This is interesting conversation. I'm a big fan of 'coming out' as gifted - perhaps not at work, or on casual meetings, but with friends of the heart. After I came out to myself in the course of my son's school experiences, I sat a few friends down and admitted that I have come to believe that people wouldn't like me if I showed the full power of my mind and that I appologise for whenever I've held back with you and how I've kept steering the circumstances away from subjects and that I'm sorry that I acted this way in the past - it was unworthy of the friendship you have shown me all these years, and I will now cut this behavior out and just be myself. This is always followed by me saying 'Do you still want to be my friend?' and each friend in turn saying, "oh sweetie, I know you are super-smart, that is what I like about you."
So now it's time to think about if by saying I'm gifted I'm implying that I'm smarter or better at thinking than other people. I can't bear the thought of this. So far what I'm coming up with is that "Unusually often, I'm better at thinking that the usual expectations people have of how well a person can think."
This leaves lots of room for me making mistakes and misjudgements,which I do on a regular basis. I've never thought that it's true that the 'smartest person' always comes up with the best answer. Wisdom is I think the character trait that is open to all people, and that just doesn't seem to have much to do with IQ - for better or for worse. I guess since what I value is Goodness and Wisdom, I don't mind having the corner on thinking ease.
But over and over and over again, I irritate people by thinking better than is expected, and I make errors when I project ease of think onto other people. So identifying myself as Gifted allows me to make fewer errors while interacting with people in general.
Plus everyone who is gifted seems to be gifted is such different ways, that I could never reduce it to 'better at thinking' -
Let's figure this out, OK?
Grinity
