Before writing my introduction, I have been riddled by self-doubt, or rather, the question: but why on Earth am I posting?

Indeed, it is not to "prove" to myself that I can succeed academically or professionnally (it is already done!). It is not even to "prove" to myself that I've got some intellectual assets (though I'm not sure exactly which ones).
Is it, in some way, because I am still in search of an "identity"? The "gifted" one? And why, when I have quite a few even more valorizing identities as a successful person?

Maybe it is because being successful and finally entering a place full of academically successful people (though my choice of career has led me later on to enter a place full of decently-successful-but-not-as-"out there" people) has left me, even there, with a feeling of loneliness?

Maybe it is because I am still wondering in puzzlement how it is that I have, when finally grouped with a handful of the brightest minds in my country, in the same field as I've always been the most talented (Maths), found people who were as good, a little less good, or better at Maths than I was... but not found like-minded people?

Is it that I'm missing the point? Is it that I've got an "unusual profile", maybe disabilities and abilities, or maybe that specific cross-disciplinary mind which makes me, nowadays, love mainly those people who have proven they had very sharp mathematical minds coupled with a love for litterature and philosophy?

I am not PG, but I am somewhat bright and somehow a little bit "strange". Who am I then?

Not too bad academically - reading chapter books at 4.5 (my parents taught me, beginning at 4, at my request), solving problems like (I'm not sure of the exact translation) "there are 5 rows of 6 places. Bottles are put everywhere, except in 11 places which are empty, how many bottles are there?" quickly in my head at the same age without any previous instruction of multiplication. This basically meant I was bright enough to have no academic issue at school, skip two years, then do accelerated curriculum at University level (my place facilitated such unusual university careers, and I took advantage of it, compacting 2 years of maths in one and 1.5 of physics in one in parallel the same year, then 0.5 years of physics and 1 year of education studies in one the following year). When I was not yet in university, my parents did an enriched curriculum at home, and I was nicely compliant and did what was required at school.
Well, but though academic success did bring me some compliments and jealousies, what really set me apart was something else�When I was around 7, I went to play in a cemetery (it was an old cemetery, and nobody we knew was buried there), with a group of other schoolkids. But while for them this was only fun play, for me, a moment came when, seated on a tomb, I suddenly saw my life as if judging it from above, out of time, and realized how I was running from one game to the next without taking the time to distance myself from my life, examine it, and think. At the same time, all the melancholy of the cemetary suddenly flooded into me and I began to cry. Because nobody could understand, I went away, to begin solitary thinking in an isolated part of the cemetary, pondering spiritual and existential issues� I spent the rest of that year doing the same, during all recess. When I left the cemetery (my classmates began feeling tired of playing there, and I followed them, too frightened to stay in the churchyard alone), I tried to go back to play with others, but was rejected by those who were playing physical activities, while I rejected those who were playing other games as too meaningless and �empty� as compared to what I had been living thus far. At home, I did read, play, and do everything else, but in school, at recess, I went on spending my time thinking. I felt nobody could understand, and therefore did all this just for myself.
In fact, I went on with that strange relationship with school recess for years � except for 6th grade and the beginning of 7th grade when I spent most of my time playing physical games (ball games, or hide and seek, etc.) -, until, by the end of high school, I decided to integrate myself into the �school society� and became a clown.
That, finally, I was faced with so little overt rejection, in retrospect, speaks rather favorably of most of my classmates!
However, knowing there was a key part of myself I could not share with others clouded even nice moments with friends, or my little moment of fame, when I was elected class delegate with an absolute majority even though I hadn�t been a candidate!
I also had very precise ideas of my future career � achieved at last today! � and could not wait. I wanted to go away at 9 already to achieve my dream, but understood I could not � one could not be independent from one�s parents until 18 -. When my brother remembers his school years with longing, I cannot but feel definite pleasure at being, at last, in the workforce, and, even better, in my dream job! Childhood? That�s waiting for me! Nothing to particularly long for�
Nowadays, I do not spend my time thinking about existential questions � though I may do it occasionnally- and I do not necessarily need to speak with people who have begun that search at 7 (though, at a time, I felt as if, until I met such a person, I would forever be faced with people who �could not understand�)! I do think, nowadays, that adults (at least, those former children who have truly grown-up, not those who seem to have just changed their outer appearance) can understand better things they did not experience themselves than children did. I also think that there are many ways to grow up, many paths, even for people similar to me, and that when I spent most of the first half of my life on existential questions, and the second part of my life as a clown, first, and then as an active professional rather than as a thinker, others may have the same potential, but may have chosen to focus their early interests on a thousand other subjects�
However, people with whom things do �click� easily include a man who had skipped 2 years (almost 3) as a kid, was brilliant at maths and litterature, a dreamy and sensitive kid, and did Maths until the end of high school and litterature afterwards.

But questions remain� Am I gifted? In Maths, there�s no doubt I enter all criteria in terms of percentile to qualify as gifted, highly gifted, and whatever else, judging by my rank in the many national competitions I took, and this even considering all gifted children who did not get a chance to develop their potential and therefore enter the competition� but more globally?
Is my difference giftedness? But then, why is it that I sometimes felt �dumb� as compared to my brightest classmates when I entered that 40 or so students� class grouping the top scorers nationally, while I still felt �out of synch� with them in other subjects (half of an explanation may be that I had already shut off too much to �trust� them and realize who they were, but, in my opinion, since my philosophical interests were not the center of conversations around me, it probably means it was not enough at the forefront of their concerns to appear in a general conversation).
Do I have deep disabilities alongside my abilities? (I sometimes really feel like that!!!� Especially concerning the processing of external information, or visual memory issues).

Or is it �something else� altogether?

Well� This is a probably a record in terms of length!!� sorry! (� do record-breakers win something?)

OK, I� post!

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