“Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another.” — Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The truth of Mrs Stanton’s words is self-evident. And yet:

• all education systems are designed to foster conformity;
• all governments seek to regiment all lives into a single, multiply-cloned, life;
• the ‘tribe’ demands compliance with its ethics and at least a pretended respect for its rituals.

In other words, the fear of the qualities that make us unique as individual humans constantly overrides our most valuable asset:

• Our variety and uniqueness in relation to each other.

What’s to fear?

Are you afraid to be different? Or more accurately, are you afraid to reveal your inevitable difference?

In a world where children can be scorned for wearing the ‘wrong’ brand of jeans no-one can be blamed for putting on the cloak of conformity.

Many find it very comforting. Being a willing and obedient member of the group carries tremendous rewards, especially if the requirements of the group aren’t seriously at odds with one’s own uniqueness.

However, this is often not the case, especially for those blessed with gifted integrity. We frequently find our needs at odds with the needs of those around us.

If we try to dismiss our needs in the cause of conformity, then inner conflict gives rise to ‘sickness’. This manifests as unfulfilled potential, actual physical ailments, and psychological distortions such as addictions and compulsions.

All in the interest of avoiding being who and what we really are.

It’s not just accounting

We tend to think of conformity as an establishment thing: accountants are conformists but artists aren’t. Yet that is not a true picture.

Any group that can be described as “a segment of society” comes with its own set of expections and societal assumptions.

Artists aren’t expected (or allowed?) to put on suits and neckties before approaching their easels. (Though Matisse got pretty close.)

It’s less prevalent now, but at one time any group photograph of psychotherapists showed a disproportionate number of beards, Freudian and otherwise.

The rules of clan membership have always included wearing the requisite tartan.

The penalty for difference is harsh

On the CNN news this morning there was a brief story about a young man who’d been forced to stand out in the street with a large sign around his neck reading:

“I don’t behave well in school. If I continue I’ll end up working hard for little money.”

There is a major warning here for gifted children, a huge number of whom end up in special classes because of their ‘bad’ behavior.

Setting aside the abusive nature of this humiliating treatment, the sign exemplifies a great deal of society’s beliefs around conformity:

• It’s the pupil’s fault (not a failure of parenting or schooling) if s/he doesn’t conform to the required form of behavior;
• It’s the people in power who define ‘good’ behavior (“The golden rule is: it’s the ones who have the gold who make the rules.”);
• The pupil will ultimately be punished by having to work hard in unrewarding labor;
• S/he will be rewarded for conforming (the implication is) by being well paid without working hard.

Which exactly explains what’s wrong with the economy today!

The well-off, by and large, tend to come from the ‘going along to get along’ brigade rather than from those who challenge the status quo and produce creative breakthroughs that change the world.

When everybody’s busy scratching everybody else’s back, who’s going to create the wealth?

However, the reality is that difference of a certain kind is a punishable offence. So maybe we should fear our uniqueness.

Even though the fear is justified

As spiritual teacher Andrew Schneider says: “We are afraid of being ourselves. We are afraid of being unique and different. We are afraid of being individually powerful, and even successful. “

“We want approval from others. We want to be accepted and popular. We seek this comfort to overcome our fear and feel more secure. …So, at times when we conform, we don’t feel the fear of living.”

Schneider accurately summarizes the feeling. Yet I’d suggest that it’s just at this moment – when we are ‘securely’ and fearlessly conforming to a societal blueprint – that we are at greatest risk. Why? Because we’re walking an inauthentic path.

If we should take one step off that path – or get pushed by circumstance – we’ll find ourselves mired and maybe drowned in an environment so alien that our very survival will be threatened.

If you don’t believe me, just look at the hordes of celebrities and other rich and famous people who die before their time in a morass of drugs, debaucheries and other actings out.

They paid the price of trying to be too pleasing to too many.

It’s weird to think of James Dean, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin, and all the other dead rock and movie stars as the ultimate conformists but that’s exactly what they were.

