I just went through some tabs on my work computer and there were several tabs about Werner Herzog, then a few true crime tabs, a bunch of houses on sale tabs, pinterest tabs about how to sow a frog and then a bunch of work related tabs with documents, emails, dropboxes and so on.
Seriously, good on you and your friend for proving the negative assessments of your skills in childhood wrong! That is awesome!
I totally get what you mean about finding an environment where there are more people with quirky brains for lack of a better word. I’m in the same boat, but a different field. It is staggering just how many people are disordered or mentally ill in my field. So so sooooooo many ADHDers and people with autism. So many. In hindsight I realized that I have always vibed the absolute best with people who were a bit off. Most of my close friends throughout life have later been diagnosed with either adhd or autism. It is actually pretty crazy to think of. Like a friggin magnet, I always ended up in those crowds.
I also won’t consider myself gifted or smart. It would be nice to be that, but I honestly think I’m average or a bit below.
I have my moments where I’m super fucking sharp, but most of the time I feel like a bumbling idiot, tbh. I learned to read and write etc very slowly. I was always a bit behind or just good enough to not be considered completely dumb. I was in an extra math class after school with other kids who were extremely bad at math but ended up being kicked out because I too good at math to be in that class. That doesn’t mean I was good at math, I was just just terrible enough to be in that class.
I only learned things if they interested me. When I realized that reading and writing gave me access to reading and writing stories, I learned to read and write very quickly. When I got into my country’s version of high-school, I went from barely passable grades in math to pretty good grades because some of the math, exponential functions and stuff like that for some reason translated into fun on my brain.
I learned English (my second language) mostly because I became obsessed with a rather advanced novel when I was 17 and it only existed in English so I learned English by reading it. Before that, I had the most basic English skills.
It’s always been like this. I only learn something if something else motivates me. I cannot just sit down and learn stuff if it bores me and most things tend to bore me until my brain randomly pics out one topic and goes “now this is your new oxygen for the next few days weeks or months. I dunno, I don’t have timeline, but until I say otherwise, this is the most interesting thing in the world”.
I have a few skills that are above average but for the most part I’m a very ignorant kinda dumb person. I did get an IQ test when I was a young teen but I don’t trust the results. The only positive that came out of getting tested like that was that my teachers dropped the topic of me being retarded, but I still don’t trust those results. At all.
Thank you for the compliment, btw! I try my best to be a kind person to other people and I definitely see myself as a small part of the village. That is the type of role I feel suits me the best in any community because I tend to pop in and out of existence constantly. Super present and there some days and then hiding in my hole while recovering other days, lol. Social stuff equally sustains and drains me. There’s no middle ground xD