Not bragging, not being self-deprecating: there are plenty of cases where I can't do things ordinary people generally can, and few things I honestly feel good at.
There are lots of things I can't do, but if I had to sum up the reason in one phrase, I'd say lack of focus and passion. Not only studying and sports — mid-conversation my brain often just stops.
That's exactly why people who can do what I can't impress me. People who deliver results in sports or music, who keep motivation in tough daily work environments, who actually pass hard qualification exams. They say you'll get there if you keep at it — but I can't, so I think they're amazing.
If there's something I'm better at than others, it's probably strong curiosity. (Though I can't execute on it and keep going.)
Not the kind of curiosity that digs until you've mastered something — more the type that, once I understand how a mechanism works or what the backstory was, is already satisfied and happy with that.
That half-baked temperament has no real value, but looking around, people who can keep making steady effort often haven't passed much through curiosity as such — motivation and passion aside — and can simply work toward results and goals.
In this framing that might sound like a critique — "they're just people who effort whatever they're given without thinking" — but that's not it at all.
I can honestly respect being able to do what I can't.
If anything, they often enjoy not only the reward after achieving something but the process itself, and motivation exists to greater or lesser degrees.
Meanwhile I have a bad habit: whenever I start something I get bored fast and start inventing reasons to quit. I've tried to tough it out a few times and realized I can't change it.
So my stance is to follow the mood for now — if curiosity rises and I want to try something, I try it, and when I get bored I do something else, and repeat.
It's not that I consciously start new things hoping I'll someday meet something I'm passionate about. It's more like: I'm bored, so I'll try something different, while deep down thinking this won't last either.
I'm not listless — I'm doing it because that's the only way that works. Not sulking; it just fits me.
Though people like me get slapped with grand labels some commentator coined, like "blue bird syndrome."
(Strictly speaking, whether a blue bird exists or not, to look for one I'd want to take all kinds of paths and try all kinds of tools.)
Anyway, once I'm bored I completely lose any will to keep working on what's in front of me, so there's nothing to be done. Still, I don't regret what I did — I wrap it with a "that's about it" and that's the end.
Being that way, I have no attachment to experience and don't care one millimeter about being valued for experience (I don't have much impressive experience anyway), and I don't demand experience from others either.
I care more about learning ability and adaptability. At a higher layer, I care about output.
I admit there's a cheeky side to wanting to be judged on output precisely because I can't accumulate experience — but personally I think it's fair.
I'll probably keep looping: start what I think of, get bored, repeat.
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