Do you have any talents not appreciated by Society?

Maybe I could be a writer. Do you have any talents which are not valued by society?

I have told lots about myself in other threads. But does anyone else have talents they have lost, or talents not appreciated?

I have some talents I am sure, I have found ways to express them in ways that are appreciated by my select group but not society in general. I have always wondered what my talents would be best suited for if they had been nurtured from a young age. I would imagine only a lucky few of us really find their true niche in life. My most appreciated talent s my ability to squeak the most power out of a piece of wood into a bow and arrow.

When I was a child, sweeping the driveway was one of my chores. We had a long driveway, and I was lazy and recalcitrant. I therefore spent hours perfecting the art of balancing the broom on my hand.

To this day, I can balance brooms, yardsticks, and random fallen branches on my hands. I can hop the stick from hand to hand and from finger to finger. I can balance it on my foot, kick it in the air, and catch it on my hand. I can balance it on my chin and on my nose. If the stick is crooked, I can make it pirouette on my palm. Sometimes I can balance it, toss it in the air so it flips over, and catch it balancing on the other end.

But do they regard me with awe? Did this talent ever get me chicks? Do they shower me with money?

NOOOOOOOOO

When I worked with autistic people, I was very good at communicating with low-language people. Sometimes a person would repeat sometimes, and even his parents couldn’t figure out what he was trying to communicate, but it would dawn on me pretty quickly. Got to the point that at gatherings, sometimes autistic people themselves would seek me out if the person with them wasn’t getting whatever they were trying to get through. Never for anything earth-shaking-- they usually wanted a particular food to eat that wasn’t being offered, or they were scared of an animal someone had brought, or they wanted to go to another part of the park where they knew there were swings, stuff like that. But a lot of the time people would dismiss something they couldn’t understand as “stimming,” or “echolalia,” but it would make perfect sense to me.

I can balance on a rolling log/barrel. It’s not especially useful, although it did shock the hell out of a lumberjack that challenged me to a contest, figuring it would be an easy win :).

Not much use other than that.

I can also read really, really fast, but that really only impresses my daughter (she likes to watch my eyes whip from side to side) and bugs the heck out of my co-worker.

I can snatch $8 worth of quarters off my elbow. It’s fun to do in bars but society as a whole doesn’t seem to be impressed.

I was once very good draftsman, capable of drawing single-stroke Helvetica, in ink, to scale. A useful skill to lay out signs.

Poysyn, I thought all Canadian girls could do that. Er, the log rolling.

I can remember things that are too obscure or “useless” even for jeopardy questions …

I am only going by the look of shock when I knocked the guy off the log into the water, apparently not. :slight_smile:

To quote Chandler Bing

I’m not great at advice. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?

Thank you. I am not severely autistic, but moderately autistic. I can talk but I can not fit well into society.

Most autistic people have talents.

I can talk in riddles.

Maybe I could have been a great author.

I can read almost anybody’s handwriting. Doctors, lawyers. (Well, especially doctors.) Engineers usually have pretty good handwriting, but if they don’t, I can read it anyway.

This may or may not be valued by society, but it sure isn’t well recompensed, at least, not monetarily.

That is a talent. Maybe you could be a great detective.

How old are you? Maybe you could still be a great author. Some authors haven’t been published until later in life.

None of my talents are appreciated by society. By the same token, much of society isn’t appreciated by me.

Fitting into “society” is SO 20th century. You fit in here fine, in meta-society. Accept it, ignore the society you were born into, and enjoy your existence a step beyond meat-life.

Still don’t mean I always have to agree with you, though. Us disembodied typists have opinions too. y’know. :wink:

Thank you very much! If 95% of people find my art offensive, but 5% buy my works and are my fans, it is a huge success. If I am not noticed by anyone, or if I have 10 people who agree with me, it is nonscence.

I can turn red traffic lights to green by staring at them. Sometimes it takes a few minutes, but it never fails.

People don’t seem to appreciate this talent nearly as much as it deserves.

I disagree, you are NOT a disembodied typist, you are a collection of pixels on my screen, sometimes blue, sometimes black sometimes lavender and occasionally part of you is green.:smiley:

I had to read this twice to, a most excellent talent sir, and a wish for a long and hale and hearty life to you for having said talent.

I can piss people off by making them laugh in the middle of an argument and disrupting the flow.
only works irl though.