I Might be a Derelict Savant

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Hi All!

I took a break from WP for about a week because I said some nasty things on here for which I promptly apologized, then placed myself in "time-out" for a bit. Now I'm back, and after reading a bit from "Prodigies" in Oliver Sacks' book An Anthropologist on Mars, I have an issue that I'm struggling to deal with right now: I think I might be a "derelict savant." Allow me to explain my background:

At roughly age six or seven, I was diagnosed with PDD-NOS (I'm not going to lie and say it was some sort of specific type of autism, like Asperger's). I was able to speak at age two, and I had read and memorized all of Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? and could recite it accurately by memory, although, as my mother has pointed out, it just seemed to be rote memorization - there was little comprehension involved.

Fast forward a bit to age five or so, and I was able to whistle the themes of a lot of film scores accurately and by memory (one of my favorites with which I would frequently be preoccupied was John Williams' "Journey to the Island" theme from Jurassic Park, which, incidently, I've been obsessing over lately once again 17 years later). This is important, because it marks the beginning, as far as I can remember, of my obsession with music, and how I almost became successful with it at college, but more on that later.

At seven I had impeccable grammar and spelling, and what few mistakes I would make (with words like "snack," which I spelled "snak" once in second grade), I would not make them twice if I could help it. Also in second grade, when I would read out loud for the class, I would try to use as much intonation and expression as possible, pausing briefly between sentences separated by period, and pronouncing as many words correctly as possible, and when my peers would read, I noticed that they would mispronounce several words which seemed annoyingly easy to me, and they sounded flat and monotonous, as if totally apathetic and disinterested in the reading. So I would correct them - out loud, in front of everyone, giving absolutely no thought to it whatsoever; it sort of just came automatically to me. They found it annoying, and my teachers found it especially annoying, and would tell me to be quiet, to which I would reply that they wouldn't learn if no one corrected them. Also, at this time, I had a pretty awkward gait, somewhat of an absent gaze at times (I think), and I would stim a lot (in the form of wrist-flapping).

At eleven, I was placed in a somewhat prestigious group at school called the "Young Scholars Program," which was basically an after-school extra-curricular activity used to study an academic subject, write a paper on it, and give a couple of presentations on it for an audience of classmates, faculty, and parents of students from the community. I chose human evolution as my subject, met with a mentor at CSU to help me with the subject, and read a bunch of college textbooks on Australopithecus afarensis and Homo erectus, and so forth, ad nauseum. When I met with my mentor, my music teacher, who conducted the "Young Scholars" group, said that it was amazing the conversations that we would have - it was like we were speaking a foreign language with each other! Eventually, I wrote up my paper, presented a tri-fold at my future high school (unbeknownst to me at the time), with casts of specimens' skulls that my mentor had lent to me, and I presented a power-point presentation at school. A lot of the adults there were amazed at how professional the presentation seemed to be, and how I could pronounce some of the tougher specimen names, like Australopithecus, with such ease.

At thirteen, I was recommended by my middle school counselor - I think - for the Junior National Student Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. It was a pretty great experience, and I don't remember anyone else from my school going. When I first got to the hotel, we had some competitive group activities that we were competing in, one of them being an allele matrix for wolf eye color. I elected to do it for my group (since I had just learned how to compute allele matrices in seventh grade Biology), and I finished faster than the other group's representative could even get one or two squares done. The lady facilitating the other group, jaw dropped, simply exclaimed "Oh, crap!"

At about fifteen or so, I was one of the top Spanish students in my sophomore class, and I gave a presentation on Salvador Dalí, which I wrote entirely in Spanish (and had to ad-hoc-re-translate into English as I gave the presentation because everyone was supposed to give their presentations in English, something I didn't realize ahead of time).

Later on at eighteen, right after I graduated high school, I took Russian immediately after enrolling in a community college (Вы говорите по-русски? Если так, вам нравится это?), and my instructor thought I was her best student there. During my second semester in the class, I attempted to read Братья Карамазовы (The Brothers Karamazov) by Dostoevskii in Russian, succeeding in reading only a hundred pages or so (mostly for speaking/pronunciation purposes more so than actual reading comprehension).

