Genius

It’s a word that’s been stripped of its original narrow meaning – someone of exceptional intellectual ability (think Newton and Einstein), or possessed of artistic/musical skill (think Picasso, Vermeer; Bach, Mozart). But today its been inflated to describe millions with ordinary and superficial abilities. It’s a blow to any ego, of course, only more mortifying knowing that Mozart at age six had already composed his first symphony and I at the same age was struggling to master tieing my shoelaces. Or that Mendelssohn had composed his superb first masterpiece, his Octet, as a sixteen year old! At the same age I stood before a mirror (an hourly occupation then), pinching pimples and debating where to part my hair, on the right or the left side? A critical decision to the success or failure of my social life. Saint-Saëns was another early miracle, playing the piano at age three and giving concerts at four-and-a-half! And there were others like them who demonstrated a miraculous prodigy barely out of the womb. My only response to phenomena like that is typical but stale: O Life, how unjust! How partial! What superior gray matter did they have thay I evidently lacked? I take little comfort in knowing that some men are destined to carve mountains, while others must be content playing with pebbles.