Genius and Eccentricity

Actually, I think the idea that genius automatically carries with it the price tag of eccentricity or a kind of insanity is over-stated and under-supported by what ever kinds of research could be done to prove it.

That we are more interested in the lives of geniuses may only mean that we tend to be attracted and entertained by the eccentricities of history’s most examined, scrutinized characters. We are less likely to be interested in more mundane lives of those others who are just as integral to the full spectrum of human inventiveness and genius.

We are also less likely to scrutinize in so personal a way individuals in the rest of the population that are not considered genius, and so really have no way of comparing which “sample” has a greater degree/proportion of insanity/eccentricity.

We are also attracted by the eccentric on one level because, I think, it reminds us of our selves, our community of friends and family, our relationships, our inner lives and our own potential participation and desire to participate in the genius of the species.

I work in the mental health field so I have some background in this. The fact that we tend to know more about the lives of those who are considered to possess genius may throw off any untested theory that there are a greater proportion of eccentrics and/or a greater degree of insanity among those who are considered genius than those who are not.

As my work involves a much, much larger proportion of people who are not considered genius than people who are (although I might petition that rather arbitrary application of the definition for a definition that recognizes that everyone has, at least, the potential for genius in their own lives and community and may apply it in their own way), and as I am privy to the deepest life quandaries and pathologies of these people, of which there are numerous and frequent examples, even among the many who look to be quite "normal" to those who are not privy to their inner, more private and secret, lives, I am skeptical about any claims that the proportion of eccentrics and/or level of insanity among those who possess genius are any higher or lower than among the general population.

Though I would be glad to change my own theory if someone could fashion and implement a far-reaching enough study, I am not sure how that could be done, if one considers the enormous barriers of subjectivity that all this naturally calls into play.

How would we measure genius? Certainly not by IQ alone. How would we measure eccentricity or insanity? Certainly the behaviors and intelligences of any one culture, historical time frame, or social milieu can only be defined along a continuum from harmfully insane or eccentric to mind-numbingly dull and normal if each is left to be defined within its own sets of relative norms and abnormalities.

What system could we devise to compare these various and potentially innumerable sets of norms? Would we say that Moses was crazy for hearing a burning bush speak in the voice of his god if we are willing, at the same time, to continue to put much weight into the commonly held idea that artists like VanGogh or Sylvia Plath were insane because they heard voices? What is our system of measurements and how do we determine a manner of implementation of a system of measure that is absent our own set of assumed norms?

It could be that it only appears that the "genius" segment of the human community has more than its share of eccentricity because we know more about them than even our own “normal” neighbors and, in addition, we are attracted to genius, love the stories of their struggles, loves, pathologies, failures and successes simply because they DO reflect our own lives, families and communities of loved ones so well. Their stories are ours.

Another reason we may like to focus on geniuses’ foibles has something to do with our own deep feelings that our lives lack the kind of meaning and import that the lives and accomplishments of geniuses have and we are, on some levels, envious. So we like to balance their accomplishments against our own by diminishing their lives against our own lives.

Oddly enough, if my own theory holds true, we would be better off seeing their lives as comparable to ours in that they have the same struggles, heartbreak and victories, on very personal levels, that any of the rest of us do. Then, perhaps, we would also be more able to recognize and catalyze our own potential for genius.

Anger Worksheet and Anger Log

Anger is normal and a healthy response. It is the way we manage anger that becomes problematic.

Healthy shows and uses of anger are misunderstood, stigmatized and often vary by culture and family. Some displays and uses of anger are useful and lead to healing and motivation, others become repetitive patterns of avoidance or aggression, passive or otherwise.

Passion and variances in affect are often interpreted wrongly as anger, just as passive-aggressive or aggressive, harmful, anger displays are sometimes excused as normal or to-be-expected in certain groups and genders or are stereotyped as a part of some activities, sports or roles.

The following is a good anger worksheet and anger log that can help you understand your own anger and how to begin to modify how you use and display it. Thanks to Pine Rest Christian Hospital and The 10th Annual Michigan Substance Abuse Convention for some of this information.

