Anyone else without special skills or talents?

Page 1 of 2 [ 32 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next

Cherokee
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Gender: Female
Posts: 195

21 Mar 2007, 4:07 pm

Just wondering if there are any other people with AS who aren’t supper talented, or if I am perhaps the only one.



MrWizard
Blue Jay
Blue Jay

User avatar

Joined: 19 Mar 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 80
Location: Mississippi, USA

21 Mar 2007, 4:18 pm

You're probably a lot more talented than you think, everyone is. Asperger's or not. Let's talk about what you -are- good at instead. You seem to be fairly literate and good with grammar and spelling. That's a start. Do you write?



schleppenheimer
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 31 Aug 2006
Age: 64
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,584

21 Mar 2007, 4:26 pm

I have two Aspie sons who don't have real STAND-OUT skills, like math ability, etc. I always feel like it's more that they just haven't actually run into the talent that they DO have. Just this past year, my 10 year old has discovered that he's extremely good at figuring out harmonies to songs when he sings with his sister. My 20 year old, on the other hand, is a talented guitarist, but mostly because he's spent numerous hours figuring out songs and practicing. I'm not sure if it comes easy to him, he just works really hard at it.

You definitely have a talent. You just haven't discovered it yet. OR, you haven't yet found the one thing that you love so much that you are willing to put in lots of time to develop that talent.

Kris



Cherokee
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Gender: Female
Posts: 195

21 Mar 2007, 4:30 pm

Actually I’m quite terrible at writing and my spelling only came out good because of the spell checker. Thank you for the complement anyway though.



calandale
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 9 Mar 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,439

21 Mar 2007, 4:35 pm

I have a tremendous talent for wasting time. I am prodigal at it.



Prof_Pretorius
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,520
Location: Hiding in the attic of the Arkham Library

21 Mar 2007, 4:35 pm

We're not all savants, you know. That's a mis-conception. Just because you're not a C+ programmer doesn't mean you don't have talents.

Wot's your obssession ??


_________________
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. ~Theodore Roethke


calandale
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 9 Mar 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 12,439

21 Mar 2007, 4:37 pm

Nothing special about programming anyway.



Prof_Pretorius
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,520
Location: Hiding in the attic of the Arkham Library

21 Mar 2007, 4:40 pm

calandale wrote:
Nothing special about programming anyway.


It's something I have tried to learn, but can never get past Lesson 1.

Seems as difficult as Chinese calculus to me ! !!


_________________
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. ~Theodore Roethke


Astilius
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 18 Feb 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 110

21 Mar 2007, 4:42 pm

I was in my 20's before I realized I had a high function for scientific enquiry.
But even with out that it doesn't matter what "special skills" that people have. What matters is that you try to better yourself and work with what you do have.

Anyway, a little bit of the "Wear Sunscreen" essay written by Mary Schmich has stuck with me:

Quote:
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.


This applies to ability as well as youth/beauty. We are all more capable than we ever allow ourselves to be and we realize this only after the fact. Grasp this concept now and push yourself. Yes, you may push too far and fail. But it's only when we fail do we really learn anything.



Cherokee
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Gender: Female
Posts: 195

21 Mar 2007, 5:01 pm

Prof_Pretorius wrote:
We're not all savants, you know. That's a mis-conception.


This is more what I was wondering about, if being supper good at something is almost always the case with aspies, or if that is just a stereotype.

Sorry if my first question came out sounding more like I was complaining about not being really good at anything, anyway no need to try and cheer me up.



Prof_Pretorius
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Aug 2006
Age: 66
Gender: Male
Posts: 7,520
Location: Hiding in the attic of the Arkham Library

21 Mar 2007, 5:05 pm

I didn't notice how many posts you have ...

Chances are, you've scanned the various forums and found something that interests you deeply,

yes ???


_________________
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. ~Theodore Roethke


Astilius
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 18 Feb 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 110

21 Mar 2007, 5:11 pm

Cherokee wrote:
Prof_Pretorius wrote:
We're not all savants, you know. That's a mis-conception.


This is more what I was wondering about, if being supper good at something is almost always the case with aspies, or if that is just a stereotype.

Sorry if my first question came out sounding more like I was complaining about not being really good at anything, anyway no need to try and cheer me up.


Not only do not all AS's (or other 'defective' people) have savant abilities but there is an equal proportion of NT's that do have savant abilites - in short, neurodevelopment has no predictive ability for savant skills.



SA_Complex0
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

User avatar

Joined: 18 Mar 2007
Gender: Male
Posts: 33

21 Mar 2007, 5:12 pm

Skills don't have to be dramatic or anything. For example, I'm really good at looking at a small component of a larger object and figuring out where it came from. I can memorize completely useless trivia like nobody's business, and I have quite the expansive vocabulary.

So you see, just because you can't memorize Pi to within 1 million decimal places or read 30,000 words a minute doesn't mean you have no talent. Everyone's got some little skill to be proud of, even if it has no practical application, like the ones I mentioned above. None of those three is going to astound anyone, but they're nice to have all the same. I recommend trying new things. Start reading about stuff and see if you find anything that grabs your attention, and then become an expert on it. Or learn to draw or play an instrument- you don't need to be born with a talent or skill. Or do something you've never tried before like rock climbing or ice skating.


..... actually, I'm not really sure whether I have AS or not so maybe I shouldn't be answering this. But I used to feel I had no talents too (one reason I learned to draw was to alleviate this) so I decided to reply. Hope this helps.



dexkaden
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 29 Dec 2005
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,967
Location: CTU, Los Angeles

21 Mar 2007, 5:27 pm

calandale wrote:
I have a tremendous talent for wasting time. I am prodigal at it.


Yes, I seem to have this skill as well.

Hmm...I am no savant at any one thing, but I have a genius IQ and the ability to see relationships between things that other people disregard as having no correlation to each other. I can struggle through written math, but I excel at certain visual/spatial tasks---like the Rubik's Cube---and can see things in my mind. This visual style is frustrating to communicate with, though, as there is no brain projector for my show the world the moving pictures in my head.

I can draw stick figures like it's nobody's business.

I can work out how to build something from looking at it long enough. I seem to be able to create a rough schematic in my head from pictures. I built my own lightsaber that way...

Um...I am talented at not noticing that I am eating something until I reach down for more and realize the entire bag of popcorn is empty. I just kind of "zone out."

Oh, oh! I can focus like a laser beam on a problem until I figure it out! That is a skill!


_________________
Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.


RedMage
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Nov 2006
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,812

21 Mar 2007, 6:44 pm

I'm good at most of the things I do...



MsTriste
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2005
Age: 60
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,307
Location: Not here

21 Mar 2007, 6:48 pm

Cherokee wrote:
This is more what I was wondering about, if being supper good at something is almost always the case with aspies, or if that is just a stereotype.


The only thing I know I am better at than everybody I know is knowing where something is. Every day, my partner asks me where his wallet, or his keys, or his duct tape is, and I always know the answer without even thinking about it. I should be a spy. But here I am, wasting my precious talent...