[lit-ideas] Re: Einstein

AA:
>> So you're saying Einstein is just a tooth fairy? <<

No, Andy.  What I'm saying, if I interpret you correctly, is that your concept 
of genius is as childish as the belief in tooth fairies.  It reminds me of that 
awful movie Phenomenon with the awful John Travolta who sees a bright light and 
wakes up a genius.  I think you must have seen that movie and think that that's 
what genius is.  Sorry, Jack.


 AA:
>> How do you answer my statement that Einstein is a demigod, yet Edison is 
>> unknown except as the guy who invented the lightbulb? <<

I don't answer statements only questions.  I really don't care about Einstein 
or Edison.  They were just guys like me and you and George W.  Bush, Mohandas 
Gandhi, Bill Clinton and Jeffrey Daumer -- just guys with dicks getting hard at 
the wrong times.  It's all pretty funny actually.  I don't know what's funny 
about women.  Except their insecurity.  That tickles me.   

Anyway, have a good day and keep your dick under control,

Mike Geary 
Memphis




  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Andy Amago 
  To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Monday, October 31, 2005 9:46 AM
  Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Einstein





    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Mike Geary 
    To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
    Sent: 10/31/2005 4:49:43 AM 
    Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Einstein


    A.A:
    >>  Maybe my standards are too high, but to me a genius is a genius, 
someone gifted who doesn't work hard at something but still gets a profound 
result. <<

    Not too "high", Andy, just too childish.  Like Santa Claus and the tooth 
fairy, there's no such thing as your 'genius'.  You've been laboring under a 
mythology all these years, alas!  For your information, sir, I am a genius and 
yet I've labored 50 years starting with paper routes, I've discovered nothing, 
accomplished nothing, am only a mediocre refrigeration mechanic, a mathematical 
moron, a semi-illiterate English major (what a joke that is) an embarrassing 
poetaster, a failed provider, a lousy lover and yet, still I insist I am a 
genius.  Why?  because for  61 years now I have thought seriously about, but 
have not yet killed myself when all the world argues vehemently that I should 
-- the reasons I've come up with for not pulling the trigger are sheer genius, 
that and a little laziness.  

    So pay attention, godddamnit, this is genius talking to you.  You've been 
snookered by American ideology.  To you a genius is someone set apart from the 
rest of us slobs by INTELLIGENCE.  No, no, no, no.  Intelligence is but a 
glorified Pavlovian response to hunger.  Genius is creativity,  it has nothing 
to do with intelligence.  Nothing comes to anyone entire of itself.  In fact, 
though, genius isn't even creativity.  That's a myth, too.  Genius amounts to 
nothing more than a misunderstanding of someone else's idea.  In fact that's 
all that philosophy is as well -- maybe everything's just a misunderstanding, 
hell, I don't know, give me 10 years to think about it.  Genius is a fool's 
misunderstanding of another genius's mistaken notion of some other's wrong 
idea.  We approach truth through error.  The greater the error the greater the 
ingenuity.


    Mike Geary
    genius extraordinaire
    of Mempis




      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Andy Amago 
      To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ; lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
      Sent: Sunday, October 30, 2005 8:01 AM
      Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Einstein


      ----- Original Message ----- 
        From: 
        To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
        Sent: 10/30/2005 12:14:39 AM 
        Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Einstein


        In a message dated 10/29/2005 8:18:56 A.M. Central Daylight Time, 
aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
          I'm disappointed in him, not in his accomplishments
        Hi, Andy,
        I'm also a bit perplexed here.

        Why in the world would you be disappointed in someone's 
learning/creative style. . . especially when it had the outcome that it did?


        A.A. Because I along with everyone else I always considered Einstein a 
"genius".  The word Einstein is synonymous with the word "genius".  Then I 
learned that he is no more a genius than anyone who spends years working on a 
problem and has a breakthrough.  Maybe my standards are too high, but to me a 
genius is a genius, someone gifted who doesn't work hard at something but still 
gets a profound result.  Einstein does not fit that description.  He's no 
different from Thomas Edison or any other dedicated researcher, a little 
insight, lots of hard work.  At the same time, Einstein has been mythologized 
into a demigod, where Edison is all but forgotten except as the guy who 
invented the lightbulb.   You're satisfied with that state of affairs?


        Andy Amago




        If you actually read all sorts of interesting thoughts on both learning 
and creativity and how to get the most of what and who one is. (and you can on 
the internet, even, if you don't like to go to the library and ask for some 
titles on the topic) 

        What Einstein did is actually very critical. I'm not sure why you would 
be disappointed in him...though I know a number of parents who are disappointed 
when their kids learn by reading instead of hearing or by hearing instead of 
reading.

        (Or, like the article once in Fortune Magazine that I posted one talks 
about the bunch of CEOs who are all dyslexic and who were willing to be studied 
by the physicians at Yale doing a study on their brains. Sure--they all learned 
to compensate for not using parts of their brains--and they all have had those 
in their companies who couldn't understand how they made decisions [they are 
all using a part of their brain that we regular folk are not] Many of them, I 
suppose, had people in their lives who were 'disappointed' in them, too, for 
not learning as others did.)

        People learn and create in all sorts of ways.  (I wish I was one of the 
people who got paid to go into the companies to assist with helping their top 
people learn how to be creative. Or, even, the top level companies who actually 
are doing innovative things [I was just reading about Koch Industries the other 
night] spend a lot of time/money/investment in their people to provide the 
synergy of many creative minds working on problems/creative energy/etc. in 
order to let them have those opportunities to pool information and take lines 
of thought\inventions to new levels.

        Instead of considering it 'obsessing' over a problem/puzzle, maybe you 
could soften that belief statement to something like 
'determined/curious/dedicated/continuing despite difficulties/persistent.

        If you think of him having those qualities, do you like him better?  
(What do you think a genius is? Someone who just wakes up someday and "knows" 
something? or someone who ponders, mulls over, thoughtfully reflects, gets 
other opinions, collects data and sifts through it looking for new ways of 
thinking about something, or ?)

        I suppose you are also disappointed in Edison, too, right?  After all, 
in spite of his taking his inventions to new levels and so forth, he had gobs 
of inventions which didn't pan out. He was constantly working on several ideas 
all at the same time--and though what worked, worked wonders, many of them did 
not. He, like Einstein, had persistence and curiousity, though. 

        Waiting for ten years from now when Andy will have taken Einstein's 
thought to the next level (presuming he takes up his own challenge and has the 
persistence to do it as well as the intelligence),
        Marlena in Missouri

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