I am a quintessentially "physical thinker." That means I reflexively visualize, and take things apart both in real life and in my head. I can "see" physical relations like force, momentum, heat-transfer, voltage and such far better than I can write or solve equations.

On the other hand, I'm less physically and interpersonally sensitive than average. (For example, I don't usually notice if I have a cold or move uncomfortably, so people tell me. And I've had a very difficult time doing yoga, Pilates, and dance, which require subtle internal sensations I never felt at all until age 50). And I instinctively self-stimulate in normal ways, like biting my nails or cracking my joints.

I surmise that my intellectual hyper-functionality and physical hypo-sensitivity are linked: that my nervous system, early in life and possibly as the result of a spinal mis-alignment, compensated for a relative lack of internal sensation by becoming very good at using whatever information it could get. My own instinctive strategy still fits the optimum for that case: I establish confidence by pinging, interrupting, and performing my own experiments. If one imagines a continuum of information-processing strategies with quiescent listening at one end and active interference at the other, I'm at the active end. I instinctively wrest control until I make sure I have the proper reference frame. On the one hand, that attitude of persistently asking questions and challenging ideas has served me well in educated circles; on the other hand, it often drives others crazy.