Dyslexia is cool. And although I’m not dyslexic myself, sometimes I wish I were. If you’ve never heard of this condition, then here’s a little background. Dyslexia is fairly common, but it’s usually considered some sort of problem.

The word “dys-lexia” literally means “bad-words” in Greek. And if you have it, then it means your eyes and brain see the world in a different way. Basically, your mind switches objects around, so a regular pattern might get rearranged. For example, dyslexics have a hard time reading words and numbers. So a sentence like “Jimi played guitar behind his back” might be read as “Jimi played behind guitar his back.”

But when it comes to non-word patterns, though—like colors and shapes—people with dyslexia suddenly have super-brains. And that’s because their minds naturally rearrange things to come up with cool, new combinations … like chord inversions! So, something like a Rubik’s Cube might be totally simple to solve … or a Picasso painting might easily make sense to someone with dyslexia.

In fact, my friend, Dedra, has an unusually good sense of style. And a big reason is that she’s dyslexic. When it comes to cool clothes, she has most people beat. She’s also really good at interior design and other stuff like that. So do you have dyslexia? Or are you kind of jealous of dyslexics like me? And really, what super powers do you think you might use to make better art and great music?