[HN Gopher] Find More Ways to Be an Outsider ___________________________________________________________________ Find More Ways to Be an Outsider Author : jger15 Score : 23 points Date : 2022-03-16 10:26 UTC (12 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com) | aaron695 wrote: | atdrummond wrote: | Interestingly enough, despite the _many_ warnings I received | against doing so, researching heterodox economics and economic | history helped provide me with a massive network of researchers | and speaking opportunities I wouldn 't have otherwise been able | to access. Not only that, I was able to avoid getting trapped in | the morass of extremely qualified and aggressive course mates and | students at other top institutions, almost all of whom were | filtered into just a few areas of inquiry. I often struggle to | properly convey to those unfamiliar with this particular social | (or dismal...) science the immense difficulty I would have faced | in standing out given my research would have been in competition | with dozens of journal articles with similar or identical theses | - all at the same handful of publications. | Tade0 wrote: | I was born to expat parents far away from my home country - we | came back just when I was about to start grade school. As an | adult I spent 4 years in Italy which started off with my SO | participating in a volunteer program and me tagging along because | I secured a remote position, so I was flexible in terms of | location. | | The general conclusion is that you have to have something to run | away from or an opportunity to chase. | | For my father it was a lucrative contract. For my SO a method of | breaking away from the environment she grew up in. | | Also you don't really have to travel to be an outsider. I spent a | great deal of time in high school in a catholic bible study | circle, even though (or actually - _because_ ) I'm an atheist. | They were very kind and we had many interesting discussions. | jdmoreira wrote: | > I was born to expat parents | | Do you mean your parents were immigrants? Because that's what | they were. Expat is the most pretentious colonialist term I can | think of. | opisthenar84 wrote: | tl;dr: Try something new and be yourself. | TrainedMonkey wrote: | Just be yourself is advice I see often given when telling | people how to behave in new situations, but nobody ever talks | about how to be yourself. Who you are and how you behave is a | product of both past history and current situation. In other | words it is easier to be yourself when you are in a comfortable | and familiar situation. But when exposed to a brand new | situation/experience "just be yourself" is terrible starting | advice for many people because it is completely non-obvious how | to do that. | | I've been given that advice many times and it took some deep | introspection and many years to figure out what it meant and | how to be myself. This might be self evident for many people, | but for me discovering myself meant knowing what made me happy | and unhappy. I've done that by being mindful of how I felt | before/while/after doing something. This let me establish a | core persona who is more influenced by past history and less by | current situation. At this point just be myself is a good | reminder, but starting with that advice was not helpful at all. | yawnxyz wrote: | https://archive.ph/eqvmR ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-03-16 23:00 UTC)