Exploring The Interplay of Passion and Talent While Making Career Decisions

This problem has been on my mind for quite a while now, and I haven't received any satisfactory answers. It is related to the intersection of Psychology and Education, and the role of passion and talent in choosing a career that is suitable for you. Would like to know your take on it. We cannot deny the major role innate ability plays in whether we succeed in our ambitions or not. The problem arises when there is a mismatch between our interests and perceived abilities.

One major assumption I made in this post is that there is even something like a constant unchanging innate natural ability, or a g-factor. I am also interested in Spearman's theory of multiple intelligences, but I don't know which one is the correct theory as the researchers seem to be split on it, and I can't see any way to reconcile both of them, but it might be possible and it also might be possible that in truth the solution is something that includes both or something completely different. But I assume g-factor to be true for the purpose of our present discussion, and it doesn't mean that I believe in it more than the others.

My next set of questions explores the situations that may arise when there is a mismatch between a person's interests and abilities. I'd like to clarify that these are purely philosophical questions, and in reality things may be more complicated or just different, something we won't know till we develop accurate measurements for things like interest and aptitude using techniques from mathematics and neurobiology.

The problem only occurs when a person is interested in something that doesn't fit their abilities. For example, a student who is good at mathematics could choose to be an artist, but a student who find mathematics hard but is motivated by the idea of being a mathematician may face some difficulties.

We cannot deny the major role innate ability plays in whether we succeed in our ambitions or not. The problem arises when there is a mismatch between our interests and perceived abilities. In such a case we have to decide whether we should disregard our own estimate of our abilities and past experiences of failure and push our limits. If we do so, is the opportunity cost of doing something more aligned with your abilities (but not interests) worth giving up for something that we are likely not to be talented at based on our past experiences?

Even if we do somehow manage to get somewhat better, would we ever be capable of attaining the same levels of success as someone who is naturally talented, or are we doomed to mediocrity, and no matter how hard we try our biological constraints are going to intervene? One possible answer that occurred to me is that it's better to do something you derive pleasure from, so even if you aren't really successful by the conventional standards, you get to enjoy the work you are doing; even if you have to work harder on it than someone who is more gifted at it than you, you enjoy working hard on it because it doesn't even seem like work to you.

But do you think this solution is better than one in which you don't follow your interests but instead follow your aptitude to contribute to society at expense of sacrificing your interests, assuming that not working on your interests doesn't affect your performance on the task that's suited to your aptitude?

In such a case we have to decide whether we should disregard our own estimate of our abilities and past experiences of failure and push our limits. If we do so, is the opportunity cost of doing something more aligned with your abilities (but not interests) worth giving up for something that we are likely not to be talented at based on our past experiences? Even if we do somehow manage to get somewhat better, would we ever be capable of attaining the same levels of success as someone who is naturally talented, or are we doomed to mediocrity, and no matter how hard we try our biological constraints are going to intervene?

My current best solution to this is to do what you are passionate about, because if you're passionate about it you won't stop even if you find the problems hard, in fact you would enjoy working on them, and you also won't care if you're performing worse than anyone else, because you would have done this anyway because you like doing this, even if that person didn't exist at all.

it's better to do something you derive pleasure from, so even if you aren't really successful by the conventional standards, you get to enjoy the work you are doing; even if you have to work harder on it than someone who is more gifted at it than you, you enjoy working hard on it because it doesn't even seem like work to you. But do you think this solution is better than one in which you don't follow your interests but instead follow your aptitude to contribute to society at expense of sacrificing your interests, assuming that not working on your interests doesn't affect your performance on the task that's suited to your aptitude?

I don't care if I am a bad piano player because I love the sound of the piano and piano music, and I won't care if I met some child prodigy with Einstein levels of IQ is interested in the same areas of research as I am, in fact I'd love to meet such a person, because I could learn something from them and it would be great to have such a person for the progress of the field.

Now let's talk about some ways of learning and thinking that might be helpful in teaching you how to think better; the ways of thinking that seem to come naturally to some, but that could be learned by anyone given enough time and motivation. There's learning, and then there's meta-learning or learning how to learn. Anyone can memorize facts and regurgitate them on exams to get a passing grade, but it's an altogether different thing to have an intuitive understanding of a concept to be able to explain it to a five year old or apply it in real-life situations, novel contexts and to different disciplines. This is the stuff that is the most useful yet the least focused on in traditional educational institutions.

