Why Didn't I Think Of that

Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer
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When I was studying art I took a drawing class for a year from a great teacher named Marshall Glazier. Mr. Glazier was not an old curmudgeon, but he liked to pretend he was for the amusement of himself and others. He would come into the class room after the class had begun saying in his gravelly voice "All right, all right, what's going on in here?"

One day he came in and said "What's the difference between genius and talent?" One person said Mozart and Salieri. Another one said Bernstein and Bacharach. He said "Yeah, those are good. Now I'll tell so that you'll know, A man of talent does what he can, a genius does what he MUST."

"Oh, that's good"someone said.

Glazier said "You think that's good? I got it out of a fortune cookie."
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One definition of a genius is someone who can do something extremely difficult extraordinarily well and make it look simple. I think we all can have moments of genius. No one is a genius 24 hours a day. It is said the Albert Einstein sometimes couldn't remember if he had lunch or not and forgot where he was going.

A genius is one who comes to a solution no one else thought of and perhaps could not have thought of. When Mozart went wandering in the forest of music the trees and bushes stepped aside for him.

A genius is one who does something that can't be done. There is no way man can fly. But now we fly thanks to a couple of bicycle mechanics. We now have the benefits of the International Space Station, the Hubble Telescope, the shuttle crafts and the Soyuz vehicles thanks to the work of some far seeing geniuses who saw what others could not see and made amazing things happen.

The first step on the road to personal genius is to dismiss the idea that something can't be done, That's a lesson that took me years to learn. I pass it on to you free of charge. Once the "can't be done" is thrown out in the trash whatever it is is going to be done. The next step is the "How" factor and that means observation and imagination, followed by persistence, setting up theories and testing them, until finally the light bulb stays on and the plane stays up.

Never say "I'm not a genius" because you might be at least once in your life and probably more than once.

DB - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND PUZZLE
So you didn't care for last week's Who Done It?
All right, try this one.

FINISH THIS STORY.

It was an early September in the afternoon. The sky was darkening and a storm was threatened. But Dick and Jane needed to reach the other side of the lake. So they got into their canoe with two bags of groceries and Maxine, their Chihuahua. They began paddling across the lake and everything was going well until....

Grand prize goes to the one who gives me the best continuation of this story.

Good luck.
DB
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Taking It For Granted

A hundred times a day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depends upon the labors of other men, living and dead.

Einstein
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It's 7 a. m. Sunday morning. There's a pink sky and a white earth. Out my window I see the dark gray trees pushing up through the white. A few amber lights from windows tell me that some people are awake. And the rose of passing tail lights say that others are about their business on roads that have been plowed.

Yesterday was the day of the blizzard. Here in the northeastern USA the snow came down in great clumps, covered cars, snarled transportation, canceled flights and trains, knocked out power and caused a few deaths.

It's a clear day here in eastern Pennsylvania. The morning sunlight is bright and a cold but dry day is expected. Today the recovery and restoration will begin. I note that while nature gave us the chaos, it is humans who will restore the order.

The road is plowed and passable, the electricity is on, my computer is working, my radio is giving me songs by Schubert from a station that is on the air. At my elbow are books by Nietzsche, Dickens, Durrell and, of course, my Shakespeare. The wisdom of great thinkers preserved for me by the printing press. And all of this is because of the labors of men and women living and dead.

I woke up at 5:30 this morning and over my first cup of coffee I was slightly disturbed by a question that gently but insistently nudged me. The question was: What am I giving to the world? What are my labors leaving for the future of the human race? I am not a genius like Shakespeare, Schubert and Einstein but is there any value to the life I've lived?

As I go through my day, coping with weather, doing unimportant tasks, keeping a journal, worrying over a painting, learning something new, it is so easy to take for granted everything around me and the labors of the famous or anonymous people who make them, have made them possible. I think it is also too easy to take myself for granted. I am too close to myself to understand and appreciate who I am and what I'm worth, if anything.

I have no answer to the question except a hope and a desire. I want to believe, before I go, that my life, even with all of its mistakes, wrong choices, erroneous beliefs, failures and foolishness, was at last worth something, that the world is a slightly better place because I lived in it and that the inner or outer life of someone in the future will benefit from my humble labors. Or will it all just drip off the end of an icicle and evaporate like the snow?

