Alice Miller in The Drama of the Gifted Child wrote:A patient once spoke of feeling of always having to walk on stilts. Is somebody who always has to walk on stilts not bound to be constantly envious of those who can walk on their own legs, even if they seem to him to be smaller and more "ordinary" that he is himself? And is he not bound to carry pent-up rage within himself, against those who have made him afraid to walk without stilts? Thus envy of other things can come about as the result of the defense mechanism of displacement. Basically, he is envious of healthy people because they do not have to make a constant effort to earn admiration^, and because they do not have to do something in order to impress^, one way or the other, but are free to be "average."
I haven't decided yet if that quote is quite right for this thread, but it's relevant. I like this book to the extent that she has a knack of setting up mouth-watering scenarios and irresistible premises after which point she'll suddenly go flying off askew in the analysis, at least in my view. (It's always off to the interpersonal/social relational domain, with you, Alice, isn't it?) I am trying to decide if she's at all right for this thread or completely off-base: Do they feel they must walk on stilts or discover themselves atop them? 'Pent-up rage' & envy, a bit strong--but then what? And, a constant effort to earn admiration? Are you sure? And, from whom?
But first, one point on the stilts: If you ever wanted a metaphor for intellectual scaffolding or framework granting benefits of a greater view and access to another level (in this case 'above' the social stratum of the average-heighted faces around you) as well as being flexible and mobile to dynamically apply to other domains, well, you could do worse. (they also do not go unnoticed in a crowd and are helpfully popularly associated with juveniles and circus freaks.)
So in the quote where she asks (rhetorically) if stilt-walkers are not "...bound to be constantly envious of those who can walk on their own legs?" Well.. no. Certainly not
constantly and even for more measured claims an obvious defense would be that the stilts are not for your relation to the crowd below but for the view; any social valence you care to infer is an inarguable result of but not intended effect of them.
She knows a thing or two about defenses, so a Test: suppose you, stiltwalker, see across the way another stiltwalker, in form and moving express and unfathomable, gliding effortlessly amongst the crowd. Hobbling over to catch a glimpse you notice her stilts, arcing works of laminated mahogany something between a jai alai xistera and a bird's wing, which at the base have attached wheels and a thoughtfully placed toe stop allowing her in a graceful melding of ice-skating and cross country skiing to leap and lutz and skate by the marvelling crowd. And circles around you.
What do you do? Thrash your kreg-jigged pine embarrassments in the nearest wastecan and go home? Thrash hers? Rush home to put wheels on yours? Or stagger, stumbling, over to catch her to get tips on the right camber for that sweet spot of stability still with hockey turns or maybe her thoughts on raising the clearance if one wanted to put on off-road tires...?
I would argue as you lean toward the latter options you are revealing a motivation deviating from Miller's explanation around admiration and toward enthusiasm. I would also argue that you please answer the question from empirical observation not introspection, as at least if I think of the last few times I was fortunate to be in such a stilted situation, my actions did not agree as much with my introspections as I might publicly report.
So if it's not an effort to earn admiration, what is your relation toward "..healthy people" (says she; I call them undiagnosed)? She says envy. Well, isn't that rather exactly what's been pointed out in this thread? The feelings of being left out, examples of normie entitlement assuming a shared conversational interest in dross, not being bullied in school, not having to make the communication effort half way, as if being a left-hander in a right-handed world, a nerd at a party; or even rarer than that. Isn't that envy of being average and wanting to do whatever common people do?
I don't know if pent-up rage results, but there's something in that direction, at least when I've been there. I might call it aggravation or impatience: "I would like to run fast here but because you did not do the homework I have to pop the stack eight levels, double back and explain the concepts you should have learned ten years ago. Concepts, which I might add, you don't even feel bad for not knowing."
You know, impatience, from patior: to suffer.
Now, I generally make a practice of not challenging strongmen arguments. (Especially this analogy given late capitalism's myriad spectra of consumer choice in gyms ranging from franchise-extorting membership-swindles with
Monday night pizza curls to those old cinderblocked gray and sweaty places with all the before and after pics on the window I'd be scared to toe in. If the birkenstock'd pizza curlers over at Mensa aren't your thing, there are surely options out there... or I've heard--they don't invite me.) But at any rate, in Miller's example, her patient is admonishing himself to strive to be above average. Jacob's strongman starts that way. How he got there we don't know. But any polymath deciding on a foray from theoretical physics, say, to psychology and social dynamics will need to do a fair bit of work to get there. Even the strongman in the example is doing what--not playing to the admiration of the crowd via feats of superman strength, leaping over buildings in a single bound or monetezing repeated lifts of 50lbs for fame and fortune--but he is looking for a gym:
he would like to get stronger yet. Embedded in the examples is that drive Miller talks about: I want to get better. I have to get better?
Why? To be admired might say Miller. Funktionslust might say Jacob.
Or are you trying to impress yourself? In the quote try putting in "earn admiration from themselves"/"impress themselves" which I think is not what Miller meant, but that starts to get interesting to me.