Are we all capable of Genius?

The internet defines genius as exceptional intellectual or creative power or other natural ability.

I challenged myself to dissect the weight of the word genius and where to deem if someone’s worthy.

In the case of Kanye West and many others that have crossed the line of sane, are they still geniuses or have they lost themselves and therefore lost their genius? Will he be called a genius once he’s dead? And can the work itself of genius be separated from the dissociated mind?

When listing out the numerous types of genius I realized I could easily name the intellects: Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, Galileo (to name a few), and then the creatives: Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Mozart, Beethoven, Da Vinci. But there’s a grey area when it comes to natural ability.

Natural to me is the biological advantage to have over others. In the case of Alex Honnold, the legendary free-climber, he is able to scale cliff sides like El Capitan because he has an amygdala that’s unresponsive. Researchers can’t determine whether it was nature or nurture that has made his fear so little. Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist from NYU explained, “His brain is probably predisposed to be less reactive to threats that other people would be naturally responsive to, simply because of the choices he’s made,” LeDoux says. “On top of that, his self-imposed strategies that he’s using make that even better, or stronger.”

For geniuses of the intellect, did they reach a hypothesis in a middle of a dream of drug induced hallucination and was it by consequence or sheer luck? With this same logic can genius simply fall in the laps of any of us at any given moment or is it true that at this point in time none of us have experienced original thought?

Obviously Michelangelo didn’t pick up a brush for the first time and paint the Sistine Chapel, he had to study dead people for years. But were these talented folk gifted with natural ability to improve at a faster rate than the rest of us mere humans. Over time as a swimmer I felt that there were always a select few athletes that were naturally inclined to the sport. They’d drink/smoke or eat total sh*t and get four hours of sleep at night and still be able to outperform me any day of the week.

And then there’s Einstein. He was a genius. Clear-cut. He theorized the theory of relativity and other insights that are still the foundation of modern physics. Researchers have been studying his brain for years to figure out what gave him the advantage. They found that while his brain is of an average weight, there were several regions that feature more convolutions and folds than other “genius brains”. But here’s the kicker, one of the main researchers on the project, Dean Falk said, “"Einstein programmed his own brain, he had the right brain in the right place at the right time."

What I know is this.

I was born with this brain and this body because for some reason my parents decided to consummate me at that time with those sperm and eggs.

And for some reason I am 5’10”, blonde haired, and blue-eyed. And for some reason I’ve lived this life with these friends.

I’ve grown accustomed to the fact that maybe we all have less free-will than I originally thought we did.

Because for some reason I’m 22 and happy as a bird but I could have easily been born with the mind of a serial killer with a serial killers upbringing and just begun murdering people.

But I can identify in my Livi Schmid brain that murder is wrong and I don’t have any interest in doing so. But if I were born into that body and mind that I could have easily taken up that role.

So was the creation of genius free willed at all?

They say that 1 in a million are defined as genius. But I think that’s just one percentage for the characteristics of genius but excludes the depth of internal infinity and endless opportunity we all have.

I strongly believe that there’s some force that pulls all of the pieces together, the “magic”. Right place. Right sperm. Right upbringing.

What is this force? Is it external or internal and if it is internal are we back to where we started?

Are we all capable?