I went through weird stages when it comes to intelligence. Too many years thinking I was, then college wiped any sort of past confidence in my abilities, then I finally understood some things very late, still not a genius, but the fact that you can finally reach for new abstract concepts even when you spent 3 years looking at them blind is reassuring. Also underlying health, and lifestyle is of great matter.<p>When young you have less thing to worry about, your focus is very high quite often. This goes away past your twenties. Time goes faster and you become a juggler. I recently had health issues, stupid things like crippled blood flow will impair you capacity to warm up and retain data. The brain version of going out of breath because harmed lungs.<p>Also, vaguely related, taught myself music in an ad-hoc manner, 6 years until I understood harmony, and by understanding I don&#x27;t mean knowing the so-called theory, I mean &#x27;sensing&#x27; harmony like heat or color, it&#x27;s almost tangible. I can&#x27;t explain it, but it seems, depending on the brain, that after a while even the subtle and elusive things start to get parsed by your neurons. It just take a while before you have a mapping of it. And it goes in layers, the more years, the more you&#x27;re able not to care about simple things, say, fundamental harmonics, and can start to tune yourself to subtle data (higher harmonics, &quot;dissonant&quot; tones, modulated and non quantized movements etc)