The Unorthodox Outlier
See that red dot in the image above? In terms of statistics it is called an outlier. Something that screws up your almost perfect graph, or messes up the average. we were taught to ignore it when drawing the illusion of a straight line on the graph filled with scattered green dots to begin with. We were taught to discard the outlier when calculating the average. Because,
An outlier may be due to variability in the measurement or it may indicate experimental error
But the outlier is what fascinated me most. All the average data points didn't call out to me. In a graph that plots the number of players on the Y-axis against the Batting Average on the X-axis, an average of nearly 100 runs per innings is the outlier, but that outlier also happens to be Don Bradman. The outlier doesn't necessarily have to be the outcast, it could very well be the outstanding!
The outlier in my eyes was someone who went outside the box, did something beyond the average. As an innocent 6th grader, I could not understand why we should discard something like that. Needless to say my logic didn't stand very well to the teachers. That reflected in the big "C"s I used to get in mathematics. I wasn't bad at math, I think. I just didn't think like everyone else. I wasn't extraordinary, but math came naturally to me. When something comes naturally, you tend to be a bit rebellious against the orthodox.
A few caning threats from my teachers curbed my natural instincts, temporarily, and in no time I went from a "C" in grade 6 to an "A+" in grade 7. But when Math Olympiad came along, natural instincts kicked back in as there were no caning threats. The few of us who were the "atypical" A graders, sailed the divisional barriers as champions, and kept our heads held high as national runner ups, while the "regular" A-Graders were busy at school, pruning out the outliers in the statistics finals.
I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say here. I have had a long day and I'm exhausted. Maybe it is not about mathematics at all. Having fascinated over the outliers for so long, I didn't realize when I had started feeling like an outlier myself. When the realization hit me like an hour ago, it hit hard, very hard. Debating and logicking (if that's even a word) is where I felt at home since I was kid. Any logic, no matter how silly it may seem, if you believe in it, it is true to you.
I think what I'm trying to say is, even though it may seem as an outlier I do not to belong anywhere, I too need to find solace somewhere I belong.
In a society where out of the box thinking is shunned down by caning threats, the outstanding is very often the outcast. Maybe many many years later, someday I will say to my some lost 6th grader with some erratic logic : You know kid, a wise man used to say,
বেতাল সত্যি, অরণ্যদেব সত্যি, ক্যাপ্টেন স্পার্ক সত্যি, সব সত্যি।
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Doc, thanks for that quote at the bottom, important thing is that some of you get it. I have always found many themes, strings of texts, sayings... etc and used it in a different way, a more profound way than it was perhaps originally intended.
Regarding the topic of Outlier; I like for you to look up Dr. Stewart Wolf Jr. I knew his name well because he was the head of the department at the school of medicine at the university of Oklahoma, Norman; my alma matter. He became well known for his research on the “Roseto Effect”. It was featured rather famously by Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Outliers”. You will enjoy it.
A large scientific part of my academic life, I have studied outliers. One of the critical element we study in exploration geosciences is the “tail” of the log-normal distribution, as almost all geological processes are log-normal. More on that later :)
Dada, I am vaguely familiar with the Roseto Effect although I haven't looked very deeply into the publications on this topic. I was not aware of Malcom Gladwell's book though, I will read more into the Roseto effect before I dive into the "The Outliers."
Dada whenever you get time, I'd love to know more about this, not from an academic point of view. But from a more "life correlation" point of view if that makes sense. :)
I personally am an outlier. I've met hundreds and hundreds of people who have gone through the same issues as me but I've met no-one yet that has overcome as much as me given the childhood I had and the destiny I was set up for. I think having autistic tendencies helps. I'm obsessively thinking inwardly and how to change my behaviour for the better haha.
That doesn't mean to say I shun progress though. I deeply understand it. I mean to get where I have gone in life you have to face some pretty bad things about yourself - that's why psychiatric wards are super suicide protected. When working on people sometimes they have to bring people to some pretty horrific tipping-point truths about themselves to make any progress at all. It's hard to deal with knowing that you've become what you were trying to run from most of your life. My counsellor used to say knowing is the first step. Watch "shutter island" if you haven't, that's an amazing example of this.
So yeah, being an outlier is hard. You want to help everyone achieve what you have, but yet you deeply understand that road that it takes and can really understand why most people choose not to.
But the world is set up so that it's hard to become an outlier. If we all became them, and that was now the average -- governments would have a hard time ripping us off like they do.
This is crucial, Ray. Successfully addressing any psychological issues requires the person to acknowledge there is a problem. Otherwise, how do you justify for them to take medication or attend counselling sessions.
Yes, I have watched Shutter Island. It was a very well done movie, though as I told you earlier, most of my peers at that time didn't enjoy the movie and it was "not fun" for them. I'm sure now, as adults with real life experience, if they were to re-watch Shutter Island, they'd have a very different understanding of it.