On the topic of jealousy, I guess one upside of never seriously entertaining a career in the arts is that I never have to feel this way about a piece of entertainment/art that I really like. Sometimes I am impressed and humbled by what some can achieve, but it just makes me happy that these people are creating works, not jealous. When I was a kid, there was a period of time I fancied the idea of becoming an author, but I quickly realized that I am in no way suited for it.
However, I completely understand how the accomplishments of someone can make you feel jealous. As a physicist I relatively often interact with people who make me feel like a total fraud in comparison. Sometimes I will come across someone who hasn’t even finished their PhD, but has already published more and frankly higher-quality papers than me (for the record, my publication record is OK, not great not bad). Sometimes, you might tell yourself that publishing in high-impact journals is a lottery (and it certainly is to an extent!) and they were probably lucky or whatever, but then you meet them and it turns out that no they are just brilliant. And most of the time they are perfectly nice people too* so there is no refuge and I have to acknowledge my own ugly feelings of jealousy. The good news is that if I actually get to know these people better the jealousy tends to dissipate and I can be happy for them when they put out great work.
This initial jealousy is really less about them and more about me. I don’t believe that science is dependent on a few brilliant people historically, at least in the 20th century, where ideas were often converged upon by multiple people at the same time and I think individual brilliance mainly shortens the time it takes to move science forward. That being said, if there are none of these people around maybe science would suffer. I know that personally, I am probably not capable of coming up with some of the more ingenuous, yet absolutely crucial methods we use today. However, although such people can solve any problem that I am working on faster, if they applied themselves to it, I can comfort myself by knowing that there are infinite problems and even if my work is contributing more slowly it is still worth something. I’ve also met accomplished scientists who have done nice work, but where I feel as though I could in principle contribute in a similar manner if I just worked harder, applied myself more. In that sense the encounter with the brilliant person can almost be a boon, a reassurance that I just don’t have what it takes. Hell, if I applied myself more, maybe I could accomplish some of those things that I think are beyond me. But, alas, being able to work hard and applying yourself fully is also a skill and one which I seem to lack.
*In the media the trope of the “brilliant asshole physicist” is very common, but I honestly don’t think it is anywhere near as common in real life. These people certainly exist and I do think it is inspired by the way some physicists like to be “tough” in subject-matter discussions. This can come across as being an asshole, but it is usually not borne out of a sadistic need to put someone down, but a desire to uphold certain standards of scientific rigor. Of course, some people do use it as an excuse to bully anyone who knows less. Younger people tend to not have that much of an ego, slightly more often you will meet a well-established scientist who thinks highly of themself and acts like a bit of a jerk.
Gaagaagiins
Back when I decided to waste my time at the monster trainer leveling characters, Yuna, Rikku and Auron were the characters I used because of the relative ease of getting their ultimate weapons. It was kind of funny how Yuna and Rikku who had always been the physically weak members of my party before that suddenly became physical attack powerhouses. : p