POETICKS

None of my three or four faithful readers will be surprised that I have a rather large need to believe I am a genius–a genuine one, not an IQ or MacArthur genius.  The only thing perhaps unusual, for a serious, meta-professional artist or verosopher like me, is that I admit my need.  By “meta-professional artist or verosopher,” I mean someone whose main reason for his activities as either is to produce something of significant cultural value.  Unlike Samuel Johnson, at least if we go by his famous saying about only fools writing for anything but money.  Sam is one of my cultural heroes however much I disagree with him about possibly more things than I agree with him about.  Of course, one reason for that is that money is much less meaningful in our incredibly affluent country than it was in his.  True poverty was hard for a great many people to avoid in his, near-impossible to suffer in ours.

I think false modesty is so battered into people like me that, for most of us, it is no longer false.  There is also the (innate) need to fit in in spite of being different.  Like many ?eniuses, I do downplay my aptitudes (like the one that made schoolwork mostly easy for me).  I also somewhat exaggerate my many ineptitudes such as the way it grab hold of conclusions prematurely, or my slowness to understand (which, most of the time, I contend, is a virtue due to realizing how much more there is to be understood than most others).  What helps me most is that I’m actually pretty normal in most respects, and that’s genuine.  I tend to think of myself as a television that has one channel no other television has that picks up telecasts from some weird planet in another galaxy . .  but only once or twice a year.  (Other ?eniuses are the same kind of television, each of which picks up telecasts from a different weird planet.)

I’ve now used my newest coinage, “?enius,” enough to indicate it’s not a typo.  That’s because, as is the case, I suspect, with many blessed/cursed with the kind of brain I have, I have enough self-confidence to be sure I’m either a genius or not far off from being one, but not to declare myself one.  In fact, I truly don’t know whether I am one or not.  What I am, therefore, is a ?enius.

I would not be surprised if even the most ratified culturateur–Murray Gell-Mann, for instance–

Hey, I just did a quick search of the Internet for Murray to check for about the twentieth time whether or not he spelled his last name with a hyphen and found an entry at this Roman Catholic Blog that is one of the best blog entries I’ve ever come across–in spite of its having been written by someone who considers those not accepting the existence of God as a given to be intellectually vacuous, and their arguments on par with those of holocaust-deniers (which, he implies, are wholly worthless although some I’ve found to be pretty good, just not good enough to unconvince me that it is beyond reasonable doubt that a great many Jews were deliberately killed by the Nazis[1]).

Back to what I was saying: I would not be surprised if even Nobelist Murray Gell-Mann sometimes fears he’s not very smart, after all.  Maybe not.  More likely he is like Newton feeling like a small boy at the beach finding interesting pebbles or shells . . . but still aware at some level that only he was noticing them.

The situation is different for ?eniuses like me who, even in old age, are near-completely unrecognized.  One would have to be close to insane to be sure the whole world, just about, was wrong about you.  Nonetheless, I keep thinking and writing about genius and related topics, my own underlying aim always being, to some degree or other, to find a way to get around the evidence against me.

Not today, unless in just having revealed my invention (so far as I know) of the world’s first English word for day-to-day use that includes a typographical mark as one of its letters (Cummings and others have made words like it, but not for use outside the poems they are in) is my subtle argument for my being a genius.  I guess I am never not trying to prove  I’m a genius whenever I create a serious work of art or write a serious text.  In this entry I’m mainly considering what someone you might reasonably characterize as “brilliant” of “gifted,” but not accept as a genius.

My latest thought is minor but taxonomically valuable: it is that a genuine genius has two characteristics: the temperament of a genius and the mentality of a genius.  This thought occurred to me when (as so often) thinking about myself–in particular about what I could claim for myself as one striving to achieve genius.  I feel certain that I do have the temperament of a genius; what is unknown is if I also have the mentality of a genius.

All I can say about the latter is it’s very much higher than even a superior human mentality, and that it’s far more than ability to score high on IQ tests or get high grades in school.  I lean toward believing it is probably high-superiority in only one kind of art or verosophy, maybe two, not some kind of all-around superiority.  In any case, I don’t feel capable of pinning it down objectively.

I do feel the temperament of a genius can be objectively defined.  I contend it consists of some high proportion of the following characteristics, each overt and easy to identify:

1. Gross tendency to emotional ups and downs, sometimes psychotically extreme as with Theodore Roethke.  (Note: most of the characteristics on this list have been pointed out by many others, and I doubt it any is original.  While in this parenthesis, let me add that this is my first list so with surely be incomplete, perhaps severely so.)

2. A need for Great Achievements–like Keats’s declared hope of being among the English poets when he died.

3. A disregard for the opinions of others–i.e., non-conformity.

4. Reasonably high output as an artist and/or verosopher–due to determination and persistance.  (Needless to say, I’m assuming in advance that I have the temperament of a genius, so basically listing my own characteristics–but I’ll leave out bald-headedness.  And unbelievable potent wittiness.)

5. Extreme self-reliance–a variation on #3 because it importantly includes going one’s own way regardless of what others say.

