start). Got the first girl he ever slept with pregnant. Has 2 kids and now works as a gas station manager in the podunk town he was born in.
You forgot to mention he is a ninja warrior legend! :ninja:
 
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