Well, the "less partying" part sounds accurate. :-) In grad school, for example, I had some good friends, but very little "party life" and certainly very littl

Well, the "less partying" part sounds accurate. :-) In grad school, for example, I had some good friends, but very little "party life" and certainly very little dating life---not out of choice, just because I didn't even know how to start. As a result, I was often severely depressed. On the positive side, though, I was more productive at research than I've ever been since! I had unlimited time to think, and also enormous drive to succeed so that at least something would be going right in my life. Just as important, though, I loved actually working on research problems (still do), as opposed to just the recognition you get from other people after you've solved one. I could form an infatuation with a particular problem that would last weeks or months. Now that I have tenure and a wife and two kids, and get to travel the world and study what interests me, I'd like to tell myself a story according to which "all the hard work and sacrifice ultimately paid off." On the other hand, I know people who had fantastic social lives all throughout college and are now also highly successful---an instance of the general phenomenon that there's no justice in the universe. :-D Anyway, if you're interested, I told some more of my story in my Scientific American interview with John Horgan - https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/scott-aaronson-answers-every-ridiculously-big-question-i-throw-at-him/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/scott-aaron...