A Look Back at 42 Years and 10 Months

I was born in Vienna on October 8, 1983. I am very fortunate to have been born highly gifted. That has made my life much easier. Although I didn't get tested until I was an adult, even before I started school, the adults in my life said I was "very clever", which amounts to the same thing. I never had any serious problems in elementary or high school, partly because - unlike in medical school - it wasn't yet necessary to memorize large amounts of factual knowledge in detail.

So I grew up believing that I was "clever". When I was five years old, my mother told me about Einstein, who was so clever that he was awarded the Nobel Prize. So I thought to myself: One day, I, too, will win the Nobel Prize. In fact, when I was young, I waited until I was finally allowed to go to university. I planned to study very thoroughly and achieve something that would at least be worthy of a Nobel Prize. I hadn't settled on a specific field, but since my parents favored medicine, there was a good chance that this was the field I would end up choosing.

Even back in school, I made an effort to learn everything thoroughly because I believed that, as an adult, I would move in circles where everyone would be highly educated. I didn't want to have any gaps in my knowledge in that regard.

What didn't dawn on me until much later was this: The children I interacted with - who didn't strike me as particularly intelligent - actually represented the country's intellectual elite. In fact, I would never come into contact with people who were significantly more intelligent than my classmates in elementary school and high school. It wasn't until many years after graduation, when a classmate from high school also joined Mensa, the association for the gifted, that my eyes were finally opened. The Mensa members weren't any smarter than my classmates; in some cases, they were actually less educated. Later on, I mainly encountered people intellectually comparable to myself in the International Society for Philosophical Enquiry (ISPE), which is twenty times as selective as Mensa.

The truly smartest people I've ever encountered were the writers for the magazine "PC-Heimwerker", to which I also contributed and with whom I corresponded. In second place are some members of the computer art demo scene. Cognitively, both groups are far superior to most Mensa members.

I actually had high expectations for college, but in the end, the professors turned out to be civil servants who were just doing their jobs and wanted to be left alone otherwise. My high school teachers had said things about me that suggested they expected a lot from me. Instead of welcoming me into the academic community with open arms and supporting me, however, it seemed that most university professors found me more of a nuisance. Overall, college was a disappointment. In that respect, I can well understand the path taken by Christopher Langan, who had also expected more and ultimately dropped out to work various jobs and develop his Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe in his spare time.

I wasn't an extreme child prodigy like Michael Kearney, but even before my tenth birthday, I was already very good at some things - at an adult level. In that sense, the term "child prodigy" might also apply to me, with some reservations. We now know that very few child prodigies go on to be among the best in their field as adults. Some people who went on to achieve great things later in life had a normal childhood. In my case, it's also very unlikely that I'll ever win the Nobel Prize. But at least I have a very good command of several fields, including the natural sciences, and am therefore able to form my own judgment about recent developments.

I now have a good income and some financial savings. For me, as a single person, that's more than enough. I guess God just didn't want me to start a family.

Although I still read a lot, I actually already know more than most people, so it might be wiser to spend my time on other things, such as sports. For my job, I wouldn't have actually needed most of the knowledge I've acquired.

So I believe that I have achieved what I deserve, and that life will continue to follow its natural course.

Claus D. Volko