This article is a letter to my son Jasper on his 10th birthday. Jasper is gifted, with an IQ that is 99th percentile. In this article I explore the metaphor of gifted minds as race cars, discussing the pros, cons, and special maintenance needs that they have.
Dear Jasper,
Everyone is given a brain and a mind when they’re born, and it’s all just luck. It’s important to respect and be kind to people with all kinds of minds. In their own way, each mind is beautiful, the light of consciousness shines brightly in each and every one.
Most people are given minds that are somewhat like regular cars that you see on the road. They have good engines, good bodies, good design, and can run well for many years. They’re safe to use and can get the driver and passengers from A to B. Some are faster, some are slower, some are fancier, some are plainer, but they’re all more or less regular minds.
Some of us however are given special minds. Instead of a regular car, the lottery of birth has given us a mind that is more like a Formula 1 race car:
Race cars are still cars, of course. They still run on many of the same principles. They burn fuel, accelerate, break, and do all of the other things that cars can do. But they are also quite different.
As you can imagine, race cars are faster than regular cars. A regular car and drive at a maximum speed of ~200km/h, but a race car can go up to ~350km/h. But one of the most stark differences is in acceleration. Race cars launch forward with incredible force because they’re light, extremely powerful, and built for maximum performance. A normal car can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 7-10 seconds, but for a race car it’s just ~2.5 seconds.
This article will explore what that means for you, your mind and your life as you turn 10.
1. The Need for Speed; Frustration and Boredom
When we think of giftedness and intelligence, the primary defining characteristic will often be how ‘smart’ you are, particularly in certain areas. You, your teachers, your friends and parents already know that you are different. You’re very good at maths, you’ve done well in maths competitions and have been accelerated at school multiple times. You have an intrinsically musical mind with perfect pitch- which is quite rare (only 1 in 10 000 have that, apparently).
When you were 2 years old you were building train tracks of impressive complexity, and by 3 you knew the names of many different dinosaurs. Your vocabulary is impressive for a 10 year old. It’s clear to you, your teachers, your parents and most people who will ever get to know you: you have a faster mind than most. And you will be living with this mind for the rest of your life. But where’s it going to go? How is it going to race? Given how fast it is, which tracks will it race on?
Can you imagine seeing a race car on regular roads with regular cars? Or a race car stuck in traffic?
Most people get frustrated in traffic, but a race car gets even more frustrated and overwhelmed. Even when the traffic is flowing normally on ordinary roads, a race car driver might well feel stuck, bored and frustrated. They want to drive fast, accelerate, race, but they’re stuck. You’ve already felt this. You’ve felt bored at school many times.
Boredom and frustration are common emotions for gifted people navigating the ordinary world. Naturally, your teachers and your parents will do their best to provide you with race tracks to put your mind on that are more challenging and enjoyable for you, so that you can stretch and flex your abilities. But sadly (and realistically) the world isn’t perfectly accommodating. It’s likely that in your future you will have many collisions with circumstances that frustrate you, as you have in the past. Learning to navigate emotions such as boredom and frustration are key skills that will serve you for the rest of your life. People who love you will do everything they can to help, and as you grow, you’ll figure out more ways to get your car onto the right race track.
When you become an adult, you may learn to build your own race tracks. Gifted people have done this throughout history. Some people become high-end scientists or artists, others become entrepreneurs, in all cases- they realised that one of the best ways to challenge their minds was to build their own reality. This is empowering, and may be ultimately necessary when you were born with a race car of a mind.
2. Alone On The Track
When you’re different from a lot of other people- when your interests are different, your thought patterns, and your ability to relate are all different, you can sometimes land up being alone and feeling lonely. This is common for gifted people. Gifted people have intense curiosity, abstract thinking, and needs for deep and meaningful conversations, but many other people don’t feel the same, and can even view those things as “weird” or “geeky”. In the worst cases, this leads to bullying. This can lead to a sense of isolation and a feeling of being misunderstood by those around you.
But you’re not alone. You have your parents who love and (mostly) understand you. And as gifted people have done throughout history, you can always connect with other, similar minds, either in-person (if they’re around) or through their art and creativity (like the books they write).
There is always connection available when you seek it.
3. High Octane Fuel
Ordinary cars use ordinary fuel. But for Formula 1 race cars need unique, highly specialised, ‘high octane’ fuel in order to operate well and not be damaged. Without this special fuel, when the car tries to spin up their engine to its maximum RPMs, their engine will be damaged. They also have unique oil, coolant, brake fluid and other requirements- all needing ultra high performance products due to their unique speed, design, and heat dynamics.
For a gifted mind- you need good quality fuel of all kinds, and avoiding taking in low quality fuel is really helpful.
In an ancient Chinese poem, the writer was asked why his mind is so clear. He answered “为有源头活水来” (“because living water flows from the source”). What he meant was that he reads books actively, stimulating his mind with a continuous flow of high quality, good ideas.
Like high performance car engines, gifted minds are also highly sensitive to what’s put in them- more sensitive than regular minds. You’ll need healthy ideas, healthy emotional relationships, friendships, hobbies, and pursuits to fuel your mind and keep it running well- and without them, your mind might become more agitated, intolerant and disturbed than ordinary people.
4. Regular Pitstops and Maintenance
Formula 1 cars drive with such intensity that not only do they need ordinary maintenance and downtime between races, but they actually have to stop driving entirely in the middle of the race for a short time for a “pit stop”.
For a gifted mind, a pit stop is rest and recovery of all kinds; good quality sleep, regular exercise, emotional connection, therapy, healthy entertainment, or even a practice like meditation where you explicitly do nothing for a period of time every day. All of these work together to refresh and rejuvenate your mind, and while practices like these will benefit most people, they are especially important for a gifted and sensitive mind.
Furthermore, while everyone needs time to process their emotions, as a gifted person, you might need more time than others, because your mind feels things more sensitively. It absorbs and processes information in more detail, resulting in slower and deeper emotional processing. Journaling can be helpful.
Conclusion
Race away my boy!