Anger Worksheet

1. What things, persons or events, over which you have no control, do you keep trying to control?


2. What do you do to try and control this person/situation?


3. What is the consequence of your struggle to control the uncontrollable?


4. The one situation that frequently resulted in my becoming angry was:


5. List at least 3 factors or conditions that seem to influence your anger.


6. List 5 anger cues or signals. These are the warning signs that tell you, or others, that you are beginning to “lose it”.


7. What are the Physical Signs?
   Clenched jaw, fists
   Raising your voice
   Sweating
   Feeling hot
   Rapid heartbeat
   Rapid breathing
   Pacing
   Becoming quiet, withdrawing
   Cravings


8. What Else?
   


9. Remember: Anger causes 178 chemical changes in the brain.
   Adrenaline numbs the frontal lobe of the brain-the seat of our thinking capacities

***


Anger Log

Use to track individual anger display episodes.

• What Happened?
• Why did you get angry?
• Rate anger on scale from 1 – 10
• What body signals did you notice?
• What thoughts did you have?
• What were you feeling?
• What were your actions?
• What were your choices?
• What, if anything, would you do different next time?
  

The Effectiveness of Phone Sessions: Testimonial From Client

Not being able to meet with Bob in person, left us skeptical as to whether coaching would work for us. After our first phone session and a few awkward minutes, Bob was able to take control and put all our fears to rest. Bob has a unique ability to really listen. You don’t have to be sitting across from him to know that you have his complete attention. Equally important to us was his fairness and sincerity and respect. With Bob’s help, he dissolved a stressful and tense situation and shifted our focus back to each other. Bob never chose sides, he only led us to rediscover the things within ourselves to improve upon. We were so lucky to find such a compassionate and experienced professional. Anyone who has the pleasure of working with Bob will take his lessons and apply them throughout their lives. We thank you Bob for all that you have done for us.

Larry & Penny Everett

35 Inspirational Quotes

“All the old bindings are broken. Cosmological centers now are any- and everywhere. The earth is a heavenly body, most beautiful of all, and all poetry now is archaic that fails to match the wonder of this view.”

Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By



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“…it would be plain that this is what everybody wants, and everybody would regard it as the precise expression of the desire which he had long felt but had been unable to formulate, that he should melt into his beloved, and henceforth they would be one instead of two. The reason is that this was our primitive condition when we were wholes, and love is simply the name for the desire and pursuit of the whole.”

Plato, The Symposium


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“The smell of coffee had been like a spider web in the house. It had not been an easy smell. It had not lent itself to religious contemplation…”

Richard Brautigan, “Trout Fishing in America”

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“But the reason Jefferson, throughout his long life, was carried away by such impracticabilities was that he knew, however dimly, that the Revolution, while it had given freedom to the people, had failed to provide a space where this freedom could be exercised. Only the representatives of the people, not the people themselves, had an opportunity to engage in those activities of “expressing, discussing and deciding” which in a positive sense are the activities of freedom.”

Hannah Arendt, On Revolution


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“What of the future of rare native wildflowers?... …Birds are mobile; they can return easily to their niche. And some seeds have parachutes or are carried by birds. But what about the others? Can seeds remain viable in the soil for half a century or more, until succession renders their habitat suitable again? We know little about this.”

Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny, A Field Guide to Wildflowers


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“But what after all is one night? A short space, especially when the darkness dims so soon, and so soon a bird sings, a cock crows, or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf, in the hollow of a wave. Night, however, succeeds to night. The winter holds a pack of them in store and deals them equally, evenly, with indefatigable fingers.”

Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse


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“Rather than speak of my certainties – I have so few and they are of so personal a nature – I prefer to tell you of my efforts to acquire them. I write to understand as much as to be understood. Reflected in all my characters and their mirror games, it is always the Jew in me trying to find himself.”

Elie Wiesel, One Generation After


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“Time, within him, had become as small as a heartbeat, as large as death. He was no longer hungry or thirsty; he no longer desired children and a wife. His whole soul squeezed into his eyes. He saw – that was all: he saw.”

Nikos Kazantzakis, The Last Temptation of Christ


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“I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance”

e.e. cummings, Love and Its Mysteries


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“But when the strong were too weak to hurt the weak, the weak had to be strong enough to leave”

Milan Kundera, The Incredible Lightness of Being



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“Our mothers, unlike their white counterparts, had to try and make a home in the midst of a racist world that had already sealed our fate, an unequal world waiting to tell us we were inferior, not smart enough, unworthy of love. Against this backdrop where blackness was not loved, our mothers had the task of making a home.”

