> he was seeing things 5 steps ahead of everyone else, and had such an extremely deep insight into every day things
I had a period when I experienced this for some time. I can confirm it's deeply frustrating. You see all the madness very clearly. You see theoretical solutions to everything, know it could have been different. But you also understand you're quite alone and not influential enough. Generally, you're better off being average.
I would also add that you don't necessarily 'know' solutions, but rather make sense of the limited input you have and try to extrapolate in that. Obviously this fails hard at human interactions, which makes this the frustrating part. How to think of an alternative when the 'right' solution seems so beautifully simple?
I had a period when I experienced this for some time. I can confirm it's deeply frustrating. You see all the madness very clearly. You see theoretical solutions to everything, know it could have been different. But you also understand you're quite alone and not influential enough. Generally, you're better off being average.