ShaktiSama
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Joined: 8/13/2007
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ialdabaoth
To me, being "special" is something that you know when you see it. Put a thousand people together in a crowd, and you can pick out the "special" ones in a second or two.
Sadly, choose a thousand different people to pick out those two "special" people, especially if you bring them from a variety of different backgrounds and cultures, and very few of them will pick out the same two people as "special". Your perceptions of "specialness" are not universal or based on some real integral or even visible quality. I guarantee you that if you lined up every woman that you and your cohorts are clawing each other's eyes out to possess, that I would not find a single one that I would even want to have a cup of coffee with, much less own, or be. Most of the women you find physically attractive are such that I wouldn't even want to stick a gag in their mouths and have an afternoon of meaningless sex with them, without having to listen to their vapid chatter. You've vividly described the women you find attractive before; they are the exact same women that I usually find pitiful at best and outright repulsive and off-putting at worst.
quote:
Studies have shown that certain toddlers tend to be more liked, respected, and sought out by other toddlers - even before age 2. These same toddlers tend to be the children at age 6 that are the most popular, the most successful.
The most successful at what? How is "success" defined at an age like 2 or 6, when people do not perform any economic or social function, have sex, pass exams, compete in sports, or have any other genuinely objective measure of their worth? People who perform "studies" like this sound as if they are seriously suspect as scientists.
quote:
These children tend to be the same young adults that tend to have the best success rates in the real world. Sure, there are exceptions, but the bell curve is reasonably tight.
Again--success at what? Most of the young adults who possess the two qualities that seem to matter to you--physical attractiveness by the narrow standards of Western culture and the social opportunities that go with it--were not necessarily the people who were doing best in the classroom or on standardized tests, who won the most scholarships, had the highest-paying or most prestigious careers later in life, or the largest and healthiest families, the most varied and interesting sex lives, traveled the furthest, created the most/best art, were bravest and most victorious in military exploits or business dealings, etc.. The one realm where they seem to have really excelled was in having high school-to college (and sometimes professional) careers as athletes (for boys) and as body-workers (models, dancers, sex workers) for the girls. In every other respect they were lamentably average or even sub-par.
In short, it seems to me that this version of "success" you are invoking is very nebulous and pretty meaningless in any kind of larger scheme.
As for the qualities you mention that really are integral to the soul and probably based on interior resources--like confidence, or a good immune system and mental/emotional stability--sometimes the Cute Kids had these qualities and sometimes they are miserably lacking in them. This was especially true of the females, who had a much higher percentage chance to raped and molested as children based on their Cute Factor.
The one commonality that kids who have that golden aura of confidence and mental health around them--Cute or Not-- is probably simply that they weren't seriously abused or neglected as children. Came from stable families and weren't mistreated within their own families first, and then in their social environment at school.
It's sad that such people appear so "special", but they do--if only because the majority of people in our society are so lamentably battered.
As for the rest of this stuff--about how "special" people win at games of chance without cheating and other pseudo-mystical "magical thinking" mumbo-jumbo--I am sorry, but your perception of people you consider your betters appears to be highly coloured by fantasy and to have no testable relationship to reality that I can see. In my own experience, the difference between successful people and non-successful people has never been innate talent or luck--often people who wind up being failures are amply supplied with both--nor any other factor outside of their own control. There is something special about people who are "winners" in life, I agree; the one quality that they all seem to share is PERSISTANCE, and this is usually fueled by FAITH.
It's not that "special" people are luckier than everyone else; it's that they make the most of their luck and they keep going even when luck fails them. It's not that they're never interrupted when they speak; it's that when people do interrupt them, they raise their voices and speak again. It's not that they don't get talked down to; it's that they don't hunch over to become a person who deserves to be talked down to. It's not that they always get what they want; it's that they learn to love what they have and USE what they have, rather than stupidly and pointlessly churning their guts over what is out of reach. It's not that no one ever questions their confidence or thinks ill of them; it's that they never choose to agree with people who do.
It would be nice to believe that "special" people live blessed or "special" lives, but that's not the case. They have just as many bad breaks, flaws and opportunities to fail as anyone else. They just don't choose to be losers.
< Message edited by ShaktiSama -- 9/26/2009 2:28:28 PM >
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"Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
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RE: Not "Feeling Special" at all - 
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