Perhaps Rolling Stone Keith Richards put it most succinctly when he said: “I’m like this so you don’t have to be.”

Thanks Keith, for doing it to please all of us. You are the ultimate conformist to society’s requirement for the archetypal rock musician. I wonder who you really are?

Overcoming the fear of being ourselves

Some of us live a compromise for a long time. We try to combine a dependent societal life – be a good employee, for example – with an independent personal life. This ‘independence’ might show in the form of dangerous sporting activities, weekend role-playing or unusual modes of sexual behavior.

However, splitting our lives into parts rather than integrating them is not going to lead to success. We can’t have a sense of adventure, discovery, and enthusiasm for life – but only at weekends.

So how do we overcome the fear of our own difference?

Happily, by recognizing that if success is going to be ours, it will only be through being ourselves.

This may seen counter-intuitive. After all, one oft-recommended technique for achieving success is to copy the behavior of successful people.

Unfortunately, that technique usually doesn’t work.

Successful people are successful because of who they are, not because of what they do. They do not follow a set of “rules for success.”.

Rather, they trust themselves and do what they are compelled to do at the moment they are compelled to act.

This does mean that success can look like a bit of a moving target. After all,

• There’s no single “right” way to accomplish anything.
• What works for some people, won’t necessarily work for others.
• And what is effective today, won’t necessarily be effective tomorrow.

But that’s OK because one person’s idea of success is different from another’s. So if we each follow our own unique success path, we’re sure to arrive there.

Personal differences determine success

We all know successful people. Some are entrepreneurs, some are schoolteachers, some are writers, some are soldiers.

If they exhibit one quality in common it is that they reserve some part of themselves to themselves. It’s a subtle form of asserting: “I’m OK. I’m as I should be.”

It doesn’t mean they don’t have moments of yearning for someone else’s life.

It does mean that they won’t bend themselves out of shape in order to be acceptable to you or me.

If they get on with us, that’s great. If not, they say: “It’s been a pleasure, goodbye.”

This is not dismissal but a respecting of difference that is free both of craving and contempt.

I may not want to be a Miles Gloriosus, proclaiming: “I . . . am a parade!” but neither do I begrudge him the rewards of his calling.

If I were to respond in any other way I would be asserting – implicitly or explicitly – that “the only way to live and be successful is the way I’ve lived and have become successful.”

In fact, it’s highly likely that that would be a recipe for disaster for everybody but me.

Learn from triumph in battle

Military history is a great teacher because the results of acting out human dynamics on this scale are so clear cut.

Sadly, the military and the people they advise seem to be the last to discover this!

However, war teaches us to a greater extent than anything else that the cost of unthinkingly following someone else’s ideas leads straight to defeat.

Thus the WWI followers of Napoleonic “go for it” strategy threw hundreds of thousands of men to death in battle against the trench, the barbed wire and the machine guns that Napoleon never had to face.

Then in WWII the French, having learnt the power of the trench, followed that idea and put their faith in the defensive Maginot line. So all the Germans had to do was fly above and walk right round it.

Please take heed: what worked for your grandma, your grandpa and your parents is not going to work for you.

You have to do it differently even if it annoys them beyond distraction.

Even if it costs you your inheritance.

Your own path is your only path

So now life is easy.

If you’re a business person, don’t copy Jack Welch or Steve Jobs. Do it your way.

If you’re a homemaker, don’t copy Nigella Lawson or her male equivalent. Do it your way.

If you’re a sinner or a saint, an artist or a banker – do it your way.

Then you will always be a success. A triumphant you.

What do I do next?

The fundamental principle that underpins all of this is to trust yourself.

I don’t mean trust yourself because you’ve been a good student and thought a lot and never want to hurt anything, especially dolphins.

I mean trust whatever comes into your motivation.

Trust yourself to be the pure force of universal good that you were designed to be.

And don’t second-guess the universe. You can be a ‘bad’ person in society but a ‘good’ one in the universe. Don’t let ‘them’ tell you you should be other than you are.