Suppose that by using the scientific method gain a very clear understanding of everything there is to know about the world; I am able to use my scientific lens to examine every event objectively in terms of the processes that led to it, and have complete knowledge of the complete chain of cause and effect.

How would this change my perception of the world, and would it differ at all on how I view the events from those of others who are not trained in such a way? Take the example of the new year celebrations; it's just the world completing a revolution and involves the mental construct of time as well as social construct and herd mentality of viewing it as festive season, nothing wrong with that, but would I feel less emotional affect or enthusiasm and intuitive gratification or sense of joy from the fact that the Earth just completed a revolution and we have arrived at a new stage according to how we have compartmentalized time and everyone around me seems to be so happy; that is due to my objective understanding of the universe free of human bias and constructs? Or would I just have the scientific and philosophical knowledge and understand it at a conscious level but feel the same joy as someone completely ignorant of any such thing would?

Let's take a physicist or mathematician for instance- he's been learning and teaching Physics and Mathematics for such a long time, subjects that have been repeatedly shown to shape your thought processes in a way to be able to scrutinize each and every detail of any event in detail and from multiple perspectives, and attempt to mathematically capture that which has eluded humans for such a long time and use your creativity to make new discoveries. Do you believe that your training in physics and mathematics would changed his brain's way of thinking and perceiving the world in any significant way? If so, how? And how would it be different from before he started training in physics?

As far as I know, physics attempts to study the fundamental nature of reality itself, to the extent that our current mathematical and computational tools allow us to study the universe as objectively as possible, and if I'm not mistaken, it forces you to think in terms of probabilities rather than absolutes, because humans by default have a simplistic way of thinking about everything that doesn't require much cognitive effort, but by the nature of your discipline you must have been required to break out of all human bias to the best of your abilities and try to comprehend the world in as accurate a way as it's possible. Would that affect him in your everyday life and how he views the world?

Or are the intuitions and the irrational part of my brain so deeply ingrained into my human nature that I would never be able to get completely rid of it? Do you think with adequate training in the right way anyone can learn to not just shape their thinking skills and conscious thought processes, but their very intuitions at a deeper level similar to those who seem to be naturally gifted at it from the start? And what about younger children, can they do it more easily than adults because of their neuroplasticity?

My next question is about how students spend their free time. I have this obsession with being productive and not overindulging in activities that don't contribute to my goals. Yes, it's good to relax every now and then and play games and watch movies and tv shows, but I am not comfortable with the time commitment it involves, and more importantly I constantly feel guilty for not utilizing my time in a better way; I'm not able to enjoy it much and feel like I'd derive more satisfaction by doing something else, hence I don't do any of the activities I just mentioned.

I have started thinking that they can't be blamed for their preferences. Riddle me this, if one kid derives the same pleasure from solving math problems as another who consumes mindless media, can the latter be blamed? I am myself trying to strike a balance, find that golden mean between the extremes. If you always chase your goals you'll soon forget to enjoy the journey, the most important component of the whole process, and never be satisfied with what you achieve. So I guess it's about choosing your goals wisely and knowing when and how much to pursue it. I'm still mostly exploring, but I happen to not be okay with not having a goal or at least an action plan at all, so I'm just trying stuff and hoping it all starts making sense with time.

Yes, if they are made to see how they are wasting their precious time maybe they'd understand, but are we just going to ignore the essential natural intuitive component?

But I'm disappointed too. I have just decided to not let them pull me down and just keep doing what I am doing. But why are some students more driven than others? It's also the case that the same person may not be motivated about one thing as much as another, and some students are not motivated at all and spend their time on useless activities. Why is this the case, and what are the processes in the brain that lead to this? Could we change it, and should we?

Take for instance solving math problems. Yes, it's hard for everyone, except prodigies. But if you are really curious about understanding how it works, if you can intuitively feel the inherent beauty of math, and derive an actual sense of accomplishment from solving hard problems, then solving problems won't seem like work at all.

On the other hand say a person who's inclined towards the fine arts and can't be a great mathematician, and more importantly, doesn't want to be a mathematician. But he is forced to study math either by societal pressure or for hopes of financial stability. And he thinks yeah it's causing me discomfort but that's how humans grow. And he only does it despite the discomfort not realizing that the discomfort could be a sign to explore other disciplines and find his real calling, where he could feel more satisfied and realize his full potential. All the while not stopping his journey of self growth.

