I was thinking about this great tweet by George and, paradoxically, how one of (many) barriers to people understanding econ/finance is that most people explaining it have a natural acuity for it. It’s easier to explain stuff clearly when you can relate to not understanding it. https://t.co/NKiFAliI6C
— Victoria Guida (@vtg2) May 16, 2020
This is true of math people as well. Most don’t realize they have a natural talent for it, pre-existing ability, and that something that takes them a day to understand might take someone like me months, years, or never.
This disconnect is odd, because math people think basically telling us to “try harder” will somehow make our comprehension coalesce.
Natural talent is not everything, but it can take you a long, long way.
For instance, can you learn to read a foreign language to a fairly ok level in a month? I can! I know because I’ve done it at least 10 times in my life. To most people that’s a fucking superpower but to me it’s just what I do. Seems easy.
So why can’t you do it? Just not trying hard enough, right? Try harder! Just, like, do it! Read that Norwegian, it’s easy! That’s what math people sound like to non-math folks.
The reason I can do it is because I just have a lot of natural capability and talent in that area by chance and accident. And I do not in math. And math people never seem able to understand this.