“Notes on the Highly Gifted”

by Thierry Roussel

I think that for this, you have to meet people. A forum is already a filter. Writing is also a filter.

From what I know about highly gifted people, they are much more scattered in their activities and their encounters. Personally, I know three, Mensans and non-Mensans, and I know one of them very well. They have a strong thirst for meeting people and for curiosity. So they come across as a bit unstable because they go around a topic very quickly and then move on to something else. They do several activities at the same time. And they seem to function on instinct without thinking. This bothers others a bit because of the slightly messy side, and the fact that they jump from one subject to another very quickly in the same sentence, or handle both at the same time.

This relational aspect makes them seem like non-Mensans. They’re also more prone to laughter and very childlike in certain ways.

Their instinctive side means they have fewer problems interacting with all kinds of different people. And switching from a high-society evening to a gathering of homeless people under a bridge.

They also often do several jobs at the same time depending on the season, their mood, or the time of day.

On the other hand, the abstract nature of conversations, or their ability to read others, isolates them over time, because it often means too much energy and projects that are too complicated for others — while they themselves don’t realize it and think it’s not hard. Even if it’s just organizing a party with friends, the highly gifted — but also the gifted — often sees things too big for others, because their way of organizing is parallel, whereas others will see things one step at a time. The highly gifted person — unlike the gifted — sees the whole pattern in one go. And like in Philip K. Dick’s schizophrenic characters, time doesn’t flow in the same way for them, especially when it comes to projections.

Another thing: the highly gifted, although they doubt themselves just like the gifted, do not doubt themselves internally, which means that many of them can drop everything from one day to the next to go somewhere else (abroad, for example), fully knowing inside that whatever happens, they will manage. And that they will make new acquaintances very quickly wherever they go.

Strangely, highly gifted quickly forget what doesn’t interest them, but they assimilate the experience as a concept.

The highly gifted I know are very messy, interested in several things at the same time that have nothing to do with each other — like quantum physics, sewing, arm-wrestling competitions, and repairing church organs — and then, in the months that follow, predator fishing, bodybuilding, studying Roger Penrose’s books, pastry-making workshops.

However, I don’t know any THPI who are also on the autism spectrum, so on that topic I can’t provide any testimony.