Bell Hooks, Salvation


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“All creatures are involved in the life of all others, consequently every species… all nature is in a perpetual state of flux. Every animal is more or less a human being, every mineral more or less a plant, every plant more or less an animal… There is nothing clearly defined in nature. “

Denis Diderot, D’Alembert’s Nephew


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“Probabilistically speaking, it is mind-bogglingly more likely that everything we now see in the universe arose from a rare but every-so-often expectable statistical aberration away from total disorder, rather than having slowly evolved from the even more unlikely, the incredibly more ordered, the astoundingly low-entropy starting point required by the big bang.

Yet, when we went with the odds and imagined that everything popped into existence by a statistical fluke, we found ourselves in a quagmire: that route called into question the laws of physics themselves. And so we are inclined to buck the bookies and go with a low-entropy big bang as the explanation of the arrow of time. The puzzle then is to explain how the universe began in such an unlikely, highly ordered configuration. That is the question to which the arrow of time points.”

Brian Greene, The Fabric of the Cosmos


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“Needless to say, not one dime has been spent conducting research or medical follow up on any of the 458,290 Americans that the Department of Energy lists as having been present at one or more of the atmospheric bomb tests.”

Michel Uhl and Tod Ensign, GI Guinea Pigs


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“Today I mourn him, as I can,
By leaving in their golden leaves
Some luscious apples overhead.
Now may my abstinence restore
Peace to the orchard and the dead.
We shall not nag them anymore.”

James Wright, An Offering for Mr. Bluehart


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“From having all these and other feelings I noted that the interior prayer bears fruit in three ways: in the Spirit, in the feelings, and in revelations.”

The Way of a Pilgrim (translated by RM French)


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“We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.”

Emma Goldman, Patriotism


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“Those that desire the life of this world with all its frippery shall be rewarded for their deeds in their own lifetime and nothing shall be denied them. These are the men who in the world to come shall be rewarded with hell-fire. Fruitless are their deeds, and vain are their works.””

The Koran


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“I think it is imperative that feminists dismantle the institutions that foster the exploitation and abuse of women. The family, conventional sexuality, and gender are at the tops of my hit list. These institutions control the emotional, intimate lives of every one of us, and they have done incalculable damage to women.”

Pat Califia, Feminism and Sadomasochism


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“Ah, demoniac madness! He rages most of all at the thought that eternity might get it into its head to take his misery away from him”

Soren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death


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“This is like rejecting the notion that a Heaven lies someplace beyond the end of the path of life. Heaven, so to speak, lies waiting for us through life, ready to step into for a time and to enjoy before we have to come back to our ordinary life of striving. And once we have been in It, we can remember it forever, and feed ourselves on this memory and be sustained in time of stress.”

Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being



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“Whatever such a mind sees is a flower, and whatever such a mind dreams of is the moon. It is only a barbarous mind that sees other than a flower, merely an animal mind that dreams of other than the moon. The first lesson for the artist is, therefore, to learn how to overcome such barbarism and animality, to follow nature, to be one with nature.”

Basho, The Records of a Travel-worn Satchel


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“The otter is agile, fluid in its movements as the water that is its favorite element. Yet on land it is not as light on its feet as the weasel or marten and seems almost to plow through the snow. This is revealed by its tracks, which sometimes appear in a snowy trough. Characteristic too, is the long mark in the snow where the otter has slid. Coasting is enjoyed occasionally by the mink, but the sport is developed to the extreme by the otter.”

Olaus J. Murie, A Field Guide to Animal Tracks


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“A genuine old-fashioned barbecue is as fascinating and as gay as a strawberry festival. The big ones seem to be getting more and more scarce, just as the strawberry social with Japanese lanterns and pink crepe paper seems to be giving way to more exciting refreshments and boogie woogie.”

James Beard, Cook it Outdoors



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“There can never be a single story. There are only ways of seeing.”

