Google
 
Web www.scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com

The boy who knew too much: a child prodigy

This is the true story of scientific child prodigy, and former baby genius, Ainan Celeste Cawley, written by his father. It is the true story, too, of his gifted brothers and of all the Cawley family. I write also of child prodigy and genius in general: what it is, and how it is so often neglected in the modern world. As a society, we so often fail those we should most hope to see succeed: our gifted children and the gifted adults they become. Site Copyright: Valentine Cawley, 2006 +

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Marc Quinn: artist or plagiarist?

For many years, I have known something about Marc Quinn that others seem not to have noticed. The reason I know it, is because Marc Quinn was at the same Cambridge College – Robinson – as I was. We have, therefore, an overlap of social circles and personal contacts. Thus, word of my life and my thought, could have seeped very readily into his. In terms of degrees of separation: my acquaintances at Cambridge University would have known him directly. This is not much separation at all. Anything I said could easily have got back to him, even though I was never personally introduced to him.

I have just become aware of something darkly funny. Well, it is darkly funny if you know what I know about Marc Quinn. Mr. Quinn has recently been complaining that his work has been plagiarized by Swiss fashion house, Akris. Apparently, their designer, Albert Kreimler, strolled into the White Cube gallery where Marc Quinn’s flower paintings were on show – and felt himself so “inspired” by them, that he copied them directly and made clothes out of the designs.

Now, I have seen the clothes and I must say that they do look the same as the paintings, in places. He has basically imprinted Marc Quinn’s paintings onto cloth and called it “his” design.

So, this seems like a very clear case of plagiarism. Marc Quinn is rightfully riled by this. He was quoted as saying: “To take someone’s copyrighted material and turn it into a commercial product without permission is unacceptable. It is damaging to my ability to use my own images to make clothing. It is destroying potential in the future. If someone is inspired by my work and they go and do something completely different that is fine. If they take an image directly, it is not fine.”

My reaction to this statement of Marc Quinn’s might not be the same as yours. You see, I find it darkly funny. You may be wondering why I, who have, in the past, spoken out strongly against plagiarism should find Marc Quinn’s suffering darkly funny. Well, I have a very good reason: I have reason to believe that Marc Quinn is not the original thinker he would like his audience to think him. In fact, I have much reason to believe that he may very well be a plagiarist – though one who has thus far escaped public attention for his tendencies. We shall examine the reasons for my belief here and that will allow you to assess how probable it is that my belief about him, is true.

Many years ago, when I was at Cambridge University,very early on in my career there – probably my first year, which would have been 1986, I submitted my creative written works to Sylvia, the editor of the Bin Brook magazine, at Robinson College. The Bin Brook was the College magazine.

Sylvia had asked me to come around with my works to discuss them with her. I duly brought many works with me – in their original handwritten copies. I talked quite freely with her about my work for quite some time. There were several other people listening in her set of rooms, none of whom had been introduced to me. Sylvia was in her final year at Robinson College – and so those present were not familiar to me, being older and from the upper reaches of the College, in terms of time spent there. There were several males present, though. They were listening intently as I spoke.

At that time, I was quite naïve about people. I didn’t then know the basic principle that, unless an idea is strictly protected, it will be stolen the instant it is spoken of or written of, in public. This is something that happens every time an idea is shared – and is a principle I have learnt through real life experience of it in action.

I spoke a bit unwisely in that room. Firstly, I spoke of a story that I wished to submit, entitled “Smoguey the Sorcerer”. This story concerned a Wizard who had invented a device that could see a few minutes into the future. The punchline of the story was that the device foresaw his own death – the first time he tried it – and there was nothing he could do about it (I would need a copy of the story to give the full details). Now the most interesting part about the story was its origin. I explained to her that the story was based upon a drawing I had done, in which a wizard is looking into a mirror that foretells the future and sees in it, himself, dead, a few minutes hence. I explained that I had taken that image and transformed it into a different medium – the written short story. It was the same idea, represented in two different art forms.

Very oddly, several years later, I remember seeing a newspaper article about a “Marc Quinn” art work that had been entered for a competition, in which his art work consists of a written explanation of the transformation of creative works from one medium into another. He had basically, it seemed, written down my conversation and description of how I had composed that story and made it into “his” artwork. (At least I remember it as being called a Marc Quinn work).