So I guess you should have a growth mindset and try to push your limits as best as you can, and obviously not fall for instant gratification, but you should follow a framework that would allow you to form an accurate estimate of your abilities and interests and know how much you can and should push yourself. The optimal amount after which it'd not be worth it, considering the alternatives. What that framework could be, I have no clue. I just have a rough idea of how that could look like.

It's also possible that every subject taught in an interesting way could make it interesting to students, and the great thing is that in this age of information you don't even need to depend on educational institutions for that; you have so many online resources such as textbooks, lectures, courses, websites, forums, magazines and blogs you can learn from. All you need is an internet connection and motivation.

One more question I've been curious about is how language shapes your ways of thinking. If a child is exposed to a language different from her mother tongue at a critical period that's around the age of 5 years, they are able to pick it up more easily than those who don't have any such exposure. But we also know that language is not the best way to think and talk about the universe, and it has many flaws.

So what if children are taught the language of mathematics, logic and programming at that age, in a way that presents it just like any other language, such as the Wolfram language? Would it shape their thinking skills later in life, and enable them to come up with and comprehend the concepts of physics and mathematics much more easily than their peers who didn't have any such exposure? It's a question worth investigating.

In this blogpost I've only been focusing on possible methods to increase ability to the level of your interests. But it could also be possible that with a strong enough interest you could actually achieve a satisfactory level of expertise, though I seriously doubt that a person with an intellectual disability and dyscalculia could realistically hope to become a mathematician; yes they can, but it's not clear whether all the effort it would involve would be worth it if we compare that to the alternative of doing something that they're not as interested in but have a natural talent for and could make greater contributions to, like maybe cinema or music.

I have another alternative, which may be a bit controversial, so try to consider this with an open mind: What if we find the neural basis of intuition and emotions, and tweak a person's interests such that they feel stronger emotional affect for a profession they previously had no interest in, but very little affect for one they were earlier passionate about? We could also tweak their cognitive abilities, but currently it seems to be easier to shape people's preferences than their natural ability; interests seem to be more malleable and prone to change than such personality traits, but it may turn out to be possible in the future.

The alternative I described might at first seem like killing a person's desires or motivation, but just think of it for a moment. The vast majority of the people don't have any sort of mismatch between their abilities and interests. It's very rare to find someone strongly motivated or passionate about any topic. There are the people who are bright but not driven, the people who are neither too bright nor too driven, and people who are both, and there would be no problem at all for anyone who falls into any of these three categories.

But for the people who are driven but not too bright, it's only unnecessary suffering and constant unsatisfaction. Now if we actually tweak their intuitions by manipulating their brains using some sort of neurotechnological, biological or pharmacological intervention, they won't even feel like they lost something. They would just feel like almost everyone does, and might even feel like they just got rid of some disease that prevented them from enjoying their life and be satisfied with their current situation and at peace with their current self.

Being satisfied is not a good thing if you're a perfectionist or wish to improve yourself and grow into a better person, but the suffering cause by too much of it is also something that must not be neglected. Like all things, this too requires a balance and too much of it is problematics. Also the suffering caused by excessive amounts of drive seem to outweigh any effects of the loss of future satisfaction or loss of drive, especially when the likelihood of achieving your goals was very low prior to the modification.

And this is why this ought to be a last resort in case nothing works and it's highly improbable that a person would be able to achieve their goals. I also failed to take into account the great sense of satisfaction or eudaimonia, the feeling of achieving self-actualization, that a motivated person would derive from working towards their goals, and the potential contributions that could make to society. Together both of these factors may as well be more than enough to negate the suffering and make the option of neural modification a bad choice.

Oh, and while we're on it, I'll take this opportunity to ask some similar questions applied to personality psychology. Are we supposed to accept our personality as it is and make all our decisions around it, or should we push ourselves to mold it according to the expectations of your society or peers, like trying to be more outgoing and extroverted to meet new people and form new friendships?

Perhaps trying to change our natural disposition could lead to dissatisfaction. Or maybe we can change with a little effort and meet awesome people we would never have met otherwise.

Suppose a person prefers to be completely self-sufficient, gives up on society and goes somewhere in a cabin in the woods somewhere far away from civilization, like the North Pond hermit of Maine. But we are social animals; Social isolation would make most of us feel lonely and may even result in cognitive decline.