Yikes, I see I don’t need to make a list–the National Enquirer beat me to it by some 35 years:

1. DRIVE. Geniuses have a strong desire to work hard and long. They’re willing to give all they’ve got to a project. Develop your drive by focusing on your future success, and keep going.  Sure: my #4 is the necessary result and provides objective evidence of this.
2. COURAGE. It takes courage to do things others consider impossible. Stop worrying about what people will think if you’re different.  See my #5.
3. DEVOTION TO GOALS. Geniuses know what they want and go after it. Get control of your life and schedule. Have something specific to accomplish each day.  Only sometimes true.  My #4 again will be the result for someone with the temperament of genius.
4. KNOWLEDGE. Geniuses continually accumulate information. Never go to sleep at night without having learned at least one new thing each day. Read. And question people who know.  Everybody continually accumulates knowledge.  A ?enius becomes a genius in part by applying what he accumulates better than others due to his genius mentality.
5. HONESTY. Geniuses are frank, forthright and honest. Take the responsibility for things that go wrong. Be willing to admit, ‘I goofed’, and learn from your mistakes.  That’s me, but I have no idea whether other ?eniuses tend to be frank, etc.
6. OPTIMISM. Geniuses never doubt they will succeed. Deliberately focus your mind on something good coming up.  Again, see my #4.
7. ABILITY TO JUDGE. Try to understand the facts of a situation before you judge. Evaluate things on an opened minded, unprejudiced basis and be willing to change your mind.  My mentality of genius would include this; it’s just the truism, be intelligent.
8. ENTHUSIASM. Geniuses are so excited about what they are doing, it encourages others to cooperate with them. Really believe that things will turn out well. Don’t hold back.  Maybe, but I tend to see being a loner in your field as more likely a characteristic of a genius temperament.
9. WILLINGNESS TO TAKE CHANCES. Overcome your fear of failure. You won’t be afraid to take chances once you realize you can learn from your mistakes.  #4.
10. DYNAMIC ENERGY. Don’t sit on your butt waiting for something good to happen. Be determined to make it happen.  #4.
11. ENTERPRISE. Geniuses are opportunity seekers. Be willing to take on jobs others won’t touch. Never be afraid to try the unknown.  #4 and #5.
12. PERSUASION. Geniuses know how to motivate people to help them get ahead. You’ll find it easy to be persuasive if you believe in what you’re doing.  I suspect ?eniuses are too advanced to be persuasive, and not involved in collective enterprises.
13. OUTGOINGNESS. I’ve found geniuses able to make friends easily and be easy on their friends. Be a ‘booster’ not somebody who puts others down. That attitude will win you many valuable friends.  No.  Although this fits me more than it doesn’t.  Many ?eniuses are ingoing.  All ?eniuses must be ingoing at times, extremely ingoing, I would say. 
14. ABILITY TO COMMUNICATE. Geniuses are able to effectively get their ideas across to others. Take every opportunity to explain your ideas to others.  This would be one of the characteristics of a genius mentality, I would guess.  I tend to think it must be the hardest thing for a ?enius to achieve.  A subject worth an essay.  The geniuses most easily getting appropriate recognition before they are dead are those specializing in something where colleagues are in some sense clustered and on the same page–physicists, for example.  Their VOCATION needs to have been recognized as significantly a superior one, as physics is, poetry not. 
15. PATIENCE. Be patient with others most of the time, but always be impatient with your self. Expect far more of yourself than others. #2
16. PERCEPTION. Geniuses have their mental radar working full time. Think more of others’ needs and wants than you do of your own.  BS.
17. PERFECTIONISM. Geniuses cannot tolerate mediocrity, particularly in themselves. Never be easily satisfied with your self. Always strive to do better.  I think I would put having high standards for oneself on my list although that would follow from #2, having a need to be great.
18. SENSE OF HUMOR. Be willing to laugh at your own expense. Don’t take offense when the joke is on you.  I feel I pretty decidedly have this, but don’t see what it has to do with genius.
19. VERSATILITY. The more things you learn to accomplish, the more confidence you will develop. Don’t shy away from new endeavors.  I’ll have to think about this.  My initial thought is how one should balance improved understanding of one thing versus having many understandings.  But having a genius mentality will automatically cause you to absorb a great many things not obviously related and use many of them (as well as know which ones to scrap).
20. ADAPTABILITY. Being flexible enables you to adapt to changing circumstances readily. Resist doing things the same old way. Be willing to consider new options.  Have superior accommodance, the most important characteristic of a genius mentality.
21. CURIOSITY. An inquisitive, curious mind will help you seek out new information. Don’t be afraid to admit you don’t know it all. Always ask questions about things you don’t understand.  I’m sure extreme curiosity, inability to be satisfied with one-step answers, or even ten-step answers, is an important part of the genius mentality.
22. INDIVIDUALISM. Do things the way you think they should be done, without fearing somebody’s disapproval.  This is on my list.
23. IDEALISM. Keep your feet on the ground – but have your head in the clouds. Strive to achieve great things, not just for yourself, but for the better of mankind.  Do great things, by your definition.
24. IMAGINATION. Geniuses know how to think in new combinations, see things from a different perspective, than anyone else. Unclutter your mental environment to develop this type of imagination. Give yourself time each day to daydream, to fantasize, to drift into a dreamy inner life the way you did as a child.  Again, be born with a superior accommodance.

L. Ron Hubbard thought this worthy of re-circulation.  It’s not bad for The National Enquirer, but basically a guide for socio-economic go-getters, not my kind of geniuses.

The list is here, by the way. It’s followed by a lot of interesting comments.

I now need a break from this topic. I hope tomorrow to be able to have an updated list here.

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