"It is possible not only to be talented in one's thoughts but also in one's feelings as well."

I'm— um, so what's going on today? Any— anything interesting in terms of, uh, trips or tournaments or anything?

Um, well, today I have a class with some of our team— with some of our wrestling class with some of my teammates at their house. Um, and then after that, we're going to go to their pool.

That sounds like fun. That sounds like fun. So I thought maybe today we would go back to language and thought and some quotations. Let's— I'm looking for a good quotation. Do you remember talking about somebody called Vygotsky a long time ago?

Wait, Vygotsky?

Yeah.

No idea.

Okay, it was a long time, so that's okay. Let's see here. I had thought that I had a quotation that I liked, but we talked about Vygotsky a long time ago when you were much littler. How well do you remember or conversations from when you were littler?

Um, I remember a few.

What are some of the ones you remember?

They're kind of simple. I think, I think I remember, um, one of you asking me about clouds and the water cycle.

Uh-huh.

Um, and I remember this time where I was at Balboa Park, um, and we were on a call. I forget what we talked about though.

Okay, certainly being in Balboa Park, uh, is memorable because it's a great place. Um, okay, well, uh, I copied this from, uh, the web. This is Vygotsky, and he says, somehow our society has formed a one-sided view of the human personality, and for some reason everyone understood giftedness and talent only as it applied to the intellect. But it is possible not only to be talented in one's thoughts, but also to be talented in one's feelings as well. What do you think he means by that?

Um, well, at first he mentions a one-sided view of the human personality. So he probably is talking about human personality. It's— yeah.

So let's— how can one have— what does it mean to have a one-sided view of something? Let's start there. What does it mean to have a one-sided view?

Well, you only— you disagree. Well, maybe you disagree with another side. Or another, yeah, another side of the personality, but you don't actually know, or you don't really know what that is. You've never actually tried to learn about it and see what it's about.

Does it make sense to say that we could have a one-sided view of human personality?

Yeah, it does.

Okay, maybe let's get a little bit more. For some reason, everyone understood giftedness and talent only as applied to the intellect. Do you think that most people— he says everyone— do you think everyone understands giftedness and talent only as applied to the intellect, or does that sound wrong to you?

Um, I'm not quite sure. That's kind of confusing to me, and I don't quite understand fully.

Okay. What do you think giftedness— if somebody said so-and-so is gifted, what would that mean to you?

Well, that means— oh, that would mean that they're really good at something or talented at a certain thing.

So, and then I was going to ask about talent, but if you're saying it's the same, or giftedness and talented pretty much the same thing, two words for the same thing?

Um, Well, I would think that giftedness would mean you just— or it's a gift, you just get it, you don't really work for it. And talent, you could earn it and work for it.

So you're seeing them as maybe complementary, sort of similar, but the one complements the other? Yes. You're thinking of gifted gifts as natural and talents as cultivated or trained?

Yes.

Okay. 'For some reason everyone understood giftedness and talent only as applied to the intellect.' What does he mean when he said they only apply to the intellect?

Um, maybe it could mean that people only think that giftedness and talent— like, maybe you only I'm not quite sure, but it could mean people only understand giftedness and talent as thought about. But I think that's my only lead.

Thought about what? I was waiting for an adjective and you didn't give— or noun. I was waiting for the end of your sentence.

Okay. Well, they could be thinking Or yeah, thinking about giftedness and talent, not— and not physical, or not doing it physically.

What is— what does the intellect mean to you? What do you think the word intellect means?

Um, the mind.

Yeah. And yeah, yeah. So, um, everyone understood giftedness and talented talent only as applied to the intellect. Um, could that relate to one-sided view of human personality?

Yeah, that could, because maybe one, on one side of your personality, you're gifted or talented, and then maybe the other, you're something else.

So you're thinking, um, what's an example? What are— if you were to describe somebody as having lots of different sides to their personality, what kinds of things would you describe?

Um, well, maybe one is— one side of their personality is good, or means they're good at writing. Or then maybe another side could mean they're not very physical, they're not that strong, maybe kind of skinny. Um, then another side could mean that maybe they're like— they know how to code or something.

So do you think personality has to do with kind of everything about a person?

Yes.

If we say that so-and-so has a nice personality, what do we mean by that?

Well, it could mean that he is, or he or she is kind and respectful and not mean to you and others.

What if we were to say somebody has a strange personality? What would that mean?

Maybe you don't get what they're doing, or you don't get how they do things. That's not what you do.

Would we ever say somebody has a cooking personality?

Um, well, maybe that's not how I would put it, but that could mean that you're really good at cooking.

Okay. And when you hesitate, when you say that's not how you would put it, you were describing, um, different sides of a personality as kind of I guess I'm trying to get at, you know, he's saying something about personality here, and one-sided view of human personality. And sometimes it sounded like you were talking about things people do, so I could imagine talking about somebody being kind or strange or whatever with respect to their personality. But I'm kind of with you, I don't think I would talk about their cooking personality or even their— I don't know, would you say somebody has like a fat personality or a skin personality? Skinny personality? Was that not how you would talk about fat and skinny or personality?

Well, if you put it in that context, then that would— or someone has a skinny personality, maybe they don't have— or that would mean to me that they don't really have a big, a big personality. Like maybe they're not I don't quite know how to explain it, but—

Okay, I feel like we're kind of narrowing in on what personality might mean and how Vygotsky is talking about it. So let's go ahead and get the last bit. But it is possible not only to be talented in one's thoughts, but also to be talented in one's feelings as well. What do you think he means by not only talented in one's thoughts, but also to be talented in one's feelings?

