Leonardo's view of Humanity

Yesterday, someone from America made the funniest search I have ever seen. He or she searched with the words: "Why did Leonardo da Vinci think people existed?" This is a reversal of the question posed by one of my posts: Did Leonardo da Vinci exist? Clearly they knew of the post and were responding to it in the most hilarious of ways...yet, I thought about their words - and they have a point.

What would Leonardo da Vinci have thought of the common man, he encountered? What would he have made of the gulf in ability between himself and others? I don't think his views on the matter have been recorded but his case points up the problems the extremely gifted have of relating to others in the world. What could Leonardo da Vinci have found to interest him in the conversation of a typical person of his time? Nothing at all, I would suppose. However, he was fortunate to be famous and well-regarded for this would have given him access to other famous and well-regarded people. He knew, for instance, the King of France - no slouch himself, one would think - and many other brilliant people - so he would have found interesting minds to engage with, because of his social position. Yet, the problem of the common man would have remained. What would Leonardo have thought of their inability compared to him? The comical searcher was not only making a funny search, but making a funny point - if Leonardo was so special that others might doubt the truth of his existence, because he just seems so unlikely, we have to remember that he would have thought of himself as normal - and the others as somehow lacking (from his point of view). Perhaps, indeed, he had puzzled at this disparity - and wondered at the existence of such a difference.

All gifted children and adult must come to terms with this difference between themselves and others. Perhaps the best adjustment is just to accept others as they are - without bemoaning their lack of certain abilities the gifted one might possess. There are other reasons to find someone of interest apart from the quality of their mind. They might be sweet-natured or pleasant to be with. They might be considerate or kind, good or loyal. They might have any number of qualities to be admired that do not depend on raw intelligence. Perhaps it is in these ways that Leonardo adjusted to the world. It is in these ways that any gifted child - or adult - however gifted, can also make an adjustment to the world and its people and come to accept them for what they are.

Yet, I can't help but feel that it must have been difficult, in some ways, to be Leonardo da Vinci.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, three and Tiarnan, fourteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children. Thanks.)