There have been moments in my life when I considered the word genius overused “genius bar” is an example. However now I take the opposite view. The word genius is underused.
As everyone is important and everyone is needed does it make sense to categorise people as better or worse, higher or lower? Surely, this is just another way to create division between us. Why do we need to know? Well probably because we have selective ways to recruit for job roles, because we have a competitive approach to life which also speaks to our world view. Competition and evaluation are both necessary when we have a world of lack, when we have a world where we feel that those with the “most” wherever, skill, contacts, education… the list goes on, should be compensated the highest. This is an idea that has been around for a long time. Often we call is fairness but usually it is fairness within a capitalistic framework and of course lack is an important element. So why even though we might have tried to create something new in these areas do we still cling to the ideas that underpin a system that we can see is prone to corruption and creates a toxic world in lots of ways? What is it we like about being seen as better? Maslow would say we have needs and one of those needs is ‘self-esteem’ we want to experience self-worth. However do we need to feel ‘better’ than others to experience self-esteem?
In some ways this is connected to how our brains work we are comparison machines. So we are used to comparing and in many cultures we want to know not “how did we do” and compare that against our previous “score” we want to know “how did we do compared with others.” In many cultures we start comparing at school and never kick the habit. We are tested and placed in order of highest score in the class from very early ages. Our parents are interested not just in our score but how we compare to others, so they can work out if they should be worried about us. How can we stop comparing and using those comparisons to create a world noone wants?
In my world, I might go a different way, when answering this question. What would it be like to work with geniuses? Firstly, we could get rid of the word geniuses. It might be easier after all to not tempt ourselves to fall back in to old ways. Who is a genius and who isn’t. Perhaps a better way to describe this might be to realise each person is living their own beauty and truth. In this way, working with “geniuses” would be like inviting different shades of beauty and truth to join a project. They can join if they feel inspired to, if they feel like they have some beauty and truth to share with the group and the project. In the activities of the group we would not stop to assess how much beauty and truth we each bring, but just voice it when we see and realise an expression of love (beauty and truth in the other) sometimes that looks like bravery, nurture, invention….