Well, he's saying it is possible not only to be talented, maybe he means in thinking, but also to be talented in feeling, feelings, emotions.

And so what would it— could you imagine somebody, could you imagine describing somebody who is talented with respect to their feelings, what would they be like? If you met somebody today and, you know, you came home tonight and talked to your parents and said, wow, that person was talented in their feelings. I mean, maybe you would never describe somebody like that, but if you did, what do you think? How else? What would that person be like? What would a person have to do or say to give you the sense they were talented in their feelings?

Well, maybe that person could control their emotions well, or, or they're good in showing what they feel.

It's interesting you chose kind of two very opposite things, either controlling their emotions or showing what they feel. But would you say that, is that a matter of kind of having control over either controlling them and/or letting them out? That is, they are talented in feelings because they can go either direction at will. Is that kind of what you're thinking?

Yes.

Okay, so if you met somebody like that, you might say they're talented in their feelings. Um, actually, let's use the same kind of test. What would it take for somebody to do something for you to say they were talented in their thoughts? So you meet somebody new today, you come back home and talk to your family and say, wow, that person was talented in their thoughts. What would that be like? What would they do or say that led you to think that way?

Um, well, I guess how you think could be reflected in your speech. So maybe they knew a lot, or they maybe— or you could tell that they were thinking as they were talking and they were thinking about their words. Um, I'm not sure other than that.

Okay. Would you say when you meet new people, you develop an opinion of them after a while about if they're talented in their thoughts and/or talented in their feelings or other kinds of things?

Yes. Yes.

Um, so is— do you think it's important, going back to the one-sided view, do you think it's important Right now he's just given us thoughts and feelings. There could be more than one side. I mean, there could be more than two sides. But do you think it's important to understand being gifted with respect to thoughts, but also gifted with respect to feelings?

Do I understand it?

I was— that my question was really mangled. Sorry. So let me try again. I'm going back to he in the first sentence, he talks about one-sided view of human personality. That society has formed a one-sided view of human personality. And so I guess now that we've talked about, um, the possibility of being talented in one's thoughts as well as talented in one's feelings, I'm asking, is it important to be aware of both of those two different kinds of talent?

Um, well, I would think it would be important to be aware of those because Maybe, well, it would help to be aware because if you met someone that was talented in one's thoughts but also in one's feelings, maybe you could— and if you weren't, you could learn from them. And since you're aware, you could, well, not copy, but learn from them and learn how to be talented in your thoughts and also in your feelings.

Do you think you've ever met somebody who is talented in thoughts but not talented in feelings?

Um, I'm not sure because thinking about this has not really come to my attention until just now, and So I probably not, but I might meet someone who is talented in one spot in the future outside of my family.

Fair enough, fair enough. And actually, by the way, I'm very interested in how if we've never thought about something in the past, then we tend not to notice it. I would say one of the benefits of thinking about things is then you start to notice more things in your reality. Does that make sense?

Yes.

Because yeah, it makes sense that we don't usually— I don't even usually think quite this way, but by thinking about it, it will make me aware of different things as I encounter people. Going the other direction, and again, maybe the answer is you don't know because you've never thought about it, but do you think you've ever met somebody who is talented in their feelings but not talented in their thoughts?

Um, well, I guess this is different from thoughts. I might have— or as in controlling their emotions and then, or being in control of that kind of stuff. Um, there's quite a few people, for example, in my gym who can control their emotions because you have to for or you don't have to, but it's good to because whenever you're frustrated or something like you got injured and something really hurts, or they try to control their emotions and some succeed and some don't.

I thought, by the way, that because of your experience in jiu-jitsu, that especially when you talked about being able to control emotions, I suspected that that was because of your experience in jiu-jitsu. That was probably— that was my hypothesis. But what's interesting is, in addition to the ability to control your emotions, you're also aware of the ability to express your emotions. That is, somebody could be talented in how they express their feelings or emotions. And I assume that is not from jiu-jitsu. Is that fair enough? Jiu-jitsu is more about controlling emotions than about expressing emotions?

Yes.

Okay. Would you say in general that you think you're a pretty good observer of human beings?

Um, well, what do you mean by observer? Like observer of their physical acts or like talented thoughts and feelings?

I was thinking more on the talented and thoughts and feelings.

Okay, um, well If we're talking about this, then not really, because one, I've never thought about it before, but I will be observing and thinking about this. I usually just look— when I observe other people, I usually just think, or think about what they're talking about, because that's usually the most interesting part.

Yeah, and of course, that's natural. I think that's what we all do initially. But that's why the— actually, one of the reasons why I set it up as suppose you met somebody new today, and then at the end of the day you were talking to your parents about it, because in real time when we're talking, we're usually, I think, mostly absorbed in the real interaction, the words and so forth. But, you know, kind of at the end of the day sort of thing, my sense is then we kind of have this holistic picture of somebody. So that's what I was thinking, that you would be more likely to have observations like that later after meeting them. Does that make sense?

Yes, it does.

Cool. Well, I think this is a really interesting topic, and I could go a lot more deeply into it, but I want to give you your day back. So thanks for another great convo, and we'll see you next week. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Bye.