I know gifted people who are destroying themselves as they seek to shine as protectors of society – lawyers, firefighters, doctors. It makes them feel good and they’re helping people but – they’re denying themselves.

I’m not convinced that healthy results can come from unhealthful motivation. Sooner or later, karma seems to come around and deposit her poisoned gems.

So I urge you, be self-directed.

Recognize that service to yourself is service to the world.

How do I know?

Because that’s what the universe put you here to do.

That’s the universe. The Universe. The 13 billion year-old behemoth that we don’t understand hardly at all.

Not your parents.

Not your schoolteachers.

Not your neighbors.

Not your spouse.

Not your friends.

Not your priest, vicar, mullah.

Not your therapist.

The Universe is the only one that knows what it needs and it created you exactly as you are. So it’s a shoe-in that you’re exactly what’s needed.

And, even more strangely (from where I sit) it means I’M exactly what’s needed.

Spooky!

"Do we have a message for you?!"

I’ve been jumpy and unable to concentrate, constantly looking over my metaphorical shoulder to see if I’ve overlooked something more important and urgent than attending to these words.

Yet I can’t see anything there beyond a gathered phalanx of self-destructive messages:

“Who do you think you are?”; “Stop trying to be so clever!”; “What makes you so special?”; “What right do you have to pontificate?”.

This experience does seem rather personal but I don’t imagine it’s unique to me. Its insistence tells me it must be what I’m required to address.

What follows is a mixture of fantasy and reality but I hope it’s interesting and useful nevertheless.

The source of self-condemnation

The root of those dismissive messages is not hard to find. Just recently a revered family figure responded to a thoughtful remark of mine by dismissing it to the assembled gathering: “Don’t take any notice. It’s only Christopher.”

And so it is . . .

And only Christopher has his complement in only Jason, only William, and only Andrew; in only Susan, only Sarah and only Britney.

And it’s no coincidence that ‘only’ rhymes with ‘lonely’. There are many lonely gifted people, absent-mindedly kept at arm’s length by the society they strive to subscribe to and support.

Down the street

As I write, my mind offers up a visualization of my inner experience of being haunted by these messages.

I’m in a terraced street, narrowly enclosed by nineteenth-century red-brick and rigid sensibility.

It’s the kind of street that led to these words from William Blake:

"My way or the highway."

“I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

“In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear.”

Yes, ‘Blake’ is an anagram of ‘Bleak’.

I am being driven out of this street by thousands of contemptuous words. The letters race at me, jeer at me. Sentences form and chase me, teasing me as if in a cartoon.

Feeling hurt and betrayed, I see I’ve been marked as a foreign body, an intruder. I try to explain but already I know the assaultive words are in service to the society of the street. I must be expelled to maintain the homogeneity of the larger society ‘they’ call ‘us’.

“You’re not one of us!”  The words are never said but fill the air as I’m pushed from the street. I feel the pain of separation but it’s not my connections I’m being parted from. It’s my efforts at forming connections, my struggle to fit in.

 I never really belonged. These houses were built for those who fit.

And I am unfit.

The imagery fades, its point made. But I can’t stop thinking . . .

It hurts, this virtual exile, but my gifted nature compels me to see through the pain so as to make sense of the experience. It’s odd. I’m being kicked out but I don’t feel like a victim. It’s as if I’ve been given my freedom.

The mutual pursuit of authenticity

"Don't worry! We're leaving! We're destined to taste knowledge rather than live under your protective ignorance!"

Suddenly I see I owe a debt of gratitude to that persistent stream of incomprehension and dismissive disinterest.

By driving me away it protects me from work which, though honorable, I am not suited for. It defends me against relationships doomed to failure. It contains a certain knowledge of the universal benefit of rejecting that which is incompatible.

The fact that the messages are sharp and I experience pain is just a designed-in feature of human nature. It’s a quality that ensures that variations will be forced out into the open.

There they will either thrive or die but at least they will do their part.

