As a kid I discovered trash talking as a strategy and adapting my behaviour to be more like the others helped me. But growing older this is not such a great option anymore. Also in a competitive workplace only being kind doesn't get you far, at worst it leads to burnout. I think one needs to find a balance.

Also in my school class the most nerdy kid just played air plane during class and recess and that is why he got bullied really badly. That kid also did some fun things sometimes but loudly playing his solitary games was just completely out of place. Thinking back it makes me wonder why teachers didn't mention that to him.

I have a similar observation. My motivation to start programming as a kid was to build cool stuff but it turned out that just learning to code was so crazy difficult and such a big effort. Eventually I became good at it but I feel like it took a toll from my creativity. Similar with studying, I studied Physics. This was a pragmatic choice since I was naturally good at math, curious about philosophical consequences and job perspectives were supposed to be solid. But the studies were really hard and eventually I started to not care about any philosophical aspect, just accepting everything is state of the (pragmatic) art. Not to mention how often I had to tell people I have to leave early because of studies. Also later on especially in some startups pressure can be insane, one boss once suggested I could work in nowhere land for some months to focus better. (Luckily I didn't do that) But yeah, this certainly does something to you I think. Good to not forget there's also this other life. (I think that's also the point in the pg article) Also I must say social life really became much more difficult over time. When I was younger not meeting anyone in a week felt strange, now I'm happy when I can socialize once a month.