Genius

I have given a lot of thought to genius, since I am commonly thought to possess it. There are two kinds of genius ordinarily recognized: scientific/mathematical genius (the "Rain Man" type of idiot-savant genius falls into this category, as well), and the artistic genius. Mad, or evil geniuses who conceive of brilliant plots to overtake the world will be dealt with in comic books and unreasonably popular novels. (This reminds me of the animal known as the political genius, but if that's considered genius, I'll lump it with the artistic category, since politics is an art, like any other form of theater.)

My claim to genius is based on a Stanford-Binet IQ test which I took at the age of seven years and some months, on which I achieved a frighteningly high score. Neither my parents nor I, nor probably my school, was given the result at the time, and it was twenty years before I got the result. However, I contend that my score is just another example of my talent for taking tests, which served me well all the way through college, and kept me from flunking out on more than one occasion, due to my refusal to do homework or to turn in any papers with which I wasn't completely satisfied. Another example I like to use is the advanced-placement math test I took at the beginning of my freshman year at the University of Alabama. Back at that time, I was still able to recognize the first problem on the test as a quadratic equation, although for the life of me, I couldn't remember what one was supposed to do with it. Looking forward, I could see that the math problems just got harder from there - and I had quite sensibly quit math completely after Algebra I. So I entertained myself by using the #2 pencil to fill in the A, B, C and D answers in a nice, aesthetic pattern, and turned in the test. I ended up with a percentile somewhere in the low nineties. I conclude that there is just no way I can miss with tests, which is how I ended up working as a flunky in a State job, where a high test score was at least supposed to help give one preference for a job.

So much for genius. And so much for genius, a brilliant education and a well-paying job.

It's hard to be humble about being a genius when you have nothing you could have bragged about if you had chosen to do so. If I'm told how smart I am (which I am all the time, sometimes as a dire threat), I don't go immediately into blushing, aw-shucks, toe-kicking-at-the-dirt mode. After all, what's the rest of the sentence? If you so smart, why ain't you rich? Look, folks, it's not all that entertaining to sit around thinking about how brilliant you are. It tends to always lead back to, "so what?" Genius + talent, good. Genius + entreprenurial drive, good. Genius + an overwhelming desire to take over the world for evil purposes? Well, it might get you a movie, at least.

I have to admit, I do have a very good brain. I get a lot of answers on Jeopardy. Before various medications started in with their side effects, I had a prodigious memory. I have an innate sense of systems. That is, I can figure out with a very few clues patterns in how things are set up, and understand why they are set up that way, which helps a lot with clerical work. It's not really a talent that is easily described to a potential employer.

I have also worked for small businessmen who were very happy to have me working for them, because I am flexible enough that I was able to take care of all their business for them. Unfortunately, I also knew about all their business, and if there's anything a businessman doesn't want, it's some woman he doesn't even know, knowing everything about his business.

It probably takes a certain kind of talent for a woman to be smart and dumb at the same time. I suspect it's something that Southern women may have been taught better than their sisters from the north were, Scarlett O'Hara being somehow my mental picture of a woman talented at being both.

So, what is genius if it is not scientific or artistic? Does it count? Is the concept too vague even to grasp? And is it significant that genius has the masculine Latin ending? Close your eyes, and when I say, "Genius," what does he look like? Whatever happened to all the geniae out there? If I called myself a genia, nobody would know what I meant. I don't think it's a silly feminist point, either; I think it's telling.

When I was in elementary school and had my IQ tested, I thought it would be great to be an astronaut. The space race was on, and the astronaut program was all over the news. I don't think I ever thought seriously it could happen to me, though. I didn't have any particular ambition toward any kind of career, and none was encouraged by the schools i went to. In fact, I was punished for reading ahead in my school books when I got bored, reading books for pleasure when I was supposed to be back with the rest of the class, or letting on that my older sister was teaching me what she learned in her class.

When I was in seventh grade, we had some kind of independent-reading program introduced. Students would read certain essays and answer questions, and when their answers had been approved by the teachers, they would get to go on to reading essays at the next grade level. Of course, I flew through all the levels and had to wait for a teacher's attention so that I could get passed and be handed the work for the next grade. I still remember the disappointment I felt when the program ended and I could not get a teacher to pass me on the 12th-grade level, so that I could say I had run the entire program. It was such a small thing, but it was so important to me, and entirely meaningless to them.

I suppose I could say the same lack of encouragement continued all through my career as a student; when I was at the University of Alabama, I often cut classes (which were generally so large or run by graduate students so uninterested that no one knew whether I was supposed to be there), and graduated with a B average. An unstructured curriculum left me to wander by myself, but I'm still convinced that a structured one would have seen me drop out, rather than being lined up like a good little magnetized iron filing and sent into a willing job market.

Genius is only worth what it's worth. A pretty face or a membership in "the lucky sperm club" might get you farther. It might keep you warm at night if you are the kind of person who's kept warm by something like that. In today's world, the more brains you have and the more attention you pay, the more cynical you're likely to become. The ability to be philosophical may be worth more than anything else.