[HN Gopher] Find More Ways to Be an Outsider
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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
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