That was somewhat annoying to see, for I knew, for certain, that the idea in that conceptual artwork had been voiced, on my tongue, in front of several unknown witnesses from my College (and Marc Quinn’s College), several years before.

I also told Sylvia of a poem that I would have liked to submit, but which I had left at home. The poem concerned a Vampire’s view of Humanity, in which I described the Vampire as seeing humans as being “heads filled with blood”. This wasn’t metaphorical – in my poetic world, the Vampire actually, physically SAW them as “heads filled with blood”.

Now, you should recall that Marc Quinn’s most famous work is that of “Self”, which is a self-portrait consisting of a, you guessed it, “head filled with blood”. It is Marc Quinn’s blood. However, it is NOT Marc Quinn’s idea. That idea came to me, by 1986 at the latest – and was communicated to everyone in that room, that day, in the same College as Marc Quinn. Marc Quinn’s most famous work, is not original. Marc Quinn did not have that idea, first – I did.
I do not know whether Marc Quinn was present in that set of rooms that day. No-one else was introduced. However, I do not need to know whether he was. The social distance between anyone in that room and Marc Quinn was most probably zero: they would all have known him, since they were old enough to overlap with his presence at Robinson College. Thus the distance between my words and Quinn, was just a simple conversation away – and that is the most distant Marc Quinn could have been from me that day. He might even have been present for all I know.

The way I think of it, is that it does not seem at all likely that Marc Quinn could independently come up with the same idea, when, in fact, both of us were at the same College and I had publicly discussed the idea of heads filled with blood, years before Marc Quinn actually made one in 1991. Occam’s Razor would suggest that the simplest explanation is that he heard what I said, directly or indirectly, that day – and registered the image as interesting and worth pursuing as a work of Art, in the future, when he could get around to it. The notion that TWO people at the SAME College, would INDEPENDENTLY come up with the SAME idea, without being aware of the prior work of the other, strikes me as absolute nonsense and unlikely in the extreme. It is far more likely that Marc Quinn is being derivative of my poem, than that he came up with it himself and it just so happened that it is the same idea.

There is an irony here, of course. I had discussed publicly how I had turned my drawing into a story. Then I mentioned my poem with its image of blood heads – and Marc Quinn, it very much seems, on hearing my words, or learning of them, reversed the procedure, and turned my poem into a work of Art.

Knowing what I do of that day I discussed my ideas too openly, I cannot believe in the idea of Marc Quinn as an original creative person. Two of the ideas I discussed, publicly, became early works of Marc Quinn: now how likely is that to have happened independently? Not very likely at all.

Then again, one should consider an interview Marc Quinn gave to a Cambridge magazine about ten years ago. In that, he said he was grateful that he had attended Cambridge because it “gave him ideas”. I bet it did. What he didn’t say is on whose lips those ideas were first heard. It is noticeable that as Marc Quinn’s career has progressed and he has moved away from his Cambridge years, he has become, in my view, much less creative. His works of recent years involve no real creativity, in my understanding of what creativity is. This, in itself, is good circumstantial evidence that his early works – which shone with creativity – were, perhaps, borrowed from more creative minds than his own. If not, why the definite decline in his creative work? I know he is older…but he is not that much older. If he was truly the originator of his early creative works, surely he would still show much of the same creative power? He doesn’t. However, I do remember the day I discussed and disclosed key ideas, later found in Marc Quinn’s work. I see no real explanation of this other than the simplest one: the blood head did not originate in Marc Quinn’s own mind, for it had been spoken of five years before, by me. The work about transformation also did not originate in Marc Quinn’s mind. The question now, is: if Marc Quinn appropriated ideas he heard at Robinson College, which originated in my own unguarded conversation – did his other works come from conversations with others? Which, if any of Marc Quinn’s works, truly originate in his own unaided mind? Are ALL his works “inspired” by others?

