Being "intelligent" or possessing the ability to recognize patterns and theoretical reasoning is blown out of proportion. As a child my mother would ask me to name a "d" word and i would answer "cat", name a "t" word and i would say "rock". They feared i was handicapped, so they sent me to a psychologist. At the age of six they proclaimed i had an IQ of 136. From that point on my mother would tell me that i'm special, or that i should work really hard and i could become anything. They even sent me to a special school. Special school sucked, they pushed and pushed until many of us just sat down and quit.
You asked what its like to be in the so called top 1%? Its no different then being good at sports or being left handed minus the statistics. It isn't better, it's just a different perspective. It's like running a six minute mile compared to an eight. It doesn't make you better, just different. Some people place too much importance in being different. Honestly? The ability to see words and numbers and patterns doesn't necessarily help me at work. I work at Barnes & Noble. At work i am considered the backward boys, i always need help, it is obvious to them that although I am "intelligent" however it doesn't mean im superior, it just means i excel in areas that other don't. It just happens to be that the ability to see number, words, patterns is mythologized. I always compare intelligence to the iris, some people have different colors. It is inevitable that some of us will have more rare colors. However having a rare color doesn't make me better then anyone else.
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