Well this explains a lot. Ever read someone else’s life story and know that, on some all-you-mortals-look-alike level you were really reading your own biography?

For those of you who don’t know as much about me as I do, I shall provide a brief recap:

• was reading the Globe and Mail at four
• used to get up early and watch University of the Air algebra and calculus classes before preschool
• was nearly put into a school for the mentally retarded at six, because the teachers couldn’t figure out why I was so detached from their lessons on how to spell “cat”
• at my mother’s insistence was given an IQ test, scoring 136 and sparing myself from a life of institutionalized intellectual lowballing
• skipped most of primary school in favour of sitting in the library, reading encyclopedias. Got through four editions of the Encyclopedia Brittanica alone, lamenting the lower standards in each one
• was once frogmarched out of the library to write a math test in Grade Four. Hadn’t attended class all year. Got 98%
• have been vigorously and repeatedly thrown out of every institution of higher learning in the Lower Mainland including (but not limited to) Vancouver Community College Langara, VCC Kwantlen Richmond, VCC Kwantlen Surrey, University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, and although the Open Learning Institute is forbidden by charter to throw anyone out, they did write to me and ask if I’d consider giving it a rest
• let’s just say I got a work ethic for my 30th birthday, not before.

Now, from the highly marvelous and damn interesting website Damn Interesting, comes this tale of shocking parallels. My parents weren’t New York intellectuals, it’s true, but they were both easily in the genius class and never tired of setting up new hoops for my brain to jump through. How many packs of flash cards they wore out on me only God knows.

In fairness, my mother once said, “Once I’d seen what I’d done with you, I decided to raise your sister differently.” Which may be why my sister has a BMW and a four bedroom house in Crystal Beach.

Now to our story:

The Sidises believed that aggressive curiosity was a quality to be nurtured, so Sarah gave up her career in medicine to dedicate her life to the child’s development. William‘s thirst for knowledge never went unquenched, and by his first birthday– an age when most children are still babbling– he was honing his spelling skills. At one and a half years of age, he was reading the daily newspaper.

As William approached his fifth birthday, his spectacular abilities began to draw the attention of the press. He had taught himself to operate the typewriter from his high chair, tapping out a letter to Macy‘s regarding an order for toys. He had also taken it upon himself to learn Latin, Greek, Russian, French, German, and Hebrew. His appetite for information seemed endless as he easily chewed through weighty tomes such as Gray’s Anatomy and the works of Homer. He entered grammar school at age six, but in just over half a year he had advanced into high school curriculum. His stunning accomplishments soon became a frequent feature on the first page of the New York Times.

However:

William did not live long after that; in the following July his landlady telephoned the police after discovering him unconscious in his Boston apartment. Forty-six year old Sidis had suffered a massive stroke, and he never again regained consciousness. Such was the end of the one-time prodigy who had astonished a Harvard math audience at age eleven; he died a reclusive, penniless office clerk.

Those who knew him in his later life spoke of his conspicuous brilliance and his mastery of over forty languages, but his tangible contributions to society seemed to be relatively few for someone of his talents. Some argue that his parents pushed him too hard in his youth– overexerting his exceptional mind at an early age– and some blame the press for driving him into isolation. There is considerable evidence that William favored the Okamakammesset tribal philosophy of “anonymous contribution”, a principle which implies that one’s value is not measured by one’s visible contributions to society.

Though he probably would not have put much stock in formal measures of intelligence, it is estimated that William Sidis‘s IQ was as high as 300, where 100 is average and over 140 is considered genius. Whatever the reason for his underwhelming output later in life, he was certainly one of the most profoundly gifted human beings who ever lived. There is no telling what William might have accomplished for mathematics and science if only his talents had not been squandered.

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