Something you’re just good at with minimal effort and/or you learned much more quickly than average.
For me, it’s paper snowflakes. My brain just seems to effortlessly figure out what cuts to make to the paper wedge to make it turn out exactly how I want it. Largely useless, but good fun and was a much-needed ego boost when I was a kid :]
I can cook minute rice is 56 seconds.
I can hear you, listen to you, and forget about what you say all at the same time!
The ADHD superpower.
You forgot the asking for what they said the instant it pops back in your head
The power to read a book page 3-4 times before full comprehension.
As a kid I used to read like 2 books a day, now I have the same problem. Like wtf happened
Being alive. In my whole life I haven’t died even once.
Reminds me of an obvious/interesting factoid I once saw pointed out:
Every single one of us is at the end of an unbroken line — aaalllll the way back to microorganisms — of folks / critters / etc. that lived long enough to procreate.
Hearty fuckers, every one of us. In a certain sense…
I am a really quick reader compared to most people. Doesn’t sound that amazing and it’s certainly not unique, but it comes really handy. Always helped me with exams, as I got some precious minutes more to actually work instead of reading. I can go through books and articles really fast. Retention is not amazing, I’d say it’s about the same as when most people read in their normal speed.
I really envy the people that can read quickly and retain everything. But I am also content with being relatively quick.
Not that but I can skim quickly and find the vital takeaways! Mostly useful for studies or reading recepies.
my two special snowflake things:
i can stop my own hiccups at will 100% of the time
i have always lucid dreamed since as far back as i can remember, i genuinely believed that everyone experienced sleep like that until i was in my mid-twenties
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With math, is it arithmetic that gives you trouble or the actual symbolic manipulation of mathematics?
I am hot garbage at keeping track of numbers but turn those fuckers into letters and (at least for me) it’s off to the races. Then I just convert everything back to numbers in the last step before jamming it all into a calculator. This method saved my ass in 400-level biochemistry courses. (Annoyed the shit out of the grad students grading my exams, I’m sure…)
You may be better at “math” than you think :]
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Good on you for just casually getting a computational physics degree without inherent math talent… like holy shit that’s impressive!
I have also cried over coursework on linear algebra as well as electricity and magnetism :') Brutal stuff.
Please could you explain a bit more about the process you describe, above? Maybe with some simple examples? I’m woeful at maths but really good with mechanical and physical problems. If there’s a way I can improve upon the former, I’d love to try.
Thanks in advance!
C = BxA
Move A underneath C and swap the equality
B = C/A
A lot of algebra is spatial manipulation.
Mechanical adept here too. I am very good at holding and manipulating 3d objects in my brain, so I can kinda always just tell how something goes together to work.
I lived in Canada for 6 months surviving on nothing but being a medical Guinea pig (I had no working permit and due to anonymity, very little was asked of people participating in medical trials, plus they paid a decent amount especially if pain or discomfort was involved); as part of this I went through a raft of IQ tests (there was always some gambling addiction trial going at UofT for some reason) and found out that, like you, I have exceptional visual intelligence - rotating objects in my head, and figuring out if something would fit together was super skills of mine. In every other way I’m decidedly average.
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Chess. I’ve been playing since I was a kid, and sometimes I’ll create new accounts on chess websites to see how quickly I’ll get them rated to 2000+. I’m living proof that chess players aren’t that smart though because I’m a dumbass when it comes to literally anything else.
Realising you’re dumb makes you smarter than 80% of humanity 😎
IT and self-hatred
I can move my eyes independently and it looks freaky as hell lmao
We love our lizardfolk comrades!
I almost freak my self out lol
I saw a website once that taught me how to cross one eye. Now I’m teaching kids how to freak out their parents and teachers with this.
I’m a level 15 bureaucrat. I’ve filled out government applications longer than my thesis, with only a pen and the bitter joy of precision.
I have unusual muscle control - I can make my eyebrows and knees dance, plus I am a regurgitator. Not as good as Stevie Starr but enough to have a disgusting party piece. I am disappointed that I never mastered the art of the flatulist.
I can make my balls dance.
Oh yeah, that too. I’ll sometimes do it when standing wait for something, like a lift. Hopefully it isn’t obvious from outside my trousers.
Very fast reflexes and I can see in the dark far better than most people.
I had never realized that my eyes were different until my compulsory miltary service. I could reasily read maps when others couldn’t see shit and I never stumbled during night training in the forest.
Fast reflexes are generally pretty cool to havel, but it’s not fun when a knife falls off the kitchen table and it is impossible to stop your own hand trying to catch it.
My “learned talent” is fixing mechanical devices. When I was 6 or 7 I took apart and fixed the family VCR so I could finish watching the Smurfs. My mom found me studying the jammed mechanism, with all the parts lying on the living room carpet. She had a fit and wanted to collect the parts away, I started crying and told her that I’ll never get it back together if she messes up their places. She watched as I released the stuck tape wheel and reassembled the device. And it worked.
I’ve fixed countless devices with just visual analysis and pure intuition after that.
Understanding maths and remembering things in school, just don’t ask me what you told me a second ago because it’s already out my head.
I’m really good at getting cats to vocally respond to me. I don’t know if I’m just on their wavelength or what, but almost every time I start a convo with a kitty I get a response. Oddly specific, but also pretty fun. Kids love it lol.
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I’m fantastic at volumetric estimation, like when choosing the smallest Tupperware that will fit all the leftovers.
I can do this also but it is always extremely close but still fits
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The second thing we have a big drawer with random sizes of tupperware containers and i just take the one looks like it fits and it is very close every time
just take the one looks like it fits and it is very close every time
“Very close” is easy - it’s the “very close without going over” that’s tricky ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But it’s not something I can do unless it’s accidental…
This is an amazing skill.
I can do this as I’m drinking something - one gulp is roughly one ounce. Was especially handy with water fountains when tracking my hydration, but that hasn’t been relevant since 2019.
