What is real genius? Share your experiences and thoughts!

[jerromyjon]

Hi everyone! I'm just curious how many simple little examples of genius are realized in simple daily life.

I will start with a kooky situation where I scooped a handful full of change off the table while I was in the kitchen with my wife and I noticed an unusual sound. And after some searching and sampling I honed in on a barely legible at arms length "1965" silver dime, last year I think? I just set it on the counter in front of her and said "That's a good example of genius." Then I thought, nah, that's nothing. What do you all think? What is REAL genius?

 

[mpresic]

This is a silly example of genius but it enabled me to play table tennis all day free of charge one day in 1976. My brother and I were playing table tennis with another brother doubles team. Occasionally, the balls would roll under a gap in the wall where the wall meets the floor. When this happened the game would stop, and one of us (or many others) would go to the desk. The desk charged by the hour, so they would just give us another ball and the game would continue. We must have played for 3 or more hours one summer day. A ball went under the gap.

It was natural to assume the ball fell down into the gap in building materials to another lower floor.

Instead, I just as a lark reached upward. Apparently there was a lip in the building materials within the wall. The ball would roll upward and get caught on the lip. I got down on my hands and knees, and started to pull one ball after another out of the wall (it wasn't hard). I think I pulled about 20 balls out of the wall, (it may have been fewer, after all my memory of the event 40 years ago may be faulty) After turning in all the balls, I told the guy at the desk what was happening to all the table tennis balls.
He (a fellow student) took the liberty of waiving the fee for the entire afternoon of table tennis. I presume the total cost still came out to less than the cost of around 20 ping pong balls.

 

[William White]

What is REAL genius?

Maradona
Manet
Shakespeare
Bowie
Darwinobviously a British bias - its the culture I know best

 

[mpresic]

I misunderstood your question. I thought you were interested in experiences that others had that were similar to your own (finding the silver dime). The list William white provided are better recognized and deserved than my experience. Almost everyone can name accomplished artists, scientists, musicians writers, athletes and others that had rare talents. I think humorous or off the wall (everyday) examples of thinking outside the box by people with lesser talent might be more fun

 

[jerromyjon]

I thought you were interested in experiences that others had that were similar to your own

Yes, that is exactly what I was asking. Thanks for sharing your experience! I'm just as much if not more interested in what people think of their own abilities as well.

I'm sure Einstein would have agreed "genius" is relative to one's cognitive ability, to him solving which person had the bird(fish? I forget) in your head was a "relatively" simple problem. To Bruce Lee using your body as a very powerful tool was simple physics. I am an automotive technician so remembering to torque all of the fasteners when you reassemble a vehicle every day isn't genius, but the ability to figure out ways to improve your capabilities leads to it.