"Real Genius"
"Real Genius"
Real genius is a rare thing. In terms of IQ, anything 135 and over, represents genius. Or, about one-quarter of one percent of the human population, (1 in 400.) Other forms of genius, such as athletic ability or musical ability are probably harder to quantify but easier to observe.
Take baseball, for instance. A kid starts playing T-ball at a very young age, moves to Little League, makes his or her way to Junior High ball, then high-school and, eventually, college. At each stage, the bar gets higher and the competition tougher. Only a very, very small percentage will ever make it to the pros. But, even there, you have a sifting system, with farm teams that filter talent from lower levels of pro ball, until you get to the Big Leagues, where the air, in baseball terms, gets very thin.
Once a player makes the Big Leagues, the athlete is competing against the very best of the very best, and, only a very few will make it and have a career that lasts more than a few years. It’s when you get to that rarefied few, at the upper echelon of the pros—so small in number they are a microscopic fraction of humanity—that the word “Genius,” gives us a sense of its true meaning. Out of approx. 210,000 big league baseball games played, over the history of the sport, there were just 23 perfectly pitched games. The chance that even the greatest big league pitcher will ever pitch a perfect game is about 1 in 46,000. I would expect its more or less the same in any demanding field. Let me clarify, this doesn’t necessarily equate to financial success or fame, which are different. Although, someone may have a genius for self-promotion that leads to fame and fortune. Madonna is a good example. Seldom has a person gone so far—in terms of fame—with so little natural talent in her chosen field; music and acting.
In just about all such cases, 3 things are needed; “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” just like a criminal and a court of law. Talent provides the means. The will to work extraordinarily hard, to attain your goal is your motive. While living in an environment that provides nurture for your natural gift, enables the first two traits—your talent and drive—to find success. That is where "opportunity" comes in to play. Without all 3, a high level of achievement is probably, unlikely. It is this convergence of traits, combined with opportunity, which makes “Real Genius” so rare.
Savants represent the mystery of genius at its most confounding. In some rare cases, savants have demonstrated a high level of ability that was never learned. The talent was simply there. Ranging from musical ability, such as playing a piece by Beethoven with minimal, or even, no practice—to extraordinary mathematical ability—to knowing what day of the week November 12th, 300 B.C. fell on 2300 yrs ago—like it was yesterday. Apparently, in many cases, the savant can just see the day or date, it simply materializes in their heads. The same with the answer to ridiculously complex mathematical problems. How? No one knows. Clearly, the brain doesn't really work exactly as we’d previously thought, indicating that there are ways of “Knowing” that transcends the normal process of accumulating knowledge through the arduous process of trial and error.
This extraordinary trait, however, does not seem to apply to the vast majority of humans. For most of us, we’re bound by rules of discovery, of trial and error. Even for the savant, though, offering proofs for their conclusions, requires traditional methods of knowing and evidence, since most savants, frequently, have no idea how they do, what they do. Making the lesser genius, a genius with a small “g” the thing that differentiates faith and fact. Having the answer to the extraordinary question alone is not enough. “The Proof,” using traditional methods of trial and error, provides the verification. This enables understanding to be universal, instead of solely being the province of the Savant, thereby, giving the genius with a small “g” an indispensable place in the greater scheme of things.
How might we think of Jesus’ words differently, if not for Saul of Tarsus? Paul The Apostle,” to the rest of us, who explains in painstaking philosophical detail Jesus’ meaning? Even so, it is the beauty of Christ’s simple parables that make his teaching universal, for even the least educated in God’s Kingdom. Paul, who was almost certainly far better educated than Jesus, was still the lesser genius, but the necessary go-between to an educated class of religious scholars and the people.
As Paul stated so eloquently in his theological manifesto, “There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.”
Simply put; it takes all kinds, to make a world.
Mark Magula
Real genius is a rare thing. In terms of IQ, anything 135 and over, represents genius. Or, about one-quarter of one percent of the human population, (1 in 400.) Other forms of genius, such as athletic ability or musical ability are probably harder to quantify but easier to observe.
