Yekke, beautifully written! What you wrote is brought down somewhere – I think it’s in the Sifsei Chaim on Tefila but I’m not sure (if not,, then it’s either in Rav Leff’s sefer on Shemona Esrei or Rav Shwab’s sefer on Tefila)
After some of the things I have heard recently about kids-at-risk, I was thinking about how it’s such a bracha to be smart, and not something to be taken for granted.
Sometimes people (including myself) think, “I also had a hard life, but I never considered going off the derech, etc.”
Aside from the fact that one person’s circumstances and difficulties can never be compared to another’s for many reasons, how intellectually gifted one is and how capable one is at doing well in school (whether or not they do) make such a difference in a person’s intrinsic self-confidence, and therefore in how well they are able to handle things, no matter how difficult their life is or how lacking in self-confidence they think they are.