I ask this question for a reason. Truly creative people, habitually conceive of their own ideas, unaided by others: they look within, not without. They do not need others to feed on. However, those who call themselves creative, but who are much less so, than the former type, sometimes depend on “inspiration” from others. In these cases, they habitually pick ideas from the brains of others, tinker with them a little, then call them “their” own works. This breed of people really see themselves as creative. They do not understand that what they do is inherently derivative and dependent on the thinking of others. In my experience, the two types are distinct. Truly creative people would not only never need inspiration from others – they would also not take ideas from others: they would respect the ownership and origin of the ideas.

Which type is Marc Quinn: the true creative or the type who is always being “inspired” by others? If he is the true creative type then he must explain why I spoke of his core early ideas at least five years before they appeared in his works. Also if he is a true creative, he must explain why he appears much less creative now, than he did early on. If he is the type who is always “inspired” by others…then why is making such a fuss over the “inspiration” of Albert Kreimler of Akris? If his blood head originated in my speaking of it, five years before he made one…then is he not guilty of doing exactly the same thing that Albert Kreimler of Akris did?

I have held back from speaking of my recognition of Marc Quinn’s “Self” work, as being derived from my vampire poem, for many years. However, I have come to realize that I am harming myself by not speaking of it. It is not fair to me, to keep silent. Whatever the origin of the “Self” blood heads, it is clear that Marc Quinn did not get to the idea first: I did…by five years, at least. I also spoke of it in the same College as him, within easy social distance of himself. That is something that really needs explaining.

I was moved to write, finally, of this, by seeing Marc Quinn make such a fuss over Akris’ plagiarism of his work. Now, I know that Marc Quinn knows how it feels to be plagiarized. It is time, though, that people realized that perhaps Mr. Marc Quinn, too, has plagiarized work in the past. Indeed, it is not safe to think that his most iconic work: Self, is, in fact, his own idea. No-one who knew of my conversation that day, about my work, could possibly think that, if they were being reasonable.

Yet, even as I write this, I know that very few people will ever get to read this post and to come to the understanding that the origin of Marc Quinn’s early works needs to be questioned. So, I write knowing that it will do little to open people’s eyes. However, it is important that I make this statement, because to fail to do so, is to cheat myself. It should be known that the same ideas Marc Quinn used, were voiced by me, many years before he used them.

I don’t know Marc Quinn personally. I don’t know what he is like or whether he is a reasonable person, in any way. However, if he ever gets to hear of my concerns, here, I would invite him to reflect: how would he feel, if his own ideas, ended up in the works of another, who gained 100% credit for them, even though those ideas had been conceived of, by him, many years before (but publicly discussed). Recall that those ideas had been embodied in copyrighted works – all of them. Surely he would feel a bit like he does over the Akris affair. Well, imagine then how I felt to see the blood heads, from my poem, made into “Self”. It was a strange, saddening experience, for I knew that I had conceived that vision long before Marc Quinn made it physical.

Perhaps Mr. Marc Quinn should reflect on his own words and take his own advice: “To take someone’s copyrighted material and turn it into a commercial product without permission is unacceptable.”

Well, I didn’t give Marc Quinn permission to make use of my copyrighted material, in any way. Yet, inexplicably, my prior work, echoes his later work. Please explain that Mr. Marc Quinn.

Thank you for reading this quite lengthy post, everyone. I appreciate it.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html
and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks. You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/


Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Labels: , , , , , , ,

AddThis Social Bookmark Button
posted by Valentine Cawley @ 10:50 PM  4 comments

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Is creativity valued and rewarded?

Is creativity valued and rewarded in modern society? This might seem like a silly question to ask, when such exemplars of creativity as Einstein, Shakespeare and Da Vinci are held up to universal admiration, but I am led to ask this question for a very clear reason: I don’t believe it is.

It is altogether possible, to live a life being creative in all spheres of that life, but to be utterly unappreciated, unvalued and unrewarded for doing so. There are no automatic rewards for creativity, in modern society, though, indeed, there do appear to be a number of automatic punishments.

