Are geniuses ever satisfied?

What is it that drives a genius ever on, to deeper understandings, greater works, more complete statements? I would say that one key attribute is dissatisfaction.

Yet, dissatisfaction at the work already achieved, has a dark side to it, too. Perhaps the genius is unable to fully appreciate their own work, so high are their aims and, perhaps, so low are their achievements, in comparison.

I am led to the words of two great geniuses to support this view that they appear dissatisfied with their works.

Albert Einstein once said: "If I had my life to live over again, I would be a plumber."

Surely, only great dissatisfaction with what he had achieved - or the life that he had had to lead to achieve it - could ever have motivated such words. Looking back over his life, his personal assessment was that a life of manual labour would have been preferable.

Another, too, who expressed dissatisfaction with his creative life, was Leonardo da Vinci - whose last words I have elsewhere recorded: "I have offended God and Man by doing so little with my life."

These words, too, point to an essential dissatisfaction with his achievements: somehow, great though they appear to others, he felt that they didn't make the grade.

Are we to assess a genius on their own unachievably high standards - or on the external standards of others looking on, at their works. I think the latter is healthier. Einstein and da Vinci may not have thought much of their work - but to the rest of us, their lives seem little short of miraculous.

A genius may need that sense of dissatisfaction to drive them on to greater things. It may, in fact, be a key attribute of great minds - but we must not let their self-assessment provide us with our view of their works. The judgement should be by the standards of the rest of society - otherwise we may not be able to see geniuses for what they are at all. It doesn't seem that they see themselves as we see them. That, in itself, is interesting.

Perhaps a genius needs society to tell them just how significant their works are. That society may, of course, be one of a different time, since some geniuses are not recognized in their own times. Whenever it is, however, society should not be shy in rewarding a genius with recognition - because, more than others, perhaps, they need this positive feedback - since so many of them seem to be unable to see it in themselves.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six months, and his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, sixteen 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 in general. Thanks.)

The importance of attribution

I can't help but notice that many people are in the habit of quoting another's thoughts, without attribution. Though most of these people seem to be unaware of it, such a practice is a form of theft, for it deprives the originator of the thought, idea, proposal etc. of the credit for having conceived it.

Part of the education of us all, is coming to understand what others have thought before us, and perhaps understanding why they thought in such a way. It is always enlightening to consider the wisdom of those who were known for their genius.

A few days ago, I was listening to the radio in Singapore, when I heard something that made me most uncomfortable. It appeared to be a slogan for the radio channel that I was listening to. It went like this:

"Imagination is more important than knowledge, so use your imagination..." Listeners were then urged to listen to Lush Radio.

The cheek of what they had done stilled me. Many of you will probably know where their slogan came from: it was a thought of Albert Einstein's that they had corrupted to sell their radio channel to the public. There is a deep irony in claiming that listening to their channel was an act of the imagination - when they had, in fact, shown no imagination themselves, in plagiarizing the famous words of a great man, to promote themselves.

What is so wrong with this? Well, many listeners will not know whence those words came. They will not make the connection to Einstein. This deprives them of a full understanding of what the words mean - for they cannot know the perspective of the first mind to have conceived them. Only through knowing that Einstein coined them, can we have a chance to understand both their import and their meaning. Not that alone, but knowledge of what great minds have thought, is part of human culture - to have the words of such minds, turned into commercial slogans for commercial end, cheapens that culture and makes of it something vacuous. Truly, what they did was morally - and legally wrong. For it is a breach of the moral rights of an author not to attribute a quote - and a breach of copyright to do so. Yet, this was done by an institution in a position of influence and respect: a radio station.

Einstein's remark was made originally in Berlin, in 1929 to the journalist and poet, George Sylvester Viereck who had somehow coaxed an interview from the most reluctant world-famous physicist.

"How," George began, "do you account for your discoveries? Through intuition or inspiration?"

"Both," replied Albert Einstein. "I sometimes feel I am right, but do not know it. When two expeditions of scientists went to test my theory, I was convinced they would confirm my theory. I wasn't surprised when the results confirmed my intuition, but I would have been surprised had I been wrong. I'm enough of an artist to draw freely on imagination, which I think is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world, and all there ever will be to know and understand."

Few Singaporean listeners know whence that quote comes - and that is what allows the radio station to imitate, as it did. That is a pity, for Einstein's words were spoken on a matter of some importance: what leads a genius like him to think and create as he had?

It is saddening to see a radio station trivialize such a man's words. I hope they change their slogan - and perhaps announce who they were quoting.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and six 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 children and gifted adults, in general. Thanks.)

Albert Einstein on gifted isolation.

The more gifted a child is, the more alone they tend to be.

This is not the product of a deficit, in them, generally, but a deficiency in others: the willingness to accept one of difference, in their midst. The more superior one's mind, to those around, the less likely one is to find sufficient common ground to build a solid friendship, of any kind, unless the gifted child (or gifted adult) ventures to be inauthentic and pretends to be other than they are, simply to win acceptance. Either path is a lost cause - for neither really wins true acceptance.

There is much that I can say on this, but I will keep this post brief and end it with Albert Einstein's observation on the gifted condition, as it applied to his rather special circumstance:

"It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely." They are among the saddest words a genius has ever spoken (second I would think, though, to Leonardo Da Vinci's last words, referred to in another post).

Einstein lived a significant portion of his life as a world famous man. He was instantly recognizable everywhere he went. There was no escaping the recognition in others' eyes: it was universal. Yet, he protested, in this frank comment, that the whole experience had done nothing to assuage his loneliness. He was still a solitary figure by most standards. He still stood alone in the social world, much as he had, at one time, in the intellectual world. What was it that made him so alone? Ironically, the very gift that had made him so famous, made him so different from others that he could not meet his match: there were too few people with whom he could really have any worthwhile engagement, for long.

To some degree, this is the fate of all who are most gifted - if their gifts are enough to set them truly apart. Even the best of social skills can only create a range of friendships that fail to satisfy the deepest needs of the most gifted - for they cannot, in truth, find a match for themselves in them. They must satisfy themselves with the shallows of life and the depths of their work.

I am not sure if there is any satisfactory way around this phenomenon. Perhaps, the most gifted should accept the situation for what it is, and find most fulfilment in their work. Oddly enough, that is exactly what most geniuses do. It seems they knew what to do all along.