[whiteperil] Sean: Keats and Yeats are on your side

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Posted by Sean:
Keats and Yeats are on your side
http://whiteperil.com/posts/1190276170.shtml


   I very rarely take exception to something Eric says, and I think part
   of [1]this post is misleading...or maybe just reductive:

     In the context of boys into men, an especially stubborn category
     consists of something that's risky to write about, but what I'll
     call the "Born That Way High IQ Gay Men" for lack of a better term.
     Whether anyone likes it or not, society (and I include gay culture,
     which is very bigoted towards this type of person) really has no
     comfortable niche for young men who share the following two
     characteristics:
     * obviously gay (and thus incapable of the "closet" option)
     * extremely high IQ

     I think it's a tragedy, and that's because I hate waste. And I hate
     seeing potential Einsteins frittering away their lives because of
     early emotional reactions to stuff that really ought not matter.
     There's an old Japanese saying that the crooked nail gets hammered
     down. With these people, all attempts at hammering them down are
     doomed to fail, because there simply is no place for them.

   Lots of people get hung up on stuff that really ought not to matter
   and end up feeling isolated because of it. I'm not sure what "society"
   could do better to prevent that. Some isolated mavericks may be
   geniuses manqués, but I suspect that a lot of them just aren't willing
   to learn how to get along with people better, which involves risking
   rejection, giving of yourself, and making compromises. It's best to be
   taught such things by adult mentors and role models in childhood, I
   agree, but it's possible to pick them up in adulthood if you're
   willing to learn from experience. A free, mobile society doesn't
   preclude people's being cruel in enforcing conformity, but it does
   allow you to move away from them and try different communities until
   you find a niche in which you can flourish. Those who decide to stay
   put where they're unloved so they can keep indulging in drama-queen
   hysterics about how put-upon they are are hard to sympathize with.

References

   1. http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2007/09/post_461.html