A creative person, for instance, will quickly discover that, the moment anything creative is shown to other people, it will be plagiarized. This is so frequent an occurrence that I am willing to propose that it is universal, in modern times: everything that is created, gets stolen – without exception. This has certainly been my experience of creativity. Every unique or interesting art work that I ever created, has been plagiarized, upon being shown to others – every single one of them. The ideas have gone on to being used by and credited to, others, who are nothing but plagiarists. My ideas have, among others, ended up in the works of Marc Quinn, Cornelia Parker/Tilda Swinton, and Peter Blake. You should note that the former was at my College at Cambridge, the middle pair I have met personally and the latter I do not know, in person. My ideas have also appeared in a Nike ad, an ad for the Museum of the Moving Image, a film poster, and the works “of” the far from original Ian Hislop. All of this, without a single shred of credit. By the way, I only make note of those ideas which were so distinctive and unlikely that an accidental replication is remote, indeed – I also emphasize those for which I can trace a line from my work, to the plagiarist, through known contact with it.

I am sure that my experience with being plagiarized is common to many artists, or creative people. I came across a recent article in which FIFTEEN artists complained that Damien Hirst had plagiarized them. Some of them had even known him, in the course of their lives. Isn’t it wonderful how he repaid their friendship? By the way, a set of images by Damien Hirst in the 1990s, that appeared in an American magazine, perhaps Esquire (I cannot recall for sure), are also highly likely to have been derived from the same work of mine that Cornelia Parker/Tilda Swinton, imitated.

Another aspect of this is that creative people often do not receive any financial reward for their ideas or works. Besides the frequent theft of these works, even if not stolen, the work may never produce any financial reward. Certainly that accords with my own experience. As an adult I have been creative in science, literature, art and acting…but I haven’t really seen what you would call a decent financial return on my efforts. Nor has there been enough of any other forms of return, to have made the efforts worth it, other than their intrinsic value of self-expression.

I would like to think that, one day, my life of creative effort will be rewarded, suitably – but I am also aware that that may never be so. Certainly, many of my ideas have been adopted by famous plagiarists, which may deprive me forever of being credited for them. Even if I do receive credit in the end, and am suitably rewarded, thereby, I am not sure that the painfully long wait, to such a day, will be sufficiently compensated for. It is possible that that which must be endured, before any reward, may make any reward seem inadequate.

In theory, the creative life is an ideal one. However, in practice, we live in such an ugly world, with such ugly people in it (see the plagiarists above), that it can be one of the worst ways to choose to live. A creative life is often filled with such injustice, such pain, such suffering, such loss and such disappointment, that any rewards that are ultimately achieved, are far too little compensation. Of course, in many creative lives, there are no rewards at all (see Van Gogh, for instance).

As yet, I do not know if my own life, is going to be one of the creative ones that is ultimately rewarded. Up until now, it has not been particularly beneficial to me. I would have been better off choosing almost any other way of life, than the one I chose, in all material ways, and many other ways, too. I would also have been a lot happier never to have created anything, only to have seen it stolen by opportunistic others, whose names are better known, than my own. It would be worth it, not to have created those works, just so that they would not have been stolen. In that sense, choosing to be UNCREATIVE, might be a happier life choice, if one was aware of the costs of being creative, in the first place.

This world needs to change. It needs to be kinder to creators, and crueler to plagiarists. I do believe, for instance, that plagiarism should be made a crime, punishable by long prison sentences and extremely heavy fines. Were the world to move strongly against plagiarism, creators would find it easier to be appropriately rewarded and appreciated for their creative works. Plagiarists should be so scared of the consequences of plagiarism, that they don’t dare to do it. It would also be very interesting if such a law could be enacted so that it has retrospective force. Many of today’s “brightest names” (see above), would then have to spend long periods – well deserved periods – in prison.

I know, however, that such a world will never be. This modern world does not value creators and positively eulogizes plagiarists (for some of its greatest “stars” are serial plagiarists). The modern world seems not to care whether its favourite of the day, is a plagiarist or a true creator. There seem to be no consequences for plagiarism. So many times, for instance, has Damien Hirst been denounced as a plagiarist, without an idea to call his own – yet his works still sell for millions, or even tens of millions. It is, in short, madness. No-one seems to care for the true creators. Until that changes, it is probably not a good choice of life, to become creative. It is likely that anyone choosing such a life will endure much suffering, much rejection, much disappointment and little reward of any kind. It is likely that such a person will see many of their works stolen and see little monetary return on their creative investments. If a person wishes for success, in the conventional sense, any of the many safer choices, would lead to a life more fulfilled in those respects: be a banker, a financier, a doctor or a lawyer. These choices lead to conventional success in a fairly predictable manner. If, however, you choose to be creative, be prepared to see the world’s true ugliness –and be prepared to fight it.

