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Billy J. Burton has been writing short-stories, novels and articles revolving around giftedness in an attempt to promote the understanding of neurodiversity.
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ARTICLE ABOUT GIFTEDNESS
Intelligence reflects on your personality, specialists in gifted psychology can often tell whether someone fits the profile by witnessing some key behaviors.So what exactly does it feel to be gifted ?
It is being very sensitive, having one’s feelings easily hurt, being very bothered by light, sounds, other people, being extremely touched by art, a story, a film to the point of sobbing for no obvious reason.It is being very imaginative, being engrossed in one’s day-dream, being lost in conjectures and being unable to focus on boring tasks.It is noticing meaningful tiny details in people or in one’s surroundings which will cause the underlying motives of others to become clear.It is being passionate about a difficult topic (such as science or a foreign language …) tackling it by yourself to the point of becoming good at it years later because no amount of difficulty can deter you.It also is starting lots of long and hard projects at the same time, growing bored and never finishing any of them.It is always feeling lonely because, no matter how many friends you have, nobody can ever understand you fully.It is having your own set of values and world-views that weren’t influenced by anyone else and never cease to baffle others.It is being extremely intuitive and having many different ideas all at once encompassing many areas of thought in a split second.It is wondering about so many deep questions such as the place of humanity in the universe or the future of penguins in Antarctica.It is being idealistic and sometimes selfless.It is often having a very special and intriguing sense of humor.It is being prone to anxiety, being a control freak to try to alleviate it and having difficulty sleeping.
It is all that and much more.
There are two types of gifted people.The way their brains work is very distinct from those of regular people who are mostly left brain oriented (more prone to step by step thinking) and swayed by their instinctive selves.The Tiger TypeThe first one 'THE TIGER' is the most common type, it makes up about 2% of the population and his IQ score is normally between 130 and 145. Of course, as we said before, it can vary a bit.They Are Right Brain Thinkers‘Tigers’ have an unusual psychology, they primarily think with their right brains.It means they think in a synthetic way, as if a first thought was at the center of a cobweb and the subsequent ones were following those threads in all directions at once. Consequently, they tend to be intuitive and creative.Many in the entertainment industry are ‘Tigers’, they are highly smart in a couple of fields, often emotionally immature and prone to tantrums and difficult relationships.‘Tigers’ being only really clever in certain areas, they tend to feel a sense illegitimacy, for the rest of their intelligence is average or only slightly above standard. Probably because of that, they are often seen as being big-headed and relentless in their attempt to be right, though they may not be aware of that behavior.If a gifted person you know is highly annoying he or she is probably the ‘Tiger’ type.They Are Prone to Emotional DifficultiesThey often show signs of emotional overexcitabilities: extremely bothered by noise, light, clothes tags, stupid comments … which displays their quirkiness to the world.But if you are patient you will really enjoy their unusual and fun-loving personalities as they are often outgoing and reliable friends.They are energetic in all the areas they love and big procrastinators in others, they are likely to start working on an important task at the eleventh hour.They Are Not Easy to UnderstandThese people’s way of thinking can only be grasped by about 50 % of the population (people with an IQ range of 100 and above). It is acknowledged that beyond a gap of 30 IQ points people do not understand one-another.
The second type 'THE OCTOPUS' is a more unusual species, one in a thousand.Unlike their feline cousin ‘Octopuses’ tend to stay hidden in plain sight, they keep to themselves.You are unlikely to have an octopus friend, they are introverts, they rarely go to parties and if they did they would probably be reading a book about Quantum Physics the entire time.Octopuses are people who appear normal until you notice offhandedly, during a conversation, that they speak 5 languages fluently or understand String Theory. These people fear the judgement of others, consequently you will rarely know what they are up to, as they want to avoid appearing strange. Sometimes they can also come off as stupid to the uninformed when, lost in their thoughts they misunderstand a question, or give a wrong answer when too stressed out by their environment or life events.They Are Integrated ThinkersThey have mastered the thought processes of both people of regular IQ range (left brain analytical thinking) and that of ‘Tigers’ (right brain synthetic thinking) which makes them equally deductive and intuitive. They can deduce many underlying explanations behind trivial details and think up entire patterns to find the “theory of everything” related to their own lifes. Bottom line, they’ll probably know if you’re being dishonest or are lying.Unlike ‘Tigers’ they are pretty good at almost everything, their IQ is homogeneously high in all departments, especially in emotional intelligence, they look zen and balanced.Nevertheless, this habit of rarely being excellent at something obvious to the observer can make them appear almost ordinary if you haven’t taken the step of discovering who they are.It Is Lonely at The TopThey make good but distant friends and are popular against their better judgement because, unlike the ‘Tiger’ , they want to protect their relationships and other people’s feeling and tend to act accordingly.‘Octopuses’ are lonely people , they cannot absorb energy from a group of friends as most “regular people do”, so, sometimes they are prone to existential depression. When they feel good, they are tireless workers in the fields they love and in the workplace (they feel guilty if they don’t do their best).The Misunderstood TypeThey are understood by very few people. They can only be fathomed by people above an IQ score of 115 so about 16 % of the population. With that in mind and their ingrained emotional protection reactions they have a tendency to remain single.