And finally, at nineteen, when I enrolled in the Adams State University music program, I got 100% on my theory diagnostic test while simultaneously demonstrating my ability of absolute pitch to my then future professor, who remarked that I was the only student in 12 years whom he had known to have absolute pitch.

Now, at twenty-two, I'm jobless, almost three grand in-debt to ASU with not much money on me, my girlfriend of three years has dumped me, I'm nearly homeless, and things aren't looking too bright (I've really gotten on my mom's bad side, so living with her is becoming less of an option with each passing day, but I haven't found another place yet). I failed MISERABLY at ASU, only redeeming myself a little last summer with two A's and a B, which really did nothing in the end because my financial aid status was still "revoked," and so I went into debt and had to take a break from school in order to pay that off over the next year. Basically where I think it went wrong is that my savant skills in music went uncultivated throughout much of my life, and I was left scattered all over the place with no clear sense of what I wanted to do with my life (until I was 17, when I discovered The Who from an anthology of sheet music of theirs and decided I wanted to study music in college). Also, depression and anxiety set in around 15 (quite bad timing, really, as I've never had a driver's license or car because of this anxiety). It doesn't help that I've attempted suicide by drug overdose a few times since 18, which I think has impaired my memory a bit.

So what do you guys think about my hypothesis? Was I a derelict savant who grew up in the wrong intellectual and social atmosphere, or simply a prodigious child/adolescent with potential for genius who simply lost his way?

Personally, to me it doesn't matter whether you're a derelict savant or a child prodigy / child star.

What matters is, what steps will you take to get your life on track now?

I am hoping that you're not of the mind that the only thing you can do to make a living or at least pay the bills for now absolutely has to involve music?

I know two guys ... one who owns his own high-tech company and lives in a mansion, the other who works at a TV station and is something of a local celebrity doing news reports on the weekend. Guess what? Both of them are in bands, and play on the weekends. Both of the bands are really good, too. The guy in the mansion plays the violin and has a baby grand piano. The TV guy has an amazing guitar collection.

Then there's me ... I taught myself Spanish when I was young. Went on to major in it, got certified to be a teacher ... and then decided I didn't want to be a Spanish teacher after all. Now I'm working at an office job for an international company, where I sometimes am called on to do Spanish - English translation, and more often work with another language that I never studied in school, but my language skills and abilities are such that I can handle it, and enjoy it.

Here's hoping you can use your talents in a flexible way so that you can both make a living and pursue your dream.

Any way you slice it, it's going to come down to you doing some hard work. Raw talent only gets you so far.

(I'm also thinking of my adventures in the art world ... but that's a topic for another thread, or post.)

I'm not saying to give up your dreams ... I'm saying think of different options for living them.

And since you like aiming for excellence, here's a blog recommendation:

Seth Godin

Click Here to Read Seth Godin's Blog

Type his name into Google, read his blog. It's truly inspirational,
designed for creatives, self-starters, entrepreneurs.

And as Seth Godin would say, "Go. Make. Something. Happen."

...

That's definitely a good question I should be asking myself.



To an extent, yes. I've applied to a local place called "Spotlight" and to Guitar Center recently, although I held a temp job at a pharmaceutical company in manufacturing for 6 weeks before I got laid off, and I've been applying to several other places since then (including a second temp agency).



You're absolutely right, and that's precisely what screwed me over in college - I grew complacent and arrogant, and stopped working hard. It was only when I started working hard again (taking notes during class, studying, doing homework assignments, etc.) that I started doing well again. I went from maybe one A in a semester and several F's to two A's and a B last summer in Intro to Environmental Science, Sustainability 101, and Intro to Philosophy (which was my favorite of the three). But by then it was already too late, and the damage had been done - I had to leave and now I'm spending the next year working and paying off $300 monthly bills to my university, all because I took for granted the wonderful opportunity I had there. But, it's like you said, "what steps will you take to get your life on track now?"



