I was taught to read at 3 years of age and went to a top academic school and university. At age 5 I used to think it was weird that kids at school needed their parents to read to them - why didn't they just read by themselves? At dinner I was expected to discuss political and philosophical ideas, leaders and events with my parents and their friends who were academics and top business people - this was from the age of at least 13/14 years old. I was given books as presents and had access to my parents large library of reading material.
I was expected to win academic prizes at school - that was seen as normal. And it was seen as cool to win because people wanted to scoop up those prizes at the end of year award ceremony held in a big music auditorium. At university my peers were all extremely smart and competitive and intellectually curious about almost everything. They all took on prestigious jobs after graduating.
I never really considered any of this as out of the ordinary until I joined the workforce around age 23/24. I had grown up with the quote "small minds talk about people, greater minds talk about events, and the best minds talk about ideas". Suddenly everyone seemed to be in the first category and I found it really difficult to join in on the chat as I wasn't used to conversations on this level. I'd never watched reality TV or soaps and felt completely stumped - why is any of this even of interest to anyone ?
I came across adults who couldn't spell and who had very limited understanding of world geography, history, politics and economics. They didn't know how the political system operated in their own country (i.e. how voting works, separation of powers etc), or how to evaluate a company's value on the stock market or just basic one liners like "what was the Cold War about", "what is compound interest", "what is the difference between a noun, a verb and an adjective". Some of them had read barely 15-20 books in their entire lifetimes.
I had to come to terms with the idea that this new reality was more normal than what I had grown up thinking as normal. Felt like stepping into some parallel bizarro universe.
I was expected to win academic prizes at school - that was seen as normal. And it was seen as cool to win because people wanted to scoop up those prizes at the end of year award ceremony held in a big music auditorium. At university my peers were all extremely smart and competitive and intellectually curious about almost everything. They all took on prestigious jobs after graduating.
I never really considered any of this as out of the ordinary until I joined the workforce around age 23/24. I had grown up with the quote "small minds talk about people, greater minds talk about events, and the best minds talk about ideas". Suddenly everyone seemed to be in the first category and I found it really difficult to join in on the chat as I wasn't used to conversations on this level. I'd never watched reality TV or soaps and felt completely stumped - why is any of this even of interest to anyone ?
I came across adults who couldn't spell and who had very limited understanding of world geography, history, politics and economics. They didn't know how the political system operated in their own country (i.e. how voting works, separation of powers etc), or how to evaluate a company's value on the stock market or just basic one liners like "what was the Cold War about", "what is compound interest", "what is the difference between a noun, a verb and an adjective". Some of them had read barely 15-20 books in their entire lifetimes.
I had to come to terms with the idea that this new reality was more normal than what I had grown up thinking as normal. Felt like stepping into some parallel bizarro universe.