Saturday, 27 August 2017 — I wrote an essay on a kind of existential question that happens to relate to the rather unpleasant fact that most of us aren’t born as geniuses. People like Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs or Elon Musk are hard to come by, and although we certainly can aspire to do what they’ve done, it is hard to say that most of us would even get close to such a chance, even given several lifetimes to get it right.
The essay was a part of my content on Quora. I figured one day that it will be best if I get out of the platform, as it’s unhealthily taking too much of my mind. The following is the copy of that answer, with minor additions to the original content.
Q: What is the point of living if you are not a genius?
Personally I think, to enjoy life itself with whatever you have is pretty good deal already.
You might remember one particular notion of “with great power, comes great responsibility” — and it certainly very relatable in this question’s context.
Being someone “gifted” certainly sounds fun for a second — whether it’s a gift in music, visual art, academic performance or anything else in between. But what people often don’t know is that, those gifts and talents would lead only to one thing — expectation. And I believe, no matter who you are — genius or not — we are still humans, and not everyone would be able to keep up when tremendous amount of expectations are being put onto you.
You could imagine a scenario where a stellar performing musician breaks a record on music perfection at a very young age — I think we all know at least one in our lifetime whether it’s from internet or TV channels. And when they put themselves in front of the audience to perform so fantastically, expectation had already been put right that second — people would eventually expect them to be more than what they were, and no matter how “normal” that might sound to normal observers, that might be slightly unrealistic in practice.
Human beings will go through many phases in life. If you’re lucky, they are all going to be fairly positive, but if you are not, things could get very rocky and some people would even consider ending their lives out of all the pain that they have to go through during one or two phases of their lives. Geniuses are not immune to this. People being people, no matter how solid their inherent talents or capacity they might have, given the wrong circumstances, can be subject to a lot of stress that might break their spirit so entirely, that the thought of getting back up might not be the most viable option they have in mind.
This is especially true if you are somewhat of an intellectual prodigy — people with higher capacity for deep thinking had been proven to also be more prone to stress. Link to a study:
And if they are unable to manage their thoughts in the way that would keep them in the straighter narrow, things would tend to get a little ugly.
If that’s too much for you to imagine — people in the entertainment business, such as Hollywood actors and actresses, would be most noticeable in terms of this kind of “breaking down” I was talking about. Just imagine, with all that fame and record breaking performances they’ve awed people with, they are not in anyway immune to the uglier side of life. These are the examples of what I’m talking about:
- Singer Amy Winehouse died watching YouTube videos of herself after vodka binge, inquest hears
- Heath Ledger’s Tragic Death ‘Was Totally His Fault,’ Actor’s Father Says
- Whitney Houston’s Death: 9 Surprising Details in Coroner’s Report
All in all, in my perspective, being a genius is definitely not a walk in the park. Yes, they have more things on their pool of things to work on, but then things can go spiraling out of control much faster that way.
Let’s go with a train of thought — People put expectation on you. You put expectation on yourself. You expect people to be happy with your best performance. They expect more from you. You might not be able to deliver the best every single time. You think you fail people’s expectations and your own. You try harder next time. People had higher expectation than what you are capable of delivering. More expectations to perform better next time — and so on.
So in the end while the idea of being a genius, while sounds genuinely attractive — which is a pretty normal aspiration — does not necessarily mean it’ll be one hell of a fun journey nor full of flowers and rewards. We are still human beings capable of being “eaten alive” by our own selves, and being the spotlight of a particular subject or industry out of extraordinary capacity in carrying the expertise would only make things more difficult when it gets tough.
I hope my answer found to be of an insight.
Personal Note on the Answer
I do believe that everyone, at some point(s) of their lives, want to be a genius one way or another. That is probably one of many reasons why most of us aspire to people like Albert Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, Mozart, Steve Jobs or whoever it is that came to mind when someone hears the word “genius”. As I mentioned, I do believe that it’s a very common aspiration to be able to excel in a given field, especially if we are passionate about it.
Personally, as much as I’d rather not admit myself, I think out of so many people out there in the seas of 7 billion, statistically speaking it would be pretty difficult for most of us to reach a level of “genius” achieved by the geniuses that lived long before us. To be known as genius by our peers might be difficult enough on its own, let alone that aspiration to be considered a global kind of genius. The more I think about it, the more impossible it seems to be.
However, that being said, I do believe that while talents and inherent intellectual capacity could be one of the defining factor constituting someone being a genius, I still do believe that those people who are considered genius by a lot of us, were there because of a lot of hardwork as well. I realized however, that life certainly isn’t always fair, especially when we could observe that we seem to be catching up pretty slowly compared to our peers in a given subject or field.
Either way, I will go back to my stance on the matter at hand — I think to be able to live our lives the best we could possibly can, should be a good enough deal for a lot, if not most of us. The way I look at it, being a genius doesn’t look like a guarantee that one will have a life of utmost purpose or happiness. It is not to say that being a prodigy is bad — it is to say that being someone who are far above average would usually come with its own consequences. Anyway — maybe that is just me compensating a little. Despite not knowing exactly how it feels like, I still believe that being a spotlight in a field and getting so much attention could be a curse on its own.
What do you think of my take on this? Do you have something to say? Feel free to comment below for that. If you find my content interesting, do follow me on Medium to be updated on future contents as well.
Footnote
This writing was part of my content on Quora.
— A simplified copy on Quora.
Feel free to check out my profile over there as well:
— Teguh Li on Quora.
See you around.