I'm guessing a lot of people end up having to do this, huh? It's not as simple as just "living the dream"...you have to "shovel s***" first to get there.



Thanks for that, I checked it out a bit. Interesting stuff.

I finished the story "Prodigies" in Oliver Sacks' An Anthropologist on Mars, and I've decided I'm probably not a derelict savant, or a savant at all for that matter - just a lexically and musically gifted autistic man. If anything, I'm more akin to someone like Dr. Grandin than I am to someone like Stephen Wiltshire, the subject of "Prodigies". I just thought that as a child I was very much like a savant - my grandfather even told me that he thought I would become a math savant later in life - but reflecting on it more I was a bit too socially competent/confident to be considered an autistic-savant, but simply a gifted aspie wasn't out of the question. Plus, my memory doesn't work nearly on the same level as an autistic-savant - just a little bit better than non-autistic people, albeit only at certain times and depending on the subject.

In short, I don't really know exactly what the hell I am, but if I spend the rest of my life trying to figure it out, I won't be able to do anything meaningful and enjoyable with my life - I'll look back on it with nothing but regret, because I'll have wasted my time trying to figure out who and what I was, instead of just living.

Wise words - and at 22, you still have a lot of time to discover who you are, just by living

I found a quote that expresses it even more wisely, clearly and concisely for me:

"The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination." - Carl Rogers

I was looking for the quote about life being the journey, not the destination (which I thought was Aesop's quote, but it's Ralph Waldo Emerson's). Rogers' quote seems to explain it better to me, though.

There is a similar lack of correlation between being a member of Mensa and financial success.

I think you can find your way, but you have to actively try to do so.
It sucks to have a big debt, but there seems nothing to do about that but to pay it off in small amounts.
The main thing may be to figure out what you want to do and apply yourself to it.
Or perhaps you need to make some money to be better financially.
But I think that you just need to actively move in the direction you want to go.
That might help things with your mother.
The main thing to take from your past successes is that you have the smarts and abilities to do well.

I studied German and English linguistics at a local state university and did very well. I had only one year of high school experience learning a foreign language (German). They placed me in 300 level German courses during my first year there. My second year I studied in Germany as an exchange student; I could speak fluent and the locals were impressed. I also govoryu malo po-russkiy, but very little. I also speak Serbian because I dated a girl from there for about 2 years from the start of my study abroad program. I also know some Spanish because my ex wife was from Spain. Anyway, I maintained a 4.0 in college, tutored several students while I was there and decided to become a teacher. I am state certified to teach here and in a neighboring state. And I did teach for a year, but it just wasn't for me.

I am a case manager for adults with disabilities and I make pretty good money. On the side I am a bass player in a successful cover band. Life couldn't be better. I just moved in a couple months ago with my girlfriend and she is very respectful and understanding of my disability.

When my ex wife divorced me, a big reason was her inability to cope with the symptoms of my disability. I felt like I was never going to be successful or find somebody who would truly love me. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Just keep moving forward and you will make it through. In the future you will look back on these times and laugh just like me.

I bet! Sounds like you have a real passion for language, especially German.



Quick tip: if you want to type in Russian, and you have a Windows-based computer, you can download the РУС language pack (with your choice of traditional or mnemonic, "ЙЦУКЕН" or "ЯШЕРТЫ", and then switch between ENG and РУС using Win + Spacebar). Also, "Говорю мало по-русский" is incorrect - what I think you mean to say is "Говорю немного по-русски" ("немного" means "not much" or "a little", and notice how "русский" becomes "русски" because it's adverbial in this instance (because of "по-"; I believe it might be prepositional case).



Awesome, always love to meet other players (I play guitar and sing myself).



Glad to hear that! I had a girlfriend who was understanding as well, but then again she was most likely autistic as well, and I was the one who ended up being misunderstanding because of her idiosyncracies and mannerisms. I feel really ashamed for it now...



Yeah, if I'm not dead or homeless, lol.