We’re always ready to settle for a little comfort so it takes a lot of pain to move us. Especially when the future is unknown. It’s not as if there’s a guarantee of a place where “only Christopher” or “only” anyone else will feel as if they belong.

Nevertheless, we do belong. In the universe, on this planet, at this time. We are that special – and no more.

Just like you.

Your experience of ‘only-ness’ will be different from mine.

Perhaps you were accused of: “Doing a Jonathan” or: “Just being Gemma”.

Possibly your mother said: “Paralegal” every time you said: “Artist”.

Maybe you were condemned as “fresh” or “above yourself”.

"How come the other ducks can't see how beautiful I am?"

The variations are endless. But the message is the same as to the Ugly Duckling:

“Quack! Quack! Get out!
Quack! Quack! Get out!
Quack! Quack! Get out of town!”

Do yourself a favor. Hear the rejecting quacks and don’t try to distort yourself into being a duck just so you can stay.

Better for everybody to be a lonely swan on the lake than a scorned mallard wannabe in a miserable puddle in the gutter.

And it might just turn out to be better than you think . . .

See you at the swannery!

"There are more of us than you may realize!"

The parable of the sower has particular relevance for gifted adults because it highlights the vital – as in genuinely life-maintaining – importance of our environment.

"Then you ask why I don't live here? Honey, how come you don't move?" Bob Dylan "On the road again"

Gifted individuals have a great capacity for the state of what I call “easy survival” but we can find it very hard to thrive in a way that gives us a complete sense of fulfillment.

We typically blame ourselves for this. However, it is not necessarily due to our shortcomings as humans but may simply arise from the lack of resources around us.

Here’s the parable, via Wikipedia:

“Behold, there went out a sower to sow:

And it came to pass, as he sowed, some fell by the way side, and the fowls of the air came and devoured it up.

And some fell on stony ground, where it had not much earth; and immediately it sprang up, because it had no depth of earth: But when the sun was up, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up, and choked it, and it yielded no fruit.

And other fell on good ground, and did yield fruit that sprang up and increased; and brought forth, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundred.

And he said unto them, He that has ears to hear, let him hear.”

Isn’t that beautiful? “And some fell upon good ground, and did yield fruit . . . ”

Yielding your own precious fruit

Compared to us, a seed is a relatively simple life form. It may have a spirit but its resources for life fulfillment are basically limited by the skill of the sower.

Anatomy is destiny

We, however, are a different kettle of fish. We have all kinds of resources so that even if our sowers were less than mediocre, we have some capacity for improving the soil we landed on and also for moving to “good ground”.

This capacity is not absolute. We are constrained by the facts of our birth – Freud’s declaration that “Anatomy is destiny” is a valid rule of thumb – and determining what constitutes “good ground” is a massive challenge in itself.

Three-in-one

The challenge of finding the right environment is hugely complicated by our existence as biopsychospiritual entities. It means that a diet of phosphates, sun and water are hopelessly inadequate to our needs. To thrive, we must have access to at least three categories of ‘nutrient’ within our surroundings: physical, intellectual and emotional sustenance.

We could add a spiritual dimension to that. However, it seems to me that our connection to the universe is with us wherever we go so it’s not significant for this discussion of a more material ‘ground’.

In addition to needing three categories of nutrient we also, compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, place massive demands on our nutritional resources.

Again, the more gifted we are, the more demand we place on the available nutrients. Just as gifted athletes require more than average food, training facilities, time and sponsorship to thrive, so those gifted in other ways make their own special demands on their surroundings.

Virtually there

A worldwide web of enrichment or deception?

A major question lies open for me, having to do with the Internet and access to the world wide web. It can make an otherwise empty life seem tolerable and offers many rewarding paths lined with the kinds of ‘berries’ that gifted adults seek and feed off on their explorations.

I am concerned, though, that it may be a chimera: that its branches may hold false fruit in that they pacify our immediate restlessness without our being forced into action. It’s another variation on the old ‘golden handcuffs’ syndrome of working for a company whose reward system is just enough to keep you from leaving to discover something better.

