There's a most interesting discussion going on in the "Where Passion Meets Genius" blog (click on the link to the left with that name to see the blog and the comments from others). If you're just visiting for the first time, please take a look at that string of comments and feel free to add to it or apply what's said there to the second blog (What Drives Us?)
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Saturday, June 2, 2007
Dive Into "Where Passion Meets Genius"
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Well now, this discussion IS getting to be quite interesting!
ReplyDeleteChris, I do also believe that genius is inherently genius whether or not recognized as long as our operational definition of genius is that we use the word for descriptive purposes. I would rather apply it as a more “ethereal” concept, however. If genius is something we can think of as a universal truth it doesn’t matter whether or not we recognize it as it will still be there, held by – if nothing else – our thoughts.
One of you mentioned Stephen Hawking. My understanding (or rather, perception) of his work is that it is heavily thought centered, meaning, the impact of and creativity held by a single thought is more than a human mind can effectively analyze or dissect without getting stuck on definitions. It is limitless and endless. Intelligence, however, appears to have limitations. Happiness and genius also have limitations, unless, of course you are suggesting that genius is a collective compilation of intelligence, goodness and positive energy? In that case I suppose we are operationalizing genius to be more than a description of intelligence (Chris’ mention of super/supra consciousness)?
Also, BKO asked: “To what degree is the need for "happiness" strictly a function of the ego?”
My answer to that question would be - with a standard disclaimer related to the obvious pitfalls of using “ego” without defining the term – that since happiness as we know it is always determined by the self that happiness is always a function of the ego.
I find this discussion interesting. Very much so. I hope we can venture onto the unbeaten paths, however, and start looking at why we find is necessary to talk about, define and otherwise dissect concepts we appear to hold universally true. Maybe language isn’t truly the way to find our answers. As a university student I can speak with some authority about the limitations of empirical research and data analysis utilizing empirical methods. As a foreign language speaker I can attest to numerous difficulties utilizing language as a communication tool when definitions differ or appear unclear. As a human being I can speak with some authority about my own inadequacies and inabilities related to conceiving and effectively utilizing my perceptive abilities. And as a mother I can attest to the fact that none of the sciences can explain the happiness and contentment contained motherhood. Linguistics, semantics, biology, and religion – they all fail to even come close to a complete description of happiness, genius or intelligence. So consequently I have little belief in terminology. However, I am deeply respectful and awestruck by creation (and nope – I cannot define that term). ☺
P.S.
I believe that maybe true happiness is a state obtained when we are able to disregard the scientific methods and allow ourselves to just be, even without definitions or clarity. What is clarity anyway if limited to available definitions?
To Annonymous... thank you for some wonderful food for thought. I'm currently in Shanghai and will return to the States this weekend. In the meantime, I'm going to sit down with your words and let them marinate a bit so that I can explore your questions and comments with the level of depth they deserve. Interestingly, I'm working with some global thought leaders here from around the world (certifiable geniuses all) who are rubbing shoulders and provide advice, behind the scenes, with heads of state and captains of industry (i.e. they advise Prime Ministers, Presidents of Nations, CEOs and the like). This opportunity is also providing me with some rich experiences that I think might trickle into our conversations as well.
ReplyDeleteAgain, thanks to everyone for taking this subject on... much more fun to be had and depth to explore!
The efforts of Anonymous, Chris and Ken have beautifully illuminated the question related to the definition of genius, and am greatly benefited by your thoughts. Thank you one and all.
ReplyDeleteI find the individual perspectives most interesting and useful in and of themselves, but given the powerful quality of the thought contained within them, I am pulled further, into what I think of as the power spot where the perspectives meet, and more importantly, where they intersect. I believe that potent leverage points occur anywhere that separate, independently delineated viewpoints arrive, via different roads, at commonality. It’s there where enough energy accumulates to actually move something in the collective. I believe that’s what’s necessary before any community, physical or digital, can flourish. It seems to me that any group that attempts to unify, even just around conversation, without simultaneously demanding and preserving the highest levels of individual empowerment, diversity and autonomy is doomed to becoming at best, just another feckless, empty structure, and at worst, a panic-driven herd. (Picture all of us sitting at our computers, drooling and wetting ourselves in abject terror, as we type ourselves madly off a cyber-cliff in headlong flight from the demons of banality!)
The commonality that strikes me first circles back on another of my earlier comments/questions (comtions? questments?) regarding the idea that to even begin defining the concept of genius, we need at least two operating principles, an idea on which we all seem to be in general accord. One principle might be defined as the well or source that may or may not be a fundamental part of the universal structure but is nonetheless in some mysterious way THERE regardless of who is or isn’t accessing it. The other principle is far more individual and might be described as the degree to which, and in what manner, that well is accessed and put to use by any one person or entity. To my mind, that illustrates the fundamental, which is that the nature of the dynamic interaction of opposite, or at least complementary, principles is the finally determining factor in what manifests.