Arundhati Roy, War Talk


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“Many, again, having observed in others or experienced in themselves elevated feelings which they imagine incapable of emanating from any other source than religion, have an honest aversion to anything tending, as they think, to dry up the fountain of such feelings. They, therefore, either dislike and disparage all philosophy or addict themselves with intolerant zeal to those forms of it in which intuition usurps the place of evidence and internal feeling is made the test of objective truth”

John Stuart Mill, The Nature and Utility of Religion



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“Blessed are you whose worthiness gives scope,
Being had, to triumph, being lack’d, to hope.”

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 52



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“Look, I admit I find this man’s supposed bisexuality confusing and I don’t quite believe it. But what are my options? A two-minute roll in the hay with you, where you make no distinction between sexual intercourse and push-ups; and then a happy evening of admiring your underarm hair and your belt buckles?”

Christopher Durang; Prudence, from the play “Beyond Therapy”



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“Dogmatism reveals itself not only by its inability to conceive the inward or implicit illimitability of the symbol, the universality that resolves all outward oppositions, but also by its inability to recognize, when faced with two apparently contradictory truths, the inward connection they implicitly affirm, a connection that makes them complimentary aspects of the same truth.”

Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendent Unity of Religions




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“A Jewish Merchant, on a ship off the coast, observed the Crusader siege of Acre and described it to his mother in a letter: ‘I arrived in Palestine before Acre was conquered and therefore witnessed the vicissitudes of the siege. We constantly faced the danger of death, for we were near [the Crusaders] day and night, hearing their talk as they heard ours, and our bread was colored with blood’”

from Joel Kraemer’s “Maimonides; The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Great Minds”



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“It grieved Whitman – as it did Lawrence – that there was no open, legitimate way to express love for a man, but it makes no difference to our understanding of him to know whether or not he went to bed with men. The secret shameful things that he feared in himself were incorporated in his store of sensual delights. Outwardly they seemed unexpressed. The blossom of his body’s shamefulness was a terrible beauty to him, part of his revolutionary inner life. “

Philip Callow, From Noon to Starry Night; a Life of Walt Whitman


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“Through the thin red silk my cool flesh glistens
lustrous as snow fresh with fragrance.
With a smile I say to my beloved:
‘Tonight, inside the mesh curtains, the pillow and mat are cool.’”

Li Ch’ing-chao, Tune: Song of Picking Mulberry (Translated by Eugene Eoyang)


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“The world was divided into two parties which were trying to destroy each other because they both wanted the same thing, the liberation of the oppressed, the abolition of violence, and the establishment of lasting peace. On both sides there was strong sentiment against any peace that might not last forever – if eternal peace was not to be had, both parties were committed to eternal war, and the insouciance with which the military balloons rained their blessings from prodigious heights on just and unjust alike reflected the inner spirit of this war to perfection. In other respects, however, it was being waged in the old way, with enormous but inadequate resources… …for in the meantime the intellectuals, visionaries, poets and dreamers had gradually lost interest in the war, and with only soldiers and technicians to count on, the military art made little progress.”

Hermann Hesse, If the War Goes On Another Two Years



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“I have been thinking of the difference
between water
and the waves on it. Rising,
water’s still water, falling back,
it is water, will you give me a hint
how to tell them apart?”

Kabir, Forty-Four of the Ecstatic Poems of Kabir; Versions by Robert Bly


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“I like my life and I am satisfied with it. I am not in need of any additional gilding of it. Life without privacy and without obscurity, life reflected in the splendor of a plate glass show case is inconceivable to me.”

Boris Pasternak; I Remember

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A Family's Responds to "Exploring Feelings of Being Lovable"

The following is a letter that one of my clients got from a family member after the family spent an evening discussing my last post, "Exploring Feelings of Being Lovable, 12 Questions and Exercises".

I can't think of a better use for these questions and exercises and I am gratified and honored that this family took the opportunity to use them to enhance their relationships to one another. I think it takes a lot of courage to disclose and discuss such private and deeply held feelings. I also think this letter says more than I can say about the positive results of using such a method to build more gratifying intimacy in one's family. And it sounds like it was fun too!

