^(I'm not a PhD student, in fact I haven't even turned 20 yet, but I feel that a bunch of adults deep into the academia are probably the best people to ask for advice. I hope this doesn't break rule 2, I feel like you guys experience this too, so maybe it counts as being part of the PhD experience?)
Do you guys feel that you don't know enough? Everywhere I look, I see people way younger than me managing knowledge in a lot of different subjects. Everyone just knows so much. Somehow, in every social circle that I get into, I end up being the least educated person. I know I don't read a lot, though that's mostly because I feel scared of reading now, but how can I know nothing? Am I really this below average? I am not even talking about them having shallow knowledge, I've listened to them talk, I've listened to them debate things out, I know they've very nuanced knowledge of what they discuss.
Sometimes, I struggle to even follow what they're saying, and that's when I am also (at least trying to) studying the same subject. They're just so ahead of me in every aspect, and what's odd is that some of my friends are studying one thing in uni, have very very social lives, and still know way more than me in a subject they study as a hobby. It's just mind blowing. How is everyone a genius around me? This isn't even self-doubt at this point. All the evidence points to me being incredibly inept, incompetent. I am also not just counting the hits and ignoring the misses. Right now, I've a close group of 6-7 (no, please) friends, and we're part of a larger group of ~(small multiple of ten) friends and acquaintances, and I'm a nobody among them. Yea, some of them are comfortably 4-5 years older than me, but a little too many of them are younger than me and know more than me in less time than me. I suppose this is a self-fulfilling prophecy where because I feel inept, I can't focus on reading, and because I can't focus on reading I end up knowing less than others, and that then makes me feel inept. But I also remember a time when I was reading a lot, a time when I was doing things, but then it just stopped all of a sudden. That was also around the time when I started making.. more academically and intellectually well friends. Truth be told, a feeling of "why even do this when this guy knows 5 times more, has read more than you in the same amount of time even though it's a hobby for him and you already read well, and you can barely follow him when he starts going deep" did wash over me... or maybe it drowned me then and there, and I've just been a corpse walking around since.
As I said in the title, I'm well aware it's not a race. I know I should be driven by curiosity and not trying to out-knowledge smarter people, but it's not like I have much control over this. If I could, I'd just be a happy dude going about his life, but here I am. I've tried to consider things like hey everyone thinks they're stupid but don't tell, or hey they've just spent more time with the material with you, you can catch up, among other ways of coping or fixing myself, but none of it works in front of objective data. This stuff would make me feel better when I'm alone, but then it does nothing when I am actually there with them. It does nothing when I can't follow their arguments, or realise that they've progressed significantly in the last month while I've been stuck.
Do you guys relate? Has anything helped with this feeling? Am I Overthinking? Because I feel like I've just realised how much of a dum dum I am.
Sorry, I can't share too much about the specifics because I don't wanna be identified :(