Late night ramble, and I don't even drink

I was just thinking about the characteristics of gifted people and wondering what is going on in the brain to produce that cluster of characteristics. My preliminary thought is that there are primary characteristics and secondary characterizes. For example, I think the, probably, primary ability to see the difference between what is and what could be often leads to the secondary characteristic of perfectionism.

I love that I'm finding validating writing about gifted characteristics. As many of you know, it can be hard when the way you are is not normal, especially if you can't quite figure out why. However, some of the writing just isn't practical and elevates some characteristics that don't seem to warrant it. Some of the advice is basically: "The world should learn to value these characteristics." Well, that's helpful.

I think it is important to value and accept yourself. I also think it is important to take responsibility for yourself if you want to get the results you want. So, I propose that gifted folks just need to learn to be super self-regulators. That's what we are doing anyway when we are ultra-critical of ourselves and ultra-sensitive. I guess we just need to be informed self-regulators. Value all of our characteristics, and just know in which contexts they will get us the results we want. The prevalence of loneliness in the gifted is not right! If our gifts are keeping us from some of the best of what life has to offer, I would hardly call them gifts. Let's use our brains to get the sweetest marrow of living.

I've been wanting to take Michael Hall's workshop about personal mastery for awhile, but I'm a bigger fan of the clarity of Steve Andreas's thinking. Maybe Steve can present at Seng's next conference, and all us bloggers can go there and meet!