In the case of genius, the source could be considered an infinitely available, but fundamentally passive repository of creative potential; potential that is only brought forth in manifest form when it’s acted upon by some defining force or, in other words, by a creative intent. That might offer us a way past the “is it ego or not” limitation, which is a troubling one, to be sure. Not to sound like a crypto-existentialist Matrix-head, but it looks to me like one missing factor there is CHOICE. If genius is defined as the product of some kind of meeting between universal creative potential and individual or collective creative intent, it also becomes very clear in any number of ways that there is a lot of thinking to do before we can judge whether any one of those meetings produces a quantum leap forward or a holocaust. Is simple intent, no matter how powerful, enough to be called genius? The psychotic “geniuses” of history provide ample evidence that with enough determination, it’s very possible to draw some really nasty stuff out of the pool and into the world. We all have access to the pool, but what actually happens finally comes down to the choices we make, consciously or otherwise, in how to manifest that resource via our own individual discernment (or lack thereof).
In response to Anonymous’ questions regarding talking, analyzing and defining these issues rather than simply being with them, I think that it’s important to hark back to the fact that if we accept the dynamic interaction of opposites as necessary for anything to manifest, then even just being is itself an act of creation. Given the number of unconscious, unexamined and incompletely experienced raw impulses we all carry, it would take a rather high degree of development, one that is far beyond most of us, to truly “be” without, even unintentionally, imposing the structure of our subconscious architecture on the flow of potential. I am with Stephen Levine, who commented in one of his books that “We only call it the subconscious because we’re so very sub-attentive.”
I found the comments from both Ken and Anonymous regarding the transitory and superficial nature of states like happiness to be very useful, particularly since they both, in their own ways, also contrasted those states against the deeper and more stable states of peace, contentment and simple being (a worthy goal, regardless of its difficulty). Those ideas correspond with my own current view.
So, my questions now open onto a domain that might be called (until someone offers a better term) the ethical. I don’t trust the word “moral” anymore, because it’s been so thoroughly adulterated by the current crop of politico-religious demagogues, but the seminal idea remains at the heart of my question. I think Chris has the right of it in including as a fundamental of his profound definition the act of bringing “information, knowledge, and/or wisdom into this realm to be contemplated, utilized, or... in some cases... abandoned.”
So, how do we make those decisions; to contemplate, utilize or abandon? If the creative act in question is a drawing or a song or a pie or an ugly sweater, nothing is harmed (at least permanently) if the results of the creative venture turn out to be vomitous assaults on our sensibilities. And what’s more, the ego responsible, no matter how in love with itself, can continue to turn out awfulness after horror after abomination and still derive extraordinary personal benefit, growth and joy from the process. (And none of the previous comments are to be construed as applying in any way to yours truly!)
Things get rather stickier when we ask the question in the collective sphere, which is, after all, made up of lots of individual egos. Can we afford to simply keep drawing from the well anything that we can conceive of, just because we can conceive of it? Or is there a modifier, an ethic, if I may be so bold, that actually works in helping us decide whether to contemplate, utilize or abandon? Walmart was, I’m sure, an exceedingly creative venture for Sam Walton’s “genius”, but when the fat lady finally sings and the results are all tallied, will the world still be thanking him for bringing us 200 different kinds of Tupperware at affordable prices in convenient locations?
It’s very easy to jump contrastingly into statements like “anything that increases the amount of love in the world is the standard”, etc. (I know, because I do it all the time!). Although I fundamentally agree with those kinds of ideas and those are the opinions I hold, I work in the alternative sphere, as many of us do, and there is just as much ego-parading there around definitions of what engenders “love” and “peace” and “service” and how to do it as there is in relation to the imperatives of politics or business that we often look so down upon, so no one on the alternative side is really exempt from the question either, I don’t think.
Perhaps I’m just ranting over here in a corner, but I’d love any thoughts anyone has on this subject.
BKO asked: “Can we afford to simply keep drawing from the well anything that we can conceive of, just because we can conceive of it? Or is there a modifier, an ethic, if I may be so bold, that actually works in helping us decide whether to contemplate, utilize or abandon?”
ReplyDeleteInteresting question. However, it is a circular one (like the chicken and the egg). At least that’s how I see it, as conceiving of something IS partaking and drawing from “the well.” Such actions and consciousness also constitutes part of the well itself. And thus, whether we contemplate, utilize or abandon doesn’t matter.
(Yup, that IS indeed a very personal definition/opinion, and I realize you may disagree. Which would make the discussion all the more interesting.)
I'd like to invite everyone commenting on this thread to jump to the latest blog topic entitled "Where Ehtics and Genius Meet (...Collide?). This new topic was constructed as a synthesized continuation of this topic. This kind of allows the discussion to continue and be a bit more accessible to new readers (for example you may want to read the comments of MM).
ReplyDeleteThanks!