Dear Mom;

I was having trouble sleeping and I got to thinking about our 12 question conversation last night. It was very interesting to hear every one's views on themselves, each other and life in general. In particular, your thoughts about not feeling like you could be yourself throughout most of your life for fear of rejection or feeling like you just weren't good enough. That brought something to my mind as I sat here in my office thinking random thoughts. You spoke of certain times/events in your life that you needed to hear that you were loved and didn't receive it. I can not relate to that particular scenario but I am almost certain that I can tell you about something that you do not spend nearly enough time thinking about. How you have affected the people around you. I'll give you some examples. I'm aware this is going to sound really weird coming from me but hear it goes. Be patient, I'll get to my point.

You and I have had many conversations often involving self reflection but until the last 17 months I never really paid that close attention to my side of the story. I'm sure you have probably said a prayer or two about your own situations in life but have never realized how many peoples prayers you have unknowingly been god's answer to and often times at the sacrifice of your own happiness. This was just my one personal example. I bet if we could look back 3 years ago in a dirty old dilapidated house in northern Michigan we would find an old lady praying for someone to help her. Or 12 years ago in St.. Charles we'd find Larry (probably not praying but certainly hoping) to find someone to spend his life with.

Or several years ago your father wondering how he was going to get through life without your mother and then probably praying to find someone (I mean anyone) to takeover for you so you can try and get on with your life and stop worrying about him. Or your brothers, again probably not praying but certainly hoping, that someone is going to take care of dad after their mother died so it wouldn't be such a burden on them. You single-handedly compensated for your daughter's lack of a father and still managed to raise her to have a good heart which after hearing more about the town she grew up in seems almost like an impossibility.

I guess what I'm getting at is I can't help but think that a lot of the pain you have endured in your life was actually everyone else's pain. You would rather take it upon yourself than see someone you love hurting. We talked briefly during our 12 questions quiz about how people in you life have not always let you know how much you mean to them. I think there's a couple of reasons for that aside from the obvious emotional instability. One has tobe the fact that many of the people in your life don't even realize the huge sacrifices you have made for them. The second has to be that most people are not nearly as compassionate as you and therefore, once again, don't think about letting you know how much they appreciate you.

Well I love and appreciate you mom. Not just for the cookies. For the chicken salad too:)ha ha. You have unknowingly been the ongoing answer to my prayer and not only improved my life but my relationship with my wife, my family and my business. Thank you. Apparently Pam is right, my universe responds to my prayers. So my new prayer is that you will not only soon get the happiness but the relief and care that you have given to so many others. But you have to be willing to recognize it and accept it and for once not cure someone else's pain at the sacrifice of your own joy.

Sincerely,

(anonymous at the author's request)

Exploring Feelings of Being Lovable: 12 Questions and Exercises

by Bob Vance

Remember, these questions and exercises are for creative exploration. There are no right or wrong answers. It is best to answer spontaneously, or to use them as a basis for meditative, even prayerful, contemplation. Take your time!


1) Who was the first person to tell you “I love you”? Describe how you felt. If you cannot, why do you think that is so?

2) Who was the last person to tell you “I love you”? Describe how you felt.

3) Is there an important person in your life who has never said the words “I love you” to you, but who you know loves you? What part of that is comforting? What part is uncomfortable?

4) What thoughts arise in you when someone says “You have to love yourself before you can feel love from others”?

5) What does loving yourself mean to you?

6) If you could love yourself better how would your life improve?

7) Do you think there are actions that you can take that might move you toward feeling more loved? If so, can you list three of them? If not, why not?

8) In 25 words or less write your personal theory about how important love is to your life. What experience from your life makes this theory true?

9) Write the names of five people you know love you. Indicate if they have ever said they love you. Regardless of that answer briefly describe how you know they love you.

Have you ever said ‘I love you’ to each of those five people? How do you show them you love them regardless of whether or not you have said it?

10) How do you think your feelings of being loved and/or unloved affect your overall satisfaction with your life?

11) Name three new things you think you can do that will help you feel more loveable when you are feeling unlovable. What do you think might go right or go wrong if you try these new things?

12) What fears do you have when you think about talking honestly to one person you trust about your feelings of being unlovable? How might talking to one trusted person about this help you feel more loveable? If you think it would help, how soon can you do this?

The Real Work

by Wendell Berry

It may be that when we no longer know what to do

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go

we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.