That being said, it is possible to succeed as a creator. You just have to be more patient, more resilient, more lucky, more tenacious and more insistent than you would have to be in ANY other line of work. A creator who succeeds, is one who has overcome a truly ugly world. Theirs is a kind of unheralded triumph that far surpasses that of any other achievement. Yet, the difficulties they would have had to overcome, are unrecognized by all but those who have led a creative life. That, too, is one of the dooms of the creative person: to be forever misunderstood. The non-creative person has no idea, NO IDEA AT ALL, of what the creative person has to go through, to win through, in life.

So, if you choose to live a creative life, I wish you luck. It won’t be an easy life and you may never reach your goals – but it is a life that is worth it, if you believe in one thing: that to express the self, is the meaning of life. If you choose a creative life, you could, indeed, succeed, in expressing your self, your views and your world – but you may never succeed, in being rewarded for it. I wish you all, therefore, luck in achieving both aims: self-expression and suitable rewards.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

AddThis Social Bookmark Button
posted by Valentine Cawley @ 3:13 PM  4 comments

Sunday, February 06, 2011

Cambridge University and the Twenty Year Delay.

Cambridge University is famous the world over. It has inspired an untold number of books and films set in its idyllic surroundings – yet, is it an inspiration to actually go there, study there and be there for three years? Does Cambridge University have a positive effect on a life?

I am moved to write of this now, because of a thought that is never too far from my mind: life is brief and sudden and the one thing none of us know about it, is its length. If I did not write of this, it might forever go unwritten and never be known. That is something I cannot let happen. So, today, I have decided to write of Cambridge University’s effect on my life path – well, one of those effects. I write knowing that very few people will read of it, here, and it will still largely go unknown, even so – however, it shall serve the purpose of making a record of these thoughts, so that they are to be found, in the world, should anyone choose to look for them.

I went up to Cambridge with such high expectation – and perhaps, in fact, that was part of the problem. I expected to be surrounded by enlightened, intelligent, lively minds with humane outlooks and understanding personalities, informed by premature wisdom. I thought they would be the best of the best. Sadly, they weren’t like that at all. There was relatively little of any of these characteristics present – or at least not to the degree I sought. They were not as bright as I had hoped and many tended to be rather conformist and intolerant of difference. In fact, they exhibited an exaggeration of the negative characteristics I had observed in colleagues at school: a narrowness of mind, that liked to exclude anything or anyone that didn’t match their rather limited range of expectations. Yet, I am not here to write of the students, even though many of them were disappointing, in some ways. I am here to write of the institution itself, and its staff.

Firstly, there is the legend that Cambridge has good teachers. I don’t know how this impression ever took hold, because very few of the lecturers I had, were decent teachers. Some of them were truly appalling. One, in particular, has never been forgotten. He “taught” Physical Chemistry, using blueprint style preprinted overheads, which he would flash up before a lecture hall filled with hundreds of people and point at a dense mass of mathematical equations and say: “As you can see, this implies that”, as he pointed to the top and bottom line, without explanation or introduction of what, actually any of it was about. He never gave any indication of what any of the symbols represented or what, in fact, was being communicated by the equations. At times like this, I would look around the lecture hall and see what I expected to see: a sea of incomprehending faces. If any of these people were to work out what was being discussed they would have to do all the work themselves. The lecturer was not going to be of any help at all.

I remember another occasion, years later, in a Philosophy of Science lecture when a very earnest and intelligent young man came to me after the lecture and asked: “Did you understand any of that?”

“Yes.”, I said, because I had.

He looked most discomfited, because it was clear that he hadn’t – even though I knew from conversations with him, that he was very intelligent.

