How To Be A Genius

Geniuses don’t exist in the present. Think of the people you’ve met: Would you call any of them a genius in the Mozart, Einstein, Shakespeare sense of the word? Even the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” grants don’t call their winners geniuses.

We throw the g-word around where it’s safe: in reference to dead people. Since there’s no one alive who witnessed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart pee in his kindergarten pants or saw young Pablo Picasso eating crayons, we can call them geniuses in safety, as their humanity has been stripped from our memory.

Even if you believe geniuses exist, there’s little consensus on what being a genius means. Some experts say genius is the capacity for greatness. Others believe it’s that you’ve accomplished great things.

Forget this pointless debate. Chasing definitions never provides what we want: a better understanding of how to appreciate, and possibly become, interesting creative people. Instead let’s run through the history of geniuses and pull out some telling patterns.

Making A Case For Mulitpotentiality: Why You Don't Have To Settle For One Career

While some people come out of their mother’s womb with a calling attached to their umbilical, some of us struggle with the decision to choose a single calling even after a second degree. The indecisiveness is not because we don’t know what we want to do with our lives but we are just too gifted to be strait-jacketed into one career for the rest of our temporal existence. 

However, it is quite common to find our parents, guardians, teachers and the larger society baffle us with their expectations, wishes and goals. Our parents want us to be doctors and lawyers whereas we also want to write like Jane Austen and paint like Michael Angelo. Our teachers think we will make good engineers but we also know how to take the best photographs ever seen. In fact, some of us know how to sing till angels lose consciousness but we also take delight in nursing people till their wounds heal. These types of people are called multipotentialites. They are individuals with myriad potentials and interests to pursue more than one career.

Are You Spiritual or Religious?

 

Defining religion might be the best way to start this part. Religion "is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols which relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values."

There are 19 major religious groupings in the world, and from them a total of 10,000 distinct religions, although only about 270 of those have half a million or more followers. In the United States alone, over 2,500 different religious faith entities can be observed. That's a lot of different ways of formulating cultural and belief systems. And yet, most of them have common sources. The religions of Abraham (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) all believe in one universal God, experienced as personal, who is the creator of the universe and the primary source of values, while what I the main Eastern religion (Hinduism, Buddhism, and Shintoism) grew out of local traditions and focus on insight.

A spiritual person is one who seeks to elevate himself, to connect with a higher power, or simply his higher self. He believes there is more to the world than what is easily seen, than what is merely physical. He will have certain guidelines of behavior and diet that he will go by, but all in the name of properly attuning with the infinite and entering some higher state of consciousness. Tibetan monks are the best example of the spiritual.

The African Holocaust: How King Leopold II Massacred Over Ten Million Africans in Congo

King Leopold II of Belgium was responsible for the deaths and mutilation of 10 million Congolese Africans during the late 1800’s. The spoils of modern day Belgium owes much to the people of the Congo River Basin.

In a testament to the hideous brutality of the European colonial era and imperialism in its finest form, during the 1880s, when Europe was busy dividing up the continent of Africa like a vast chocolate cake, King Leopold II of Belgium laid personal claim to the largely uncharted Congo Free State. The 905,000 square miles (76 times larger than Belgium) of African rainforest held a vast fortune in rubber plantations, a commodity in high demand in late 19th century industrial Europe.

From a Nightclub Dancer to a President: The Story of Isabel Peron, the First Female President of Argentina...and the World

Maria Estela Martinez was born on the 4th of February 1941 in La Rioja, Argentina to a lower middle-class family. She dropped out of school as a teenager and in the early 50's, she became a nightclub dancer to make ends meet. She later adopted the name Isabel.

Buhari vs Jonathan: Beyond the Election – Charles Soludo

I need to preface this article with a few clarifications. I have taken a long sabbatical leave from partisan politics, and it is real fun watching the drama from the balcony.  Having had my own share of public service (I do not need a job from government), I now devote my time and energy in pursuit of other passions, especially abroad. A few days ago, I read an article in Thisday entitled “Where is Charles Soludo?”, and my answer is that I am still there, only that I have been too busy with extensive international travels to participate in or comment on our national politics and economy. But I occasionally follow events at home. Since the survival and prosperity of Nigeria are at stake, the least some of us (albeit, non-partisan) must do is to engage in public debate. As the elections approach, I owe a duty to share some of my concerns.

The Nat Turner Rebellion of 1831

Nathanial “Nat” Turner (1800-1831) was a black American slave who led the only effective, sustained slave rebellion (August 1831) in U.S. history. Spreading terror throughout the white South, his action set off a new wave of oppressive legislation prohibiting the education, movement, and assembly of slaves and stiffened pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist convictions that persisted in that region until the American Civil War (1861–65).