I made peace with it. It is just how things are, and there is nothing to do about it. Trust me, I tried. Growing up, I did not understand it quite well. At home I was normal. It started with school. My classmates were struggling with the ABCs while I could read entire books. How couldn’t they know that one apple plus another apple was two apples? That was not the most annoying part. My classmates were slow. I had a speedy brain, but nobody told me!
The speedy brain is considered a myth, and people might argue that being a carrier of a speedy brain gives you superpowers. It gives you super annoyances. Everybody else is so slow. Everybody takes so long to think, and forever to complete a task. From the first to the last year of school, I was always waiting for everybody else. Waiting for the others to think, to do, to fill in silly numbers on a sheet. By year two, I hated going to school. I sat in the back, in a corner, with a book, minding my own business.
To answer the teachers’ questions, I would read the schoolbooks at the beginning of the year. I can’t say I learned nothing. School was torture for a speedy brain. I hated sitting down for hours hearing teachers talking about nonsense while my classmates whispered and passed notes between each other. I never got a note. Nobody ever whispered to me.
Instead of friendship, I got locked in the classroom, in the bathroom stall, out of the lab… I had chewing gum glued to my shorts and hair. I had someone spit in my food. I guess once, I hope just once. Classmates would sneeze on me. Once I found myself locked in the classroom with a boy. I knew what he wanted, and I was terrified. I could hear the laughs in the corridor.
I could not say school was just boredom and bullying. I learned important lessons like lock picking and rolling a fat blunt. My lock picking abilities helped me to hide from my classmates inside the library. Looking back though, I don’t even think they knew where the library was.
At university things became less annoying, lessons were complex and I could find more speedy brain syndrome people. I was the happiest I have ever been if we don’t count my nervous breakdowns before every exam. Apart from that it was cool. Classmates were still slow, but I was moving at my own pace. There was a wide range of subjects and projects I could do. I was finally using my speedy brain.
I had lessons in multiple departments: arts, psychology, law, and economics, even math! I loved calculus in the morning and medieval art in the afternoon. Doing undergraduate research on three different topics and taking part in local community projects made me busy from 8AM to 11PM. I was happiest when my intellect was enough to survive.
Then the worst happened: I graduated. I confess, I was under the illusion that adults would be faster than children and teens, but it was not the case. My brain was as speedy as ever, but other adults still moved slower. I was stuck on repeat. Coworkers were moved by gossip and coffee. Soon I learned that knowing things and being faster was not only frowned upon but also hated. I was putting my coworkers in a tough spot. I also learned that being faster and working harder made the owner more money. However, my paycheck would remain unchanged. Then I became bored.
I jumped from place to place. I developed a chronic sense of dissatisfaction. I can’t make friends with regular-speed-brained people. I can’t work for long. I am permanently bored. I envy everybody else, really. There is no conclusion. I am just unhappy.
