I was always insecure about my intelligence and I remember coming away with this same idea from the book. Life is really just a series of experiences. You don't need to meet a certain standard or qualify yourself in order to have positive experiences or to have an impact. We often place so much emphasis on comparison and measuring our success/potential that we miss the whole process of living.

Agreed, there are people who follow metrics and those who are studied to generate new ones. (Strive to be in the latter category.)

I've just been emotionally effected by this work at a deep, almost uncomfortable level.

I've worked as a mental health support worker, and this short story poked at some of the darker parts of the field: the dream of people getting "better" and wanting to "fix" them, the subtle (and not so subtle) jokes made out of their failings, having to deal with the basic human urges they don't fully understand, subjects consenting to treatment they don't have the capacity to understand, etc.

In myself, I see my own inevitable cycle of depression and elation. I'm disabled not mentally, but emotionally. I could be happier than anyone, but in the end some part of me is always dragged back into anguish. Charlie was a genius, but in his infantile state it's brought him nothing but pain.

The saddest part of all of this is that even when Charlie became smart enough to understand the world around him, he spent so little time in the relatable range of intelligence that the people he cared about struggled to communicate with him. They didn't understand, they were worried. Charlie never truly had a friend. Ms Kinnian cared for him, but they spent so little time able to meaningfully interact that friendship didn't have the chance to properly form.

I'm going to go and pet my dog, I think, until this reaction passes.

It's such a wonderful book! Beautifully written, haunting, lovely and sad all at the same time. One of my all-time favorite stories.

"I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone."

One interesting thing re: the novel is the disease Charlie has, PKU is generally screened for in infants today and treated with dietary changes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022202X1...

Likewise, I read this story at an early age and have never forgotten it. It was moving and terrifying to feel that progression and regression against the backdrop of education and grades and fitting in.

Regarding the comments using the words “less-intelligent” to motivate their “kindness”: Kindness without respect is just being nice.

Thank you for this comment. It encouraged me to read it to my two kids (~8) last night. I actually only got about half way through it. The younger one got bored and it actually started making me choke up. I loved the story as a kid but as an adult it hurts.

Read this in seventh grade, and it really did move me as well. There are many events that happen in life (and stories) that remind me of this book.

Agree with the premise of make the best of what you have.

> I took away that we should make the best of what we have.

As someone on the spectrum, no.

I have a miscellaneous question in case you happen to have a perspective. Do you think it might be potentially ambiguous to use the general term "the spectrum" to refer only to the asperger's/autism spectrum? Human minds are wonderfully diverse, and I feel like it might downplay that diversity if we make it sound like there is only one spectrum of genetically-linked mental phenotypes. As some examples:

- eidetic memory

- depression

- perfect pitch

And much more. I've always wanted to ask this and was wondering if you had thoughts on this?

The word spectrum is a word in its own right. You can apply it to whatever you want.

What else are you going to do? Not make the best of what you have?

On the spectrum or not, you'll be gone in 100 years. May as well try and enjoy it while you're here.