“There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things other people didn’t see. I thought I was crazy or an egomaniac for claiming to see things other people didn’t see. As a child I would say, ‘but this is going on!’ and everybody would look at me as if I [...]
Discounting our abilities One aspect of high ability, being able to do many things well, is a tendency to discount those abilities, and thinking, If we can do things easily, they must not actually be difficult or worthy of our respect. It’s a way, perhaps, to keep us more comfortably small in our own estimation. [...]
Stanley Kubrick: overwhelmed by his actors Kubrick [left] was considered one of the most innovative and influential filmmakers, renowned for a legendary perfectionism. But one of his most intense actors, R. Lee Ermey, the menacing drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket (1987), recently said, “Stanley called me about two weeks before he died [in 1999]. [...]