The French psychologist Jeanne Siaud Fachin was first in France to compare gifted people and zebras. Her arguments :
– The Zebra is the only equin which man never harnessed
– This is an atypical animal
– Each zebra is unique. Not two zebras have the same coat
– Its stripes help him melt into the herd (the lions cannot notice anything else than the stripes)
– Stripes remind the scars made by a life that hurts and scratches.
The French Wikipedia version related to zebra mentions additional information which show how bizarre a zebra can be considered : Zebra is an “ambiguous vernacular noun which can depicts different species of equins as well as donkeys”.
I can’t help making a parallel with gifted : when you come to try to depict a gifted individual, you cannot but meet misunderstandings.
“Zebra is a symbol of courage, since he migrates on long distance in order to find food, although lions, tigers or even crocodiles are surrounding threats“.
Such as gifted when they crave for getting nurtured and meet aggressiveness.
On Wiktionnary a zebra is a pejorative adjective for depicting an African / European metis. There is hardly room left by other “normal” animals for a zebra…
But, the, as a happy ending, this sentence : “ According to Feng Shui, the zebra is the symbol of calmness in any circumstance…”
Merci pour le compliment 😉