I’m an ordinary guy. I found school to be generally boring and uninspiring, so I almost never did any homework, often cut classes and underperformed my whole life. I’m skinny, gangly and awkward looking. None of my clothes fit me, most of them hang off my frame like curtains. I’m physically weaker for a man.

I picked up the guitar and the bass because I thought it was cool, and because the cool kids were playing music. I grew to love and appreciate music for its own sake. I’m a mediocre singer- I easily go out of tune, have minimal range, and easily strain my throat with poor technique.

I get excited very easily- I speak hurriedly and have a squeaky, juvenile voice that I find uncomfortable to listen to. I look terrible in photos- I’ve never learnt to smile properly, and I have an awkward posture that’s exaggerated by my beanpole frame.

I’m a video game geek. I like first person shooters, strategy games, role-playing games, shoot-em-ups and everything in between. I’d like to think that I’m better than the average casual gamer, but the truth is that I’m only moderately decent at any of them. The games that I’m best at happen to be the ones that I’ve invested the most number of hours into.

My idea of a good time is meeting my friends for coffee at the nearby coffeeshop. The staff there know us so well, they let us bring the cups over to the void deck across the road where we chit-chat, play cards and smoke cigarettes.

I’m very comfortable when made to think on my feet or address large crowds, yet I panic and freeze up when approaching strangers or even acquaintances. I might impress interviewers with my supposed fluency and erudition, yet I’m always cripplingly self-conscious about what people think of me- specifically, the people who I see on a regular basis that I don’t interact with. (I know that the reality is that they probably don’t think very much about me at all, but I can’t help it. I think about them all the time.)

I often stay up late at night surfing aimlessly on the internet, accomplishing very little more than a groggy, vacant state the next day. I have a weakness for indulgences such as candy, chocolate and cigarettes. I sometimes skip meals without even realising it. I have a habit of making plans and promises that I don’t keep, partially because I get distracted with new ones, but mostly because I’m lazy and I’ve never really learnt the value of hard work.

I was always convinced that I was destined for great things. Not that I was superior to anyone else- just that there were great things in store for me. I hadn’t thought about others then, but I perhaps might have imagined that everyone else had the potential to do great things too if they wanted to. I never understood why other kids were so hesitant to answer questions in class. I honestly never thought of them as stupid or lazy- I just imagined that maybe they were interested in other things. (I’m not sure how much of this is hindsight reasoning on my part, but I imagine it must be rather substantial.)

I read vociferously as a child. I read about plants, and planets, and electricity, and magnets. I thought rockets were really, really cool and memorized a lot of statistics about them. The same of dinosaurs. (Who didn’t love dinosaurs?) I read a lot of Calvin&Hobbes, which may have been my earliest introduction to philosophy. I read Enid Blyton- my mum’s influence- and quickly came to believe that authority figures don’t really know what they’re doing or talking about. I remember reading books that would’ve been considered beyond the capacity of a child, simply because I’d run out of other books to read. I enjoyed books like The Invisible Man, and Robin Hood, When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and many, many others. The more I think about it, the more I start to think that my “depth of perspective” and “intellectual maturity” (I’m quoting from my report cards!) are almost entirely the result of extensive reading in childhood.

So I have had an uncommonly developed mind at a young age. Nothing incredibly spectacular, but noteworthy, perhaps. I’m willing to bet that almost everybody who was given the opportunity of a GEP experience would’ve read extensively as a child. You’re treated very well in the GEP. You’re not taught to work hard- they assume that you already must be hardworking if you qualified for it- but you’re treated as someone with an intellect that needs to be nourished and challenged. (Stop and think about that for a moment.)

I never learnt to work hard. I have a good command of the English language, a somewhat decent ability to recognize patterns and a generally inquisitive and discerning mind- but apart from that, I’ve been well and truly mediocre in every imaginable aspect. (I’ve always been able to make friends easily, though, and I don’t have a ready explanation for this.)

About a decade of mediocrity ensued. It never bothered me that I wasn’t doing well in school- I always grasped concepts and ideas before anybody else, but fell short once there was actual work to be done. I assumed I would survive. I started to get a sense of cognitive dissonance each time I underperformed at major examinations. I never doubted myself or my ability- I was getting by fine without even trying- but each below-average, mediocre performance meant that it was statistically less likely that I was going to be anybody special.

Eventually this dissonance is what drove me into the spell of self-reflection that got me to where I am at this moment. And I’m excited to find out where I’ll go from here.