Creativity
The Cambridge English Dictionary defines Creativity as “the ability to produce or use original and unusual ideas.” If you can produce original or unusual ideas, you are being creative. Likewise, if you are able to put original or unusual ideas to use, you are also being creative. It would seem that the defining factor of creativity would be originality in terms of conception or execution.
Genius
In the Merriam Webster Dictionary, Genius is defined along two dimensions: “Extraordinary intellectual power especially as manifested in creative activity” “[and/or] a person endowed with extraordinary mental superiority. Clearly, Merriam Webster recognizes the polarity of genius. At one extreme, there exists a person who is gifted with extraordinary intellectual superiority. At the other pole, genius is seen as a power which manifests through creative activity.
The latter definition allows for the fact that the person in question may or may not be a genius but that which they manifest has about it the nature of genius. This definition should give hope to all of us who may not be celebrated for being geniuses but who, nonetheless, prove capable of doing “genius things’ from time to time.
The Future of Your Genius
While it may at first feel neither natural nor intuitive to juxtapose the future you deserve with Genius, the idea is actually “brilliant” – if we may so say.
Why Mix “Future” and “Genius”?
According to the Advanced English Dictionary: “Genius is very great ability or skill in a particular subject or activity [or moment].” In the first place, consequently, who other than you is most likely to be the singular specialist in the pursuit of your own future? In the second place, why would you want to create your future with anything less than the highest level of thinking of which you are capable? I will bet my life on the fact that you are capable of far more than you imagine, if you will let yourself soar.
Time and time again we have witnessed people come up with truly “genius ideas.” In most cases, these same people would have protested (and often did) that they were uniquely under-qualified in the genius department. Yet, under the right circumstances, and with the right guidance, direction, and support, they repeatedly disproved their own worst evaluations of their own intellectual capacities.
Doing Genius v Being Genius
The commonly accepted definition of genius is that of a person, gifted in some way, with an exceptionally high IQ. On the other hand, we “know” that Mozart was a genius. Did he have above average intelligence? Not that anyone every measured. Did Leonardo DaVinci score high on any standard tests of intelligence? Did Einstein?
The truth is there were no metrics for intelligence when these folks did their best work. The reason we attribute genius to these people is because, on at least one occasion, they created something which itself was a work of genius. The Free Dictionary provides a definition that tells us it may not be the person but the circumstance that defines genius as a: “particularly inspired, clever, or innovative act, idea, or decision.”
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