Feed on . . .

I shall be taking a closer look at different aspects of gifted nutrition in future posts. I hope this one may have started you thinking and would love to hear your own ideas about what nourishes you and what looks good but ultimately tastes of cardboard.

Referring to the parable, who or what are your “fowls of the air”, your stony ground, your thorns or your good ground . . . ? Let us know.

“The Gifted Way” covers the same kinds of topics as “Dynamic Living”, but in a more spontaneous and light-hearted way. I suppose it’s actually more dynamic.

Too stuck to change, so with sorrow I say: "Goodbye, not-so-Dynamic Living™"

Many of you discovered that the effort of creating a new ezine each month eventually proved too demanding a task for this sole practitioner.

I’ve now adopted a more sustainable format – the blog – and tested it for a couple of months to be sure I can maintain it. I don’t want to let you down again.

I hope you’ll take a look at it, scan some of the posts from months past, and decide to stay with it. I’m also adding the archive of “Dynamic Living” articles.

What to do next

If you wish to continue to receive notifications of new posts to “The Gifted Way” you need do nothing. They will come to you automatically.

If you wish to stop your notifications, click on the “Get email alerts” link at the top of this page, enter the email address you’re ‘alerted’ under, and click on “Unsubscribe”. That applies if you have a duplicate email address, too.

If you wish to change your email alert address I regret to say that you’ll have to first unsubscribe and then resubscribe with your new email address. Clumsy but effective. Go to the same “Get email alerts” link at the top of the page.

Interactive communication

I’d like to acknowledge the fact that this path of adopting an interactive blog format was first suggested to me several years ago by Toronto-based creativity coach (and much else beside) Carol McBride.

I looked into the idea but I couldn’t see how to go about it. The technology was too challenging, making it difficult to create a visually-appealing blog.

Also, my decades of working in many forms of the printed word had left me with an internalized communications structure that didn’t transpose easily into the less formal blog structure. And I wasn’t dynamic enough to adapt.

Three things have happened since then:

• The technology has radically improved, making the whole process much simpler to implement.
• 

  Casting bread on the waters for the gathering ugly ducklings

  I’ve learnt to let go and trust the universe rather than feeling I had to produce something of a certain length, in a certain way, at a certain time so as to please those critical creatures that on some level I thought “my readers” to be.

• Like Ecclesiastes, I’ve discovered that casting our bread on the waters really does work. Honorable efforts elicit honorable responses. And “my readers” are actually “my collaborators” in our efforts to improve our lives for ourselves and others.

I hope you’ll enjoy the new format and that you’ll pass the word around. To tell your friends about it, click on the: “Tell Your Friends” link [duh!] at the top of every page and send them a link.

And please feel free to comment on the posts. It makes the process more interactive and increases the value for everyone.

Don't be fooled by first glances. What might look furious can be the path to glorious harmony.

One of them has already been published as a post but the other two are new. They are:

• Have you hugged your anger today?
  * Find out why recognizing and accepting your anger can be a major help in life: and how to achieve it.
• Know (and love) your Type
  * Why it’s important to know your psychological type – and how to.
• Turning  frustration into harmonious co-existence
  * Discover how to turn times of conflict into opportunities for creative development.

You’ll find the new articles by clicking here or on the “Dynamic Living Archive” tag at the head of the page.

I hope they’ll resonate with the unique tone of your own inner music.

A triumph of collaboration: pork tenderloin with chocolate beef cream broth.

That means that once again these are much longer than typical posts and cover these topics:

• Prorexia: a cure for a jaded appetite for life.
• How to maintain your autonomy in a collaborative partnership.
• How effective a collaborator are you?

The articles on collaboration have a link to a PDF containing the test forms described in “How effective a collaborator are you?”. You can download the PDF and copy it as many times as you like, using it to test your friends, family and work colleagues.

You’ll find the new articles by clicking here or on the “Dynamic Living Archive” tag at the head of the page.

I hope you find them tasty and easily digestible.