Don’t be fooled into thinking they always become scientists, inventors, great writers … many of them hold low-level jobs because either they didn’t realize they were particularly smart (due to the false idea that clever people are always geniuses) or because they couldn’t bear the emotional anxiety a high-level job entails.
Difficulties and Advantages of The GiftedSo now you know these people don’t necessarily lead a dream life, to sum up the difficulties of the gifted we could say they are prone to emotional problems and anxiety due to a heightened sensitivity, relational hardships and have trouble being understood and accepted into society.
If They Are So Smart How Can They Misunderstand You ?Well, for instance, when the teacher asks a mundane question, they will understand they need to reply to a much more difficult question and won’t give the right answer.If asked ‘what does your father do ?’ Instead of answering with a job title they could say : ‘He mows the lawn, he watches football ...’ or they could remain silent because there are myriads of possibilities.
How Can They Not Be Understood Either ?When gifted individuals speak (it is especially true of ‘Octopuses’) in spite of their carefully chosen words they can only convey parts of what they mean.For example if they say: ‘That wall is grassy-green’ they may also wish to explain how it makes them feel, and the memories attached to the color, as well as the concept of nature as a whole and the division of society that the image of a wall can bring up. All of that in an instant !The intensity of those different layers of feelings and thoughts can rarely be comprehended during a simple conversation.
There are however a few advantages to this uniqueness : an everlasting childish enthusiasm and wonder, the satisfaction of being good or excellent at something. In addition, being a tireless worker can boost a career if the relationships at work aren’t too tense, for gifted people have a hard time following orders if they assume they will entail adverse consequences in the future which they are likely to guess before anyone else.
Get Yourself TestedWell, first of all, make sure you are endowed with giftedness and not another kind of psychological ‘impairment’. The best way to do this is by taking a test, preferably with a psychologist even if those are expensive. Note that internet tests aren’t always accurate, I have met people who thought they were geniuses whereas … not so much. Rule of thumb, if prior to taking a test you think you must be really smart, chances are you’re not. Gifted people tend to not suspect they have a higher intellect because they mistakenly believe everybody thinks the way they do, hence countless misunderstandings.
And If You Are One of These Unusual People and Suffer From It ?Put together a small circle of gifted peers for emotional support. You can even join a High IQ society, the most famous ones are 'Mensa', 'The Triple Nine Society' , 'Prometheus' and 'Giga Society' (the last 3 ones for Octopuses only).Meditate regularly to help with emotional instability.Connect with the less intellectually fortunate on an emotional level on which you can actually communicate.Believe in yourself and start doing what you never thought possible : create, learn, build, teach ...Tell everyone about giftedness and its difficulties so you can be better accepted.A Word of CautionI often read: 'IQ is overrated', 'it doesn't mean a thing' 'EQ is more important in your life' ...Is it true ? Well yes and … no.It is a given, IQ is a limited tool to assess intelligence, some people's specific intelligence will never be measured properly.Nevertheless, it has been established a great correlation between not only IQ and the most widely used fields of intelligence (logic, vocabulary, problem solving …) but also the typical ways in which your brain works. For the same task, various smaller regions of your brain can help you perform faster or better and that's linked to your being a regular thinker or a gifted thinker.It can be shown on a brain scan.A gifted person brain exhibits more connections between both hemispheres, his or her sleep pattern also diverges from that of a regular person.So even if IQ measurement is imperfect, the inner workings of your brain has a large impact on your IQ and thus your personality.
To all types of intellectual animals, may you always understand yourselves and get along with the rest of humanity.Namaste !
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