It's a truly interesting quirk of humanity how so many of us (maybe all of us) go through the, "I'm not like the others, I'm different" experience. Maybe that's a lotus he was eating all along.
The reality is some people actually are just special. I watched an interview with David Foster Wallace and two other authors recently and it was blatantly obvious within a few minutes that he was just better than them. All three were professional published authors but it was clear who was gifted and who wasn't. I don't know if that means the other two were wasting their time, but it is definitely discouraging to watch as a fairly average person.