What perhaps, I should have said, is that I approached his lectures with a very open mind and let all his words fall upon my mind. There they would link up and form meaning, or be pieced together as one great puzzle, until all became clear. The only reason I understood that lecturer's work was because of my own peculiar approach to listening, not because of any communicative skill on the part of the lecturer. Then again, of course, I may have been seeing my own meanings in his work and not the ones he had intended.

The truth was, of course, that the lecturer was extremely opaque and he did not talk in a way designed to convey understanding. He spoke as if in a private language, of immense complexity. Looking back, it is possible he had some innate disorder that affected his ability to communicate – because he was inherently very bad at it.

At Cambridge, bad lecturers were much more common than good ones – at least in the sciences. They were bad in two primary ways: they did not know how to communicate well – and they were very dull to listen to.

Those failings, however, are minor compared to the ones that bothered me more deeply about Cambridge.

There were two other aspects that troubled me. Firstly, whenever I showed creativity or enthusiasm, in my written work, I invariably was greeted with great hostility, by the academic staff. It appeared that creativity deeply offended them, perhaps by sparking some envy of some kind. I found it most unnerving to be welcomed so, each and every time I showed a creative response to an assignment. So unpleasant were the reactions I received, which varied from being reported, by “Dr Robert Lee Kilpatrick” for writing an essay of “inappropriate length” (for which I had to see a disciplinary committee!), to my essay being screwed up into a ball, by Dr. Barbara Politynska, who didn’t like its thesis. These were deeply scarring experiences. They made me understand that to express my inner thoughts, on any subject, would only be to court a hostile reaction. The effect on me was stark: I didn’t really want to be there anymore. This was a place that loathed creativity. It was a suffocating feeling, actually – for I could not, thereafter fully express what I thought, without knowing that it would be unwelcome. Cambridge, I learned, was a place for intellectual conformists – at least, at the undergraduate level, in the subjects I studied. Anyone with the merest spark of creativity, was definitely unwelcome.

Then there was another side: the plagiarists. Cambridge had those, too – both among the staff and among the students. One staff member, some of whose work was derived from something I said to him, was Nick J Mackintosh, a Psychology Professor, at Cambridge. He wrote an entire book based on something I said to him – of course, he didn’t acknowledge his original source, at all. I will tell that tale, in another post, to give it, its due. Another person who plagiarized some of my thoughts, appears to be Marc Quinn, the British “artist” – for some of his most striking works are simply embodiments of things I said to the editor of a magazine at Robinson College Cambridge (the Bin Brook), about my own work, in the presence of several other students who had not been introduced. Marc Quinn was a student at Robinson College (my college). Again, I will give the full tale another day, to give it fair space.

Anyway, the weight of all these experiences was truly disheartening. It did something I could never have expected it to do: it put me off pursuing a career in science, altogether. So, even though I had been a physicist at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, Middx, before going up to Cambridge, after Cambridge, I wanted nothing more to do with science. So, for twenty years, I did just that: I avoided science and did other things.

Slowly, my feelings on the matter of science, healed. What really accelerated the healing was Ainan. Working with my son on his passion for science, reawakened my own and reminded me what I had so enjoyed before Cambridge put me off. So, after a twenty year delay, I returned to science and started doing research into Psychology. I am now a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at HELP University, Kuala Lumpur, focusing on research.

I know this: had I never gone to Cambridge, it is likely that I would never have been put off working in science. It is likely that there would never have been a twenty year delay before returning to science. Thus, going to Cambridge, far from “advancing my career”, as I had expected, cost me twenty years work as a scientist.

My experience at Cambridge, really colours my view, now, as to what is a suitable place for Ainan to study at. There is no way I would subject him to Cambridge, for instance. I look, now, not for brand names, in Universities – but for a friendly welcoming culture and good teaching. I see no attraction in any institution whose culture resembles the Cambridge I knew. In a way, this is a blessing, for guided by what I went through, I am now seeking to ensure that Ainan never has to suffer similarly. So, some good can come of it, at least, that is my hope.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Labels: , , , , , , , , ,

AddThis Social Bookmark Button
posted by Valentine Cawley @ 10:26 PM  4 comments

Page copy protected against web site content infringement by Copyscape