But our intuitions could be misguided; it's unclear when they should be relied on. According to Dan Gilbert's research on affective forecasting, we are bad at predicting how we would feel in the future. We can try different things and see what we like the most, but isn't passion something that changes with age. In that case, it would be imprudent to base your career choices on it.

Also while I'm at it, MBTI is a very inaccurate measure of personality, which is much more complex than that because people can't be put into labels and display traits on a spectrum that differs from individual to individual and even from situation to situation for the same individual. The more you know.

I was aware of this when I was evaluating my research interests and making some important career decisions, so I came up with an action plan that was based on the scientific method in the way that it's aim was to back up my intuitions and base my decisions on reliable external evidence rather than just intuitions, so that even if at a later period my interests or goals change, I don't regret my decisions because it'd be irrational to judge the decisions by anything other the information that was available to me at the time I made it, and all the evidence points towards this being the best decision. That's a topic for another blog post.

Focus shouldn't be on memorizing and rote-learning (something that is encouraged in the Indian education system which teaches with the aim of preparing students to regurgitate information to get a passing grade) in today's golden age of information, and trying to develop skills and ways of thinking that would actually help you in your life and academic pursuits and also be more relevant when you join the workforce.

I have a few more ideas about how a curriculum could be designed in a way that actually teaches students how to think, and also how to learn and why, with habits that would help them for life and help them discover their true values, abilities, interests and come up with their own guiding principles that would enable them to grow into educated, socially-conscious and responsible adults.

I noticed that schools are good at killing the motivation of the few students who manage have it in such an environment in the first place, but I was thinking more along the lines of how we could teach such that every student feels the sense of satisfaction and genuine curiosity to learn more and try to understand the fundamental processes governing the universe, as well as have a significant positive impact on society through their projects.

I don't get to see that around me, but I believe that if education is done right, it could achieve this seemingly ambitious goal, and much more, because any subject taught in the right way along with it's why and how can be made interesting for anyone, and there is a lot of hidden potential that could be enabled to flourish only if they're provided with the adequate opportunities and resources, and later go on to make major contributions to science, arts and society.

I have a few more ideas about how this process could be speeded up with psychological and other similar interventions, but this message is already getting too long and I would keep that for later if you're interested in learning more.

It's easier to learn general concepts than specific instances, so I have been practicing trying to generalize different specific instances or events from my everyday experiences, and applying those general principles to other domains of my life to discover connections I had previously not noticed. But the essential component that's left out in the education system here is the experience part. It's too theory-oriented, and students take longer to grasp a concept intuitively unless they experience it themselves, and are allowed to observe it using all their senses and be allowed to play around with it, imagine counterfactuals and what ifs.

This is also one of my academic goals, to uncover hidden connections and analogies between seemingly unrelated fields and apply tools from one discipline to problems of another. It also complements my desire to not restrict myself to a single discipline, and read widely to learn a broad range of topics.

Focus should be more on the motivation and drive of students than their scores, which is something that is currently lacking in the Indian education system, and that I've also talked about to senior members of the academic and curriculum designing committee at my university, and that my new project aims to address. A number can't determine what you are capable of, and there are several external factors out of a student's control that could influence their score on a theory exam taken on a single day. It's ridiculous to sort students into programs and universities based on that number, with no consideration for their motivation, future plans or extracurriculars.

Moreover, I find that the vast majority of students are not too driven here (and that's perfectly fine but that shouldn't hold motivated ones back) and I think that system is to blame in part, but I think that the students should make an effort too, or at least the students who are motivated must have some like-minded companions. I have been complimented by several researchers in my field of interest I reached out to that I seem to be very motivated and that I must not lose it, and even though I consider myself to be immune to external influence in that regard and not let myself be affected by such things, I can see how a motivated person could be suppressed in a similar environment elsewhere, and how we could be losing on bright students with a potential to achieve great things.

Finally, a question I'm very interested in investigating- can playing chess improve real life strategic ability? (Some recent studies suggest the same brain areas light up in both situations, so maybe.) Is it possible to improve short-term working memory by playing dual-n-back? (Conflicting evidence, but most of it suggests that it does not.) Does playing video games improve motor skills and reaction time? Does studying advanced mathematics increase abstract logical and thinking skills? What cognitive skills could be trained by activities that allow skill transfer?

I'd like to know any comments you are interested in sharing.