Those words by Alexander Pope were published in 1734. They are part of a poem whose psychological and philosophical content anticipates contemporary ideas of human nature so comprehensively that in some ways it seems extraordinary that we haven’t made greater progress.

However, despite the joy it’s possible to take in his genius, I’m not here to eulogize Mr Pope. Instead, I want to expand the notion that: “The  proper study of mankind is man”, into: “Every (wo)man’s purpose on earth is to gather information about being human.”

And nothing more.

No less human than you or me?

In this model of life we are flesh-and-blood discovery vehicles. Similar to the Mars Spirit explorer vehicle but infinitely more-sophisticated. Like the mechanical explorer we are dropped into strange territory and proceed to move around gathering information.

And, still like the explorer, we pass our information on. Through example, word, action and technology we communicate with other humans and contribute to the collective knowledge pool.

To what end?

Good question. But who knows? We could ask the ants, who do the same sorts of things that we do (but with pheronomes instead of the Internet) and at 130 million years have been around a lot longer. But I don’t think they can know, either.

It sounds a bit bland, but the answer’s probably: “Survival of the species”, or: “Because that’s what we do”.

In some ways it seems sad that we can never know what the universe intended us for or even if there was an intention. On the other hand, it is tremendously liberating. It means we can feel free to do whatever we want.

So even if we are just fulfilling our universal purpose of – say – destroying the ecology of this planet, we can at least have some sense of autonomy as we go about it.

OK, Chris, but – er – so what?

What’s the practical application of this kind of musing? It enables a shift in an internal state from helpless fretting inadequacy to a knowledge and acceptance of our total value.

"If I focus my aim intently, I'll score a bulls-eye with my pen." A. Pope

It means we can do whatever we are doing whole-heartedly. We don’t have to be constantly second-guessing ourselves in a futile endeavor to “do the right thing”.

After all,  if we don’t know what we’re here for we can have no idea what is ultimately useful to do or know. Everything we learn is passed on to the rest of humanity and all knowledge is of equal value as far as the species is concerned. Just ask Wikipedia.

This is of particular significance to ourselves because, of course, the community of gifted and creative individuals is in the vanguard of data collection. It also leads in the development of ways of expressing and communicating that data.

Let A. Pope have the last word

Finally, if the idea that we’re just a vast army of data sensors is true, then Pope was correct when he wrote in the same poem:

“Whate’er the passion — knowledge, fame or pelf –
Not one will change his neighbour with himself. ”

. . . because it wouldn’t be in the interests of the species to have everyone seeing the same thing and reacting to it in the same way.

I’ll try to remember that the next time I try to “encourage” my child, mother, teacher, or client to “behave properly.”

These articles tend to be much longer than typical posts and cover these topics:

The compelling power of "Dynamic Living" as portrayed by John Singer Sargent.

• What is Dynamic Living?
• Issues for Gifted Adults (By D. Lovecky Ph.D.)
• Profiting from your own intelligence system.
• Is there such a thing as a Geographical Cure?
• Love: a practical understanding, and
• Love yourself and grow powerful.

You’ll find them by clicking here or on the “Dynamic Living Archive” tag at the head of the page.

Happy reading!

The first question from the floor was very positive: “How do we proceed from here?”.

How scornful the very gifted can be

Her spontaneous response was unguarded and arrogant. Her look said: “What planet do you live on?” and her voice dripped with scorn: “Isn’t it obvious?”

Her mentor and major supporter, sitting at the back of the room, could not quite stifle his groan. How could she have done that?

How indeed. Sadly, not every gifted characteristic is dipped in brilliance. In fact, there is one frequently seen quality – asynchronous development – that challenges even those who love the gifted dearly.

Just as we gifted adults are likely to declare: “How can they be so stupid!?” so the rest of the world, witnessing our seemingly inexplicable gaffes, are going to say the same. And they’ll often often preface it with: “You think you’re so effing smart?”.

Asynchronous development in the gifted

Asynchronous development can take many forms but in the opening example we have a fairly common type: situational judgment lagging behind intellect.