DB
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Winter Question

Life is a forward thing. It isn't what I've done it's what I'm capable of doing that matters. So why should I waste my time and mental energies on the past when I could be designing, devising, determining. Today is today. Tomorrow is different. I want the difference to be according to me.

In keeping with that impetus here again is the:

WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.

20 reponses so far.

You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.

DB - The Vagabond

Stand Up Tregedy

Only when we have drunk from the river of darkness can we truly see.

Brother Theodore
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In 1906 Theodore Gottlieb was born to a very wealthy Jewish family in Germany. Around 1940 he was taken prisoner by the Nazis and sent to Dachau concentration camp where he witnessed German soldiers laughing as they watched prisoners being tortured to death. He never saw his family again.

He signed over his wealth to the German government to obtain his freedom. In Austria he found Albert Einstein, a family friend who arranged for him to come to America. He did janitorial work in California, but was also an expert chess player and made money at chess tournaments.

He appeared in a few films, made many TV appearances and eventually, back in New York, had a regular nightclub act as a comedian. In his 80's he was a regular guest of David Letterman.

His humor was dark and strange. One of his famous monologues was about why people should not eat food. He frightened some people with his intensity, but he had a loyal and dedicated following of fans. His gallows humor did not appeal to everyone. But those who know that there isn't anything in life that doesn't deserve to be laughed at, including me, appreciated and enjoyed his work.

"I'm the bride at every funeral, the corpse at every wedding."

"I don't understand music but I like the noise it makes."

"I've always aimed at nothing and I've always hit it."

"I find it hard to still in one spot and impossible to sit still in two spots."

"Fear of life is only matched by fear of death. I have both."

"Doctors are quacks and so are their patients. Only the Coast Guard is honest."

His tombstone reads "As long as there is death there is hope."

His humor may sound morbid to some, but in the dark, cruel, vicious and macbre world it's the comedy of one who knows what's in the shadows and can laugh at it. Bless him.

The title of his act was "Stand Up Tragedy."

Brother Theodore, may he rest in pieces.

DB
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Tomorrow: Theatre Story #27
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Given the resources and opportunity, what one thing do you want to do in 2010 that you've never done before.

You have all Winter to answer. Answers will be posted on the first day of Spring.
15 responses so far.

DB - The Vagabond

Kindling Knack 4/15/09

Genius is the talent for discovering what cannot be taught or learned.

Immanuel Kant
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Hi. Government got your money?
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Einstein once said he wasn't a genius but that he was just very curious. I don't know but I guess curiosity is behind all endeavors that transcend what people seem to know. It has been said that education begins the moment you leave school. That's when you start to find out some of your teachers knew what they were talking about, some of them knew some of the time and others never did know. Leaving school and going out into the real world requires shedding a lot of skins.

In my own career I have seen young people come into professional theatre fresh from some drama department or school of the arts with the stupidest ideas as to what acting is all about and what actually goes on in a professional theatre. It's painful to see them struggle to let go of what their favorite professor taught them to do. But letting go of useless training is essential to finding one's way in any important endeavor.

There are theories, there are practices and then there are discoveries. Theories are like rule books, written or compiled by somebody along the way. They generally say that if you put this with that then the other thing is going to happen. Some of these rules are good, others are not. One has to decide for oneself. And that's where the practice comes in.

I know actors who act by the numbers, as the saying goes, who think they know how any given scene should be played based on similar scenes of the past. If they have a love scene they will perform a generic love scene with no love in it, a rule book love scene. No risks taken, nothing learned.

Then how do discoveries come about? By asking questions. By curiosity. By saying "I wonder what would happen if I tried attaching a flat piece of wood to the bottom of the ship with a handle on it. Maybe I can steer it that way and I wouldn't have keep moving the sails back and forth by hand."

In short, geniuses are curious people who put the rule books aside, imagine, think things through, try them out and keep trying until they work.

Maybe you qualify as a genius but don't know it yet.

DB
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Have another one on me.
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