Am I special?

-------------------------------------------------Am I special?------------------------------------------------
This is an honest question, and one that has occurred to me over the years, but more so since I’ve been writing a lot more and seeing how things fit together. I’m not suffering from delusions of grandeur, I just seem to have a higher understanding of life in general (and the ability to communicate it) than nearly everyone else I come across.

I’ll quickly outline excellence. There are various apparent forms, but in fact they are not all the same by any means (another way I am demonstrating my own understanding). I am not including people who have studied four plus years and are experts in their profession. They are simply talented and well trained. No, I am referring to the Indian boy who at 12 understands more about cancer than the world’s apparent experts who still kill thousands of people a year with chemotherapy. Very gifted…Kevin Ashman, the world’s quiz expert who pissed on every opponent in every quiz known to Britain with no exceptions, and now writes the questions.
People who are not taught but actually find the things they do easy and just need a little training and practice to become reliable. I was counselling (with good results) at 13. I realised I’d like to earn money from what I saw as stating the obvious, and studied to be paid rather than learn counselling. I worked nearly all of that out myself and though I can now give what I am doing a name, and stopped me from frightening off clients with common mistakes, I basically still point out (as John Cleese called it) the bleedin’ obvious. As counselling covers every aspect of life, it means I see life as a system of activity where all parts fit together, and I now feel I see how every aspect fits in total. Why each part of life happens, and how it interacts with the others.

So, self-praise is no praise, and I often feel delusional when I need no one to tell me I’m special, rather to prove it to others what I already knew for some time, and then have it confirmed. Is it true or is it ego? One or two do suspect (well, Sharon at least) but though I do get compliments on my academic and communication ability, something needs to elevate me beyond the average academic to a recognition the insight I know I have. Here is the scientific side I can demonstrate. When I converse with other professionals and academics, most, outside their own field, are no cleverer than anyone else. I’m not a genius as that was also tested, but whatever quality it is is not shared by most people just because they passed a list of exams. You need no exams for this quality, though it’s hard not to pass them as a result. But not all people with this quality bother to get that far and still inspire and teach others throughout their lives despite having no profession or qualifications.

So, despite my own personal circumstances and health, which are just as much given by ‘grace’ as my abilities, my understanding is there. And one sign of a version of savantism is most of the time these things are obvious to me yet confound (apparently) government and university researchers. I then realised (as someone honest and direct like the average 4 year old) that these guys make a lot of money for research, and therefore would be just as happy to pretend to spend a year working out why farts smell or women but not men can give birth. That’s a shame, as it gave me the impression these guys were thick when in fact they’re just bastards milking the system while creating nothing. But either way there are still people amongst research who either can’t or can hack it, and far fewer who can than you’d think otherwise they’d be researching original and unknown questions rather than why children with poor parents wear cheaper trainers.

So with no money for it and no backing of any sort, I write wherever I can, and without even needing to prove my findings with experiments (which are extremely expensive anyway) as I have already said, I just know many things. If something feels right it usually is, whether you work it out or hear it. So what I now need is external validation, as being subjective with few people saying whether they think I’m somehow special (mainly as people rarely comment full stop except serial insulters), as the sneaking suspicion has been nudging me more and more until I had to come out and go public. If I’m not, fine. It means I never was so haven’t lost anything by it. But if I am I shouldn’t be wasted being heard by a few hundred people online and in private journals. I ought at least to write in a paper or be on TV somehow. That’s when you do need a degree. Will Self and Toby Young are bright sparks I knew personally, but without their degrees would have been unlikely to be used despite their talents. General knowledge/understanding has no degree. A degree just tells an employer you may not be putting it on.

I couldn’t finish up without looking east. Sages, mystics and gurus are just that there. They don’t need to study much more than yoga, but the teachers often didn’t, having those abilities already. You have in all disciplines the majority who teach and the minority who discover what they teach first. I am a discoverer. I find a pattern, then look for evidence to prove it. Others don’t know, and test every possible variation to find out what I’d worked out from naïve observation. Why I am special. And it can be very frustrating as people doubt what you know if you can’t back it up with experimental results.
Spiritual/new age beliefs will explain it, based on the modern teachings of Yogananda, who said we can all do anything just by tuning in to it. It’s just some are better at it than others and we all have the potential. He offered his ancient kriya yoga as a way to do this, but had the abilities already with no yoga, as most true gurus do. His reason for yoga was to then become enlightened, which he did.

Maybe all the stress I’ve suffered in the last year has been to get me used to every possible dire condition so I can’t fear the unknown, having ‘been there’ already, and seen what to do when I am. The mental scars are still open, but have closed for periods recently so may be able to fade enough to live without them in my constant front or background awareness. But even with agoraphobia the Indian gurus like Sai Baba can still work from home, and mine comes and goes so not total. One final point is the best understanding I have seen elsewhere is by TV writers. They can weave every aspect of common human situations into their dramas, and then ways of dealing with and solving them. And they need no qualifications. The only problem is they present it as entertainment, and few realise it’s also valid as an example of real human life, except when they deliberately introduce an issue in and then offer a helpline number.

But I’ve reached the stage where my wish to know has exceeded my humility, and I have to find out from others now, however long it takes, whether I am deluded or actually as talented as I believe I could be. I literally see life around me as a flock of unruly sheep that needs a sheepdog to guide it into shape. People forced or brainwashed into self-destructive lifestyles, believing lies and being stopped from enjoying life from religious and legal restrictions. I can look ahead and in most cases see the ‘damage’ that will come from them doing the opposite, and this damage is to their captors, not to themselves. I could get prosecuted for incitement in some cases if I was too specific, so have to keep limits but I still know what is not necessary and why. Not an experiment around, beyond hearing from people who did ignore the rules and grew dramatically as people as a result. We know the truth but 99%+ of the world doesn’t know, and most don’t even care.

As an afterthought, it would be nice to have one or two others like me to share with so I don’t feel like a teacher so much of the time with no adults to talk to outside my pupils. I have friends and peers, but they are for pleasure rather than academic reasons, and really need to bounce my ideas off someone else with the same intuition who can see the big picture. Tommy Boyd is one, but I’ve seen him get it wrong twice now (1) saying I blog for publicity and 2) dismissing alien life) so even he has opened a few holes despite probably being a genius. I get it wrong a lot as well, as I am not a professional in anyone else’s profession, and whatever I study, do need sufficient information and can get one view until information comes along to add to it. But once the hidden information is revealed I will incorporate it where lesser minds dismiss it. That includes saying ‘There isn’t enough information to know’.
The is a Dr Carl (don’t know his last name) from Sydney (not the fictional one in Neighbours) I just heard at 3am on the radio (what a waste) who knows as much as every scientist on earth apparently. He knows every scientific question off the top of his head and is clearly the top of his own profession. But it’s odd when I find mentors and role models and then find I’ve overtaken even them (Tommy, not Carl that is). I know one other friend like me but he has drifted into a combination of a mental repetitive tape on advaita philosophy (despite denouncing it a few years ago) and overeating. And he said (an opinion I can trust) that despite my lack of social skills the one thing I can rely on is my intellect, though being a fellow Jew used it as an insult as he said that would block my enlightenment. But he saw it. The time has come to see once and for all whether it’s real or imagination, so I know where to go next, follow it up or forget about it. And unless I make my own amazing original discovery I can’t know this one on my own.