Such judgment calls for an understanding and constant awareness of complex unwritten rules about social behaviors. These are precisely the sorts of nuances which the gifted, in their race to explore, discover and reveal ‘the truth’, will often overlook.

It starts in childhood, when the young gifted person’s facility with logic and reason amazes everyone who comes into contact with her or him. Parents and family, however, quickly discover that logic and reason are not useful tools to develop judgment, social adroitness and tact.

When we learn such things we do so through exposure to a variety of experiences and interpersonal situations. And that’s another challenge for gifted adults. We learn early on that we are our own best company so we can easily ignore social challenges if they get in the way of our fascinating internal adventures.

As a result, we may not learn social interaction at the same rate that other children and adolescents do. Even so, by our mid-twenties, the gap between judgment and intellect will typically have closed considerably.

"How could you ask such a thing!?"

But we will continue to have lapses, especially when under stress. And our brilliantly-wrought presentations will continue to miss their marks.

I have an unfortunate tendency to greet newcomers to our local rowing club with a jocular cry of: “How much do you weigh?”

This is a vital piece of information in a sport dominated by power ratios and boats tailored to strict weight ranges. However, most would regard the individual’s name as being of higher priority, at least on first meeting.

I am trying to cure myself of it. And, being gifted, I call my perceived strengths together to give me the leverage I need to change.

Shedding the scorn: focus on your desired outcome

Those strengths are my (and your) above-advertised powers of reason and intellect. If I remember to use them beforehand to work out what I’m really trying to achieve, I can then focus more successfully on what’s important.

For example, the young woman presenter would have realized that her goal was not to make a brilliant presentation but to win her managers to her way of thinking. From that point she could have analyzed their strengths (good hearts) and made accommodation for their weaknesses (their executive vision). And she would have managed the interactions much more skilfully.

As for me, I will remind myself that a rowing club’s first priority is enthusiastic members. Weight and age data can be gathered once they’ve joined up and understand its relevance. And then they won’t be driven away by important but momentarily inappropriate questions, however friendly their intent.

And I shall still feel as if I’ve contributed to the success of the whole.

I thought I could apply the same study model to other prospective clients.

Another good study?

I took a carefully prepared copy, complete with all its tables, spreadsheets and detailed business development options, along to an old friend who was in a position to create new opportunities. I thought it could be both interesting and profitable for both of us.

He didn’t open the carefully presented ring binder but simply weighed it in his hand: “Good study,” he laughed, “At least eight pounds!” And he put it aside.

I was deeply hurt. This was my precious work that he was dismissing and degrading. We didn’t do business together and our friendship gradually ceased as well.

In retrospect I was probably demonstrating a typical gifted characteristic: hypersensitivity. In fact, he wasn’t dismissing my work. He was merely making a comment based on his understanding of our marketplace: the mass of a study was an essential sales quality. Its content was arguably of less significance but in any case he knew that anything I produced would be of high quality.

So he didn’t really need to look at the study. It was me that needed him to. I wanted him to be astonished and delighted by what I’d done.

In his brisk way he may even have been congratulating me on my perception of the market needs. But I was too hurt to even think about asking what he meant.

Acute sensitivity of the gifted and creative

Gifted and creative adults tend to be acutely sensitive. Or maybe that should read “sensitized” because our rawness results from ceaseless abrasion from an early age.

As a result, we have a tendency to experience insult, whether mild or serious, where none was intended. Perhaps someone turns away from us while we’re talking to them. Or makes a joke about a piece of our creative work.

Can you imagine how Leonardo would have responded if a monk had nudged him after he’d finished the Mona Lisa, whispering: “Looks like she bought her gin from old Paolo down the canal!”? And if that had happened, would Leonardo have laughed uproariously at the jolly fun of it all? I rather doubt it. Creative artists put themselves on the line when they make manifest their visions and deserve respect for their courage, not humor.

However, the written words alone aren’t sufficient to tell us whether Leonardo should respond with a tired smile or an angry retort. That’s because the words alone cannot reveal the monk’s intention.

