Or equally that we're all just as dumb. O:-)

Everyone around you who has ever lived or will ever lived are just grown up kids like you, muddling their way through life just like you.

That is up to and including (but not limited to) your Mom, your Dad, your Teachers and Professors, the Mayor, Prime Minister or President, and even the Secretary General of the United Nations!

Possibly this might even apply to people like Einstein, The Pope, and Steve Jobs, though the jury is out on that one.

I no longer agree with my previous mentality that "anyone can do it if they try" and "everyone is capable". It was an innocent, non-judgmental, perspective that I'm glad I had because it helped prevent some sort of inflated ego. But, the older I get, the more people I meet, and a mini stroke later that knocked down my IQ some very noticeable points, I've realized that I'm incredibly lucky to be above average intelligence (in certain areas). It has made life relatively easy. Having the somewhat rare perspective of experiencing an instantaneous drop in intelligence, I would never agree with you that we are all like Einstein. I firmly believe that the "obviousness" that a more intelligent mind sees cannot be learned. It's seeing things that aren't there, that others can't see at all, or take much too long to see. For this reason, I believe there is a very real difference in the range of what people are capable of. I think everyone here should be thankful for their roll of the dice.

I'm sorry to hear that!

And I'm actually coming from the other direction: I'm arguing we shouldn't put anyone too much on a pedestal.

While he definitely made some awesome contributions; in the end even Einstein was a mortal man who will have struggled with life, and he likely had his own setbacks and made his own share of mistakes just as much as anyone else.

> I'm arguing we shouldn't put anyone too much on a pedestal.

I don't want to think that I'm saying we should. I think each person can achieve great things, but only some will be able to achieve great things in the realm of theoretical physics. And some will achieve mediocrity with less effort. I don't know if that warrants a pedestal or not since one mans greatness very well could be another mans mediocrity.

I want to say that it would be nice if society would recognize and be comfortable with the innate differences in all of us, since we are all just humans with spectrum for all things related to our biology, but I don't know what that society would end up looking like.

> Or equally that we're all just as dumb.

Sure, but it depends from where you start your reasoning from. I guess my upbringing was just the opposite as that of arrogant people like Jobs. My parents taught me to assume that most things are the way they are probably because a lot of people smarter than me set them up that way. This leaves you in a perennially grateful, happy state. When you find something that does not work in an optimal way, you become sad and try to fix it for the better, but only after you have thoroughly understood how it works. How is life like for an arrogant asshole? Do they become happy only when they "gotcha" the failings of less smart people? Won't they unconsciously find errors in many things they don't understand? It must be a living hell to be like that.

It could well be Steve Jobs was arrogant in general. I haven't studied him that much.

But I don't read "everything around you (...) was made up by people that were no smarter than you" as necessarily arrogant.

It could also be read as recognizing that we are all equally frail human beings. (Possibly my own bias is showing too)

I think the message to take from that was not one of Jobs’ narcissism, but that the world was shaped by ordinary people, and that you and I (or him for that matter) can do the same.