As Adam Savage once said:

Jack of all trades, master of none, though often better than a master of one

and that’s the hill I’m willing to die on

I feel the exact same, though I never never know when to attribute it to impostor syndrome…

Like ppl give me positive feedback when I share smth about my limited topics of genuine interest but I have a hard time believing them…

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it

As a full ass adult who just very recently discovered I have ADHD, I feel both called out and seen.

Damn it’s too early to see myself in a post like this lol

Apparently I’ve been this way my entire life, even as a kid I couldn’t take a compliment I’d just argue against it lol

Yep. And then add to that “you’re smart” stuff coming from parents that would rather die than believe anything you tell them if it even slightly contradicts opinions they formed 40 years ago

Almost seems like an effort to other you as “smart” while getting to appear as they’re complimenting you

Through work experience ive come to understand that most normal people actually also only have surface knowledge of their supposedly specialist field, or it is so narrow and oddly specific that it doesn’t apply for real world scenarios. The difference being they are not aware of their own lack of knowledge and cannot believe that there are things they don’t actually know or need to learn in order to get better at what they do. There are far between actually good specialist who understands their own limitations.

People with ADHD I know are much more aware of their own lack of knowledge and will do absolutely everything to gather ALL the knowledge they can and use that surface knowledge they have on a million topics to find applicable places to dive further into. However controling the brain about what’s “applicable” is the issue far an ADHD brain and where we need help to sort the gold from the noise. But it is an invaluable skill to have that curiosity and creativity and knowledge of a million things, it’s just about how you use it.

I have an approximate knowledge of many things.

This is me IRL! Almost too relatable.

I feel your pain. Academically I was going into research and ended up leaving for tech. I often wonder if Im to much of a dilatante to develop deep understandings. I did have a professor who I liked who talked about depth and breath. This was a bit of a meta class around writing a doctorate and she was like yeah your paper needs to delve into the specifics of the research but needs to tie it back into the field in general and you have to maintain a broad understanding of the field.