Hostile or only clumsy?

This picture shows a broken ornament. But the picture can’t show whether the ornament was broken by clumsiness or or aggression.

Is this the result of hostility or clumsiness?

Now imagine that the ornament represents you and me when we are hurt. How are we to know whether the hurt was an accident or intentional?

I abide by the general idea that there’s no such thing as an accident. However, it’s certain that some actions are more consciously intentional than others. It’s the nature of that conscious intention that I’m seeking to identify correctly.

It takes only one thing for us to feel hurt: the perception that we’ve been slighted, attacked, insulted or injured in some way.

This perception is trained from an early age. According to Kathleen Stasser Berger, in “The Developing Person Through Childhood”, there are two types of children who are more likely than average to perceive another’s action as a deliberate attempt to hurt.  She classifies both as rejected but in different ways:

• aggressive-rejected, which means they’re rejected for their antagonistic, confrontational behavior.

• withdrawn-rejected who are rejected because of their timid, withdrawn, anxious behavior.

These apparently different types are actually similar in several ways:

• They misinterpret social situations.

• They dysregulate their emotions.

• They are likely to be mistreated at home.

The social cognition of gifted and creative  individuals

To take just the first of this list, our ability to interpret social situations accurately  is known as social cognition.

In general, social cognition leads  contented and averagely well-liked children to assume that social slights – from a push to an unkind remark – are accidental and not intended to harm.

Therefore a social slight does not provoke fear or self-doubt in them as it does in a withdrawn-rejected child who might lie awake at night wondering why it happened. Nor does it provoke anger, as it might in the aggressive-rejected child, who would respond with the reactive hostility that opens the door to an escalation in aggression.

Many gifted children fall into one or the other of these two categories. Their chronic sensitized state leads them to feel attacked by the rough clumsiness of ‘normal’ life.

Hostile or just plain clumsy?

Worse, their own sensitivity where others are concerned further encourages them to believe any social slight must be deliberate. This is because they know they would only have said such a thing if they’d intended to hurt.

Of course, gifted children become gifted adults and may, because of their confusion around social intention, slowly begin to avoid social situations.  They may even experience themselves as clumsy, awkward, hostile and inept in a group.

Learning to tell hostility from clumsiness

In order to proceed with confidence into social situations – whether at work or elsewhere – it is clearly important to be able to read the signs of intention accurately.

Sometimes it’s obvious. If someone greets you with an expletive or a punch on the nose it’s safe to assume they’re being hostile.  It is when an action or statement is ambiguous that we may have more difficulty. Here’s a checklist of hints to help you make accurate assessments:

1. Give them the benefit of the doubt. The average person is amazingly tolerant and/or sloppy by the standards of a gifted perfectionist. They don’t mean anything by it.
2. Ask. If you know them you can say: “Ouch. That hurt. Did you intend it to?” If they are quick to say sorry or to deny any hostile intent, accept their word for it. If they do it again, you have reason to start to wonder.
3. Learn to listen to apologies. This is hard for gifted adults because they become so used to listening to themselves and making their own assessments they can forget others may actually have something relevant to say. By listening to apologies you will learn to discern the difference between the false and the sincere even when both are clumsily expressed.
4. Ask yourself how well the person knows you. If the answer is “not well” then even if they are showing hostility it can hardly be aimed at the real you. Rather, they are insulting some image of their own that they have projected onto you. This can happen quite a lot because gifted individuals can sound very authoritative and can thus stir up all kinds of anti-authority stuff.
5. Ask yourself whether you feel hostile – contemptuous, scornful,  dismissive etc – toward them. If so, your own judgement may be coming back to bite you. So try to foster a state of benign compassion toward all.

And above all, try to see that normal social discourse is not unlike trying to find your way out of a packed subway car. You’ll be pushed, elbowed, impeded and possibly cursed. But casually, without malice. And you will find your way out onto the platform. At the right stop, too.

Good traveling!