Oh, how many times have I done this. I think it is a side-effect of growing up in a time when the idea of genius was especially promoted, and also of being raised by parents who were teachers and who thought geniuses were important.
Thankfully, I have a good counterbalance of extensive readings in philosophy and theology.
Now, for a real sense of loss, two days ago the grandmother of my best childhood friend died. She raised him since his mother was about 15 or 16 when he was born, and she was one of those influential adults from my childhood. She was 93.
I happened to be taking a driving trip from Iowa (where I was raised -- yes, by Swedish parents) to the east coast, so on the way I drove through the tiny town where I grew up. (I grew up with the people who made Templeton Rye when it was still bootleg. I recognize the people on the label, even though I haven't seen most of them for 40 years.)
When I drove out to my childhood best friend's farm (a mile outside of town), only two of the outbuildings were still standing. The barn is gone. The house is gone and the basement has been filled in and grass is growing there. Some of the old trees have been cut down. Even the old hand pump that was in front of the house is gone. (It worked when I was a kid.)
It's ridiculous, I suppose, but I cried, and I'm not at all what you might call "a crier." The memories were so thick and so . . . not painful, but acute. I am cursed with an extremely good memory. The sense of loss, or really I suppose the sense of the contrast of difference between reality and the ideal in my memory, made me cry.
I think that is what accounts for that sense that perhaps one is a genius: 1) the desire to be a genius, in order to impress your dead parents or perhaps your peers who have inordinate reverence for genius; 2) a better than average memory that creates a deep sense of time; 3) sensitivity to change; 4) as the article points out, noticing things others ignore.
Now that I'm mildly buzzed, I'm going to work on creating a triple boot of LinuxMint, Manjaro, and OpenSUSE on this shitty little ThinkPad T60 made in 2006 since the wifi has quit working with OpenBSD. I'm too tired to figure out why, and I've never tried any of these Linux distros, and who says doing stupid stuff like this is only for teenagers?
Please forgive me for drunken rambling on a Saturday night. I promise I won't do it again for at least a year.
I don't have anything constructive to say, except that you sound like a quite special and definitely very perceptive person. It is random meetings in meatspace with people like you seem to be (I am likely projecting, but near with me) that light up my life. That is no recognition in a public sense, and perhaps not bona fide genius either, but I'm sure that you contribute more than you realise to more people's experience than you realise.
But perhaps it's just me rambling on a Saturday night.
I do enjoy storytelling. The story above is literal truth, unlike some that I tell. The problem with drinking is that I'm more likely to share literal truth about myself than when I'm sober, when "myself" is rightly seen as a very dull topic. (How embarrassing all of this is in the morning light.)
Thankfully, I have a good counterbalance of extensive readings in philosophy and theology.
Now, for a real sense of loss, two days ago the grandmother of my best childhood friend died. She raised him since his mother was about 15 or 16 when he was born, and she was one of those influential adults from my childhood. She was 93.
I happened to be taking a driving trip from Iowa (where I was raised -- yes, by Swedish parents) to the east coast, so on the way I drove through the tiny town where I grew up. (I grew up with the people who made Templeton Rye when it was still bootleg. I recognize the people on the label, even though I haven't seen most of them for 40 years.)
When I drove out to my childhood best friend's farm (a mile outside of town), only two of the outbuildings were still standing. The barn is gone. The house is gone and the basement has been filled in and grass is growing there. Some of the old trees have been cut down. Even the old hand pump that was in front of the house is gone. (It worked when I was a kid.)
It's ridiculous, I suppose, but I cried, and I'm not at all what you might call "a crier." The memories were so thick and so . . . not painful, but acute. I am cursed with an extremely good memory. The sense of loss, or really I suppose the sense of the contrast of difference between reality and the ideal in my memory, made me cry.
I think that is what accounts for that sense that perhaps one is a genius: 1) the desire to be a genius, in order to impress your dead parents or perhaps your peers who have inordinate reverence for genius; 2) a better than average memory that creates a deep sense of time; 3) sensitivity to change; 4) as the article points out, noticing things others ignore.
Now that I'm mildly buzzed, I'm going to work on creating a triple boot of LinuxMint, Manjaro, and OpenSUSE on this shitty little ThinkPad T60 made in 2006 since the wifi has quit working with OpenBSD. I'm too tired to figure out why, and I've never tried any of these Linux distros, and who says doing stupid stuff like this is only for teenagers?
Please forgive me for drunken rambling on a Saturday night. I promise I won't do it again for at least a year.