Take baseball, for instance. A kid starts playing T-ball at a very young age, moves to Little League, makes his or her way to Junior High ball, then high-school and, eventually, college. At each stage, the bar gets higher and the competition tougher. Only a very, very small percentage will ever make it to the pros. But, even there, you have a sifting system, with farm teams that filter talent from lower levels of pro ball, until you get to the Big Leagues, where the air, in baseball terms, gets very thin.
Once a player makes the Big Leagues, the athlete is competing against the very best of the very best, and, only a very few will make it and have a career that lasts more than a few years. It’s when you get to that rarefied few, at the upper echelon of the pros—so small in number they are a microscopic fraction of humanity—that the word “Genius,” gives us a sense of its true meaning. Out of approx. 210,000 big league baseball games played, over the history of the sport, there were just 23 perfectly pitched games. The chance that even the greatest big league pitcher will ever pitch a perfect game is about 1 in 46,000. I would expect its more or less the same in any demanding field. Let me clarify, this doesn’t necessarily equate to financial success or fame, which are different. Although, someone may have a genius for self-promotion that leads to fame and fortune. Madonna is a good example. Seldom has a person gone so far—in terms of fame—with so little natural talent in her chosen field; music and acting.
In just about all such cases, 3 things are needed; “Means, Motive, and Opportunity,” just like a criminal and a court of law. Talent provides the means. The will to work extraordinarily hard, to attain your goal is your motive. While living in an environment that provides nurture for your natural gift, enables the first two traits—your talent and drive—to find success. That is where "opportunity" comes in to play. Without all 3, a high level of achievement is probably, unlikely. It is this convergence of traits, combined with opportunity, which makes “Real Genius” so rare.
Savants represent the mystery of genius at its most confounding. In some rare cases, savants have demonstrated a high level of ability that was never learned. The talent was simply there. Ranging from musical ability, such as playing a piece by Beethoven with minimal, or even, no practice—to extraordinary mathematical ability—to knowing what day of the week November 12th, 300 B.C. fell on 2300 yrs ago—like it was yesterday. Apparently, in many cases, the savant can just see the day or date, it simply materializes in their heads. The same with the answer to ridiculously complex mathematical problems. How? No one knows. Clearly, the brain doesn't really work exactly as we’d previously thought, indicating that there are ways of “Knowing” that transcends the normal process of accumulating knowledge through the arduous process of trial and error.
This extraordinary trait, however, does not seem to apply to the vast majority of humans. For most of us, we’re bound by rules of discovery, of trial and error. Even for the savant, though, offering proofs for their conclusions, requires traditional methods of knowing and evidence, since most savants, frequently, have no idea how they do, what they do. Making the lesser genius, a genius with a small “g” the thing that differentiates faith and fact. Having the answer to the extraordinary question alone is not enough. “The Proof,” using traditional methods of trial and error, provides the verification. This enables understanding to be universal, instead of solely being the province of the Savant, thereby, giving the genius with a small “g” an indispensable place in the greater scheme of things.
How might we think of Jesus’ words differently, if not for Saul of Tarsus? Paul The Apostle,” to the rest of us, who explains in painstaking philosophical detail Jesus’ meaning? Even so, it is the beauty of Christ’s simple parables that make his teaching universal, for even the least educated in God’s Kingdom. Paul, who was almost certainly far better educated than Jesus, was still the lesser genius, but the necessary go-between to an educated class of religious scholars and the people.
As Paul stated so eloquently in his theological manifesto, “There is one body, but it has many parts. But all its many parts make up one body. It is the same with Christ. We were all baptized by one Holy Spirit. And so we are formed into one body. It didn’t matter whether we were Jews or Gentiles, slaves or free people. We were all given the same Spirit to drink. So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts.”
Simply put; it takes all kinds, to make a world.
Mark Magula