By Willem Kuipers - from his book “Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon”

As was mentioned in the previous section, giftedness refers literally to special talents, somehow provided at birth.

Extra intelligence refers literally to an uncommon overdose, compared to standard availability.

It is well known that the label gifted is generally not welcomed by the person in question, whether child or adult.

This can be due to worries about possible stigmatization as a strange exception to normal, or about the implied expectation or felt obligation to be an outstanding performer.

Annelien and I have always considered it one of the benefits of the term of Extra Intelligence, that there are less implicit burdens connected to it.

[Annelien van Kempen is his associate in their company: Kuipers & van Kempen, "career counseling and development of identity for gifted adults."]

And of course the other two differences – personal recognition instead of formal link to IQ score and the extension to all domains of multiple intelligences – added good reasons to coin the concept.

Recently, however, while studying more deeply these implicit burdens of being called gifted, we came to realize that there is an extra issue to address:

Does being Xi feel like a gift or like a commodity?

We both had read the book by American author Lewis Hyde: “The Gift. Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World”.

[The cited book is actually the twenty-fifth anniversary edition and the author has added an inspiring afterword on the puzzle of how to support creative work in the present dominance of market economic thinking.]

Triggered by the leading title, we noticed that the book does not address the case of the so called intellectually gifted.

Its partly anthropological explanation of gifts as a kind of circulating wealth and gift-exchange as a special kind of commerce, however, matches perfectly with themes we have encountered in our work.

Additionally, many statements that Hyde makes about artists and their work can be easily transferred to XIPs and their expression.

[XIP is a term introduced in Kuipers' book, meaning eXtra Intelligent Person - or eXtra Intense Person.]

This is especially true when these XIPs are relatively independent and creative.

Issues like performance as (not) expected, market value, and contribution to society are very similar indeed. This interpretation also offers remarkable insights about dominant societal views on giftedness and uncommon intelligence.

One’s view on this issue of whether being Xi feels like a gift or like a commodity, influences one’s choices in the management of this uncommonness.

In this section I will address the characteristics of the XIPs who tend to choose the first option.

The tension between the rules of gift-exchange versus market economy and its effects on different XIPs are explained as part of the third Practice, in chapter six.

I will briefly cite and explain the concepts as put forward by Hyde in his book, and then add my own application of these concepts to extra intelligence and giftedness.

Driven to use and share their Gift

A gift is something we do not get by our own efforts: It is bestowed upon us.

That makes it different from something we acquire through our own efforts, like commodities or possessions.

Giving and gifts play an important role in our celebrations and generally in the affirmation of mutual relations.

At birthdays for instance, we celebrate the gift of having lived for another year, we offer gifts and hospitality to our dear ones and receive their gifts in return.

Gifts have to be reciprocated to keep their essence of being a gift; that is maintaining the relation.

A talent is a gift: Although one needs to develop the talent through conscious effort, its initial appearance is a gift.

Inspiration and intuition are also a gift: Their appearance cannot be forced or adequately forecasted.

Therefore, the creation of a true work of art comes partly as a gift to the artist, and many artists feel that way about their creations.

Hyde argues that looking at such a work of art conveys an awareness of that gift to the beholder.

That makes it art instead of an everyday commodity: We are touched by it gift-like, in a way that has no direct relation with the price we paid for museum entry or even ownership.

Thus many artists feel grateful that talents and inspiration have been bestowed upon them. They feel the urge to share the results with their environment, and their gift is reciprocated through public attention, admiration, official prizes, and, to some extent, through money to account for their daily costs of living.

How does Hyde’s description translate to XIPs and their gift of being uncommon?

There are XIPs who consider their uncommon intelligence somehow as a gift; they certainly did not ask for it at birth.

Others may consider it an act of God, a weird trick of fate, a cosmic joke or a genetic inevitability. But in all cases there is most often a drive to do something special with it, a sense of mission, even when the mission itself is far from understood as yet.

Additionally, many XIPs are aware that they can have curious bursts of creativity. Their inspiration to be creative comes regularly, but still at unexpected moments, and its results can often amaze themselves and their environment.

It is our experience that many XIPs, when they recognize their being Xi, express an urge to use their gifts to improve the world, to provide help by solving very complicated social problems and the like.

They do not necessarily expect to be paid abundantly but would like to get some credits in return. In other words, they experience a drive to continue the cycle of giving, and are definitely not focused on getting the highest price for their scarce commodity.

Although honourable as an intention, this attitude is not always practical.

It leaves the XIP especially vulnerable when the offered gifts are criticized or refused by the intended recipients: implicitly or even explicitly, they make clear that they do not value the offered gift.

Thereby they refuse (the continuation of) the relation with the XIP.

As a result, the XIP may start to question the value of the gift, and decide to stop using it or deny having it, as it brings no good, after all. This can lead to stagnation of personal expression and development.

There are to my knowledge no standard recipes for the prevention of this kind of stagnation.

Not taking the criticisms as personal reproaches helps, as will be illustrated further on. Being aware that the issue exists helps too, and that is one of the reasons to have mentioned it here and now. I will come back to that perspective in chapter six in the section on “Is it excellence or deviance?”

Fortunately, however, many XIPs thrive thanks to a stimulating environment, or a very independent mind which is hardly influenced by other people's opinions: Their characteristic drive and intensity come in handy there.

I have a hypothesis that being very aware of one’s extra intelligence and especially one’s uncommon creative inspiration, almost entails considering this condition as something like a gift.

Or the other way around, the less one considers one’s Xi or creative inspiration to be something special, the easier it is to ask for and accept payments like one does for a commodity.

I will come back to this hypothesis in chapter six in the section on Gift reciprocity.

But let us now continue with other aspects of the Characteristics of Being Uncommon.

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Copyright by Willem Kuipers. Published here with permission.

Willem Kuipers is author of the book Enjoying the Gift of Being Uncommon: Extra Intelligent, Intense, and Effective.

Read the Foreword by Linda Silverman (and see link to the author's site) in the post The Gift of Being Uncommon.

Added photo: Presents - By Alice Harold
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alicejt/325346198/