Bryson Chapter 3

Quote:

"Evans’s is a talent so exceptional that Oliver Sacks, in An Anthropologist on Mars, devotes a passage to him in a chapter on autistic savants—quickly adding that “there is no suggestion that he is autistic.” Evans, who has not met Sacks, laughs at the suggestion that he might be either autistic or a savant, but he is powerless to explain quite where his talent comes from.

“I just seem to have a knack for memorizing star fields,” he told me, with a frankly apologetic look, when I visited him and his wife, Elaine, in their picture-book bungalow on a tranquil edge of the village of Hazelbrook, out where Sydney finally ends and the boundless Australian bush begins. “I’m not particularly good at other things,” he added. “I don’t remember names well.”

“Or where he’s put things,” called Elaine from the kitchen."

Comment:

I read this part and it managed to make me laugh (something that hasn't happened so far in this book) so that made it rather memorable.

Connection:

I feel like I can relate to Evans in a lot of ways. Although I have not been tested, I have been told by multiple parents of kids who have autism that I myself might have autism. I also am terrible at memorizing names and lose where I place my things all the time. Perhaps it is a bit of a stretch to compare myself to Evans, but I feel a connection to him nonetheless.

Question:

Is there a connection between being innovated, talented, or smart in certain subjects and misplacing things or forgetting names easily?