This is something I've been thinking about for some time and randomly whilst posting on a forum (the highest of pursuits) it sort of just came together in the following paragraph:
"If you're just absurdly smart then that's not anything that can be solved except by miraculously finding a peer somewhere (I've never found one). There's a sort of layer of perception that essentially everyone else won't get when you're talking. This isn't some flaw in your reasoning skills its just your mind skipping steps as if every social interaction was just another mathematical equation to be simplified. The same way you might skip a step in a basic math problem you skip any superfluous step in a conversation. In debate this can be sort of harnessed if you make a hard enough hitting point, but in a conversation where emotions are involved your mind will naturally think of the conclusion of the relationship not the actual relationship itself. The film A Beautiful Mind is probably the best demonstration I've seen of this phenomena, though that considered an extremely successful person. If you made such a film about just any one of the hundreds of random geniuses that wind up doing absolutely nothing (because there is precisely no advantage to being one in American society) its hard to imagine how it would function."
So dissecting this: obviously technically geniuses are a minority by necessity. But what I actually mean is that you are a separate entity from the rest of society; an outside, external group of others. You don't have any visible indications of your intellect so people will treat you as they might treat someone else, at first, but as they get to know you or some nebulous fraction of you you gradually become either an object of awe or one of disdain, but never an object of acceptance. Since there's no way to easily identify other geniuses you have no method of grouping together, no inherent "genius" subculture as it were; sure vaguely smart people will cling together and develop nerd culture and all that nonsense but the actually smart people will be busy thinking about how to innovate in whatever field they're interested in or how to best manipulate everyone in a certain circle as a method of social experimentation or what have you. If you have absolutely no interest in basic social interactions you can't group together, you can't "defend" yourself from marginalization; but surely you will still be marginalized.
Personally I have demolished extremely difficult tests in the past that are supposedly extant for the purpose of advancing an exceptionally talented individual forward in society; however even having done that there wasn't actually any fundamental value to doing so (oh, your parents weren't in the military?); and indeed most supposed aptitude tests just wind up being tests on how well you studied for the test instead of actually being a measurement of aptitude. In effect the vast majority of extremely smart people will be totally ignored by society, they are a mythological being; you can't even claim to be a genius without someone shouting how arrogant you are. Really you just want some sort of positive identification that is meaningful and not a purely surface level thing such as skin color, but you will never have it; you will live inside yourself with no contacts that can actually understand what you're saying.
Hell, even saying something as simple as "language is too flawed to communicate my argument," in certain circumstances an objective fact, will lead to wild misinterpretations on the part of the observer. Personally I exceed at both written and verbal debate, but the fact that my mind skips obvious (to me) steps means I'll never get as good of a grade on a paper as some apparently average person whose mind works a bit slower but more traditionally would. You can't communicate, you can't integrate, you can't do anything except wax poetically occasionally. This is how it feels, this is reality for the most perceptive; sure I can completely annihilate people at whatever random game I want to play without actually putting effort forth, sure I can crush them in debate, sure I can make them laugh because humor is empirical, but I'll never be able to understand them and they'll never be able to understand me.
That as it were is the essence of being a minority; if I was somehow not a WASP maybe I'd be able to build some connection to another group of people on the basis of being an equally marginalized participant, but no I am a WASP; I am a member of the dominant group. Hell, I'm even extremely handsome, tall, and have a deep voice, and all of that is completely meaningless and useless to me because I just don't care about social interaction and will never be able to. Were it not for my unerring faith in God I would be quite self destructive I imagine, but I do have faith, I do believe I have a purpose, some mysterious reason for existence (even if that reason is to be God's thought experiment a la Job). Hell I even think I know what that purpose is and maybe it's theoretically possible, and even a hint of a chance at possible supremacy is enough for me to continue.
"All men are equal under the sun but for the unique gifts God has granted them." ~ Napoleon Bonaparte
