Friday, December 23, 2011
Freedom
On some days we talk about political freedom, on other days about free will. We never pause at intermediate points. What about everyday cases where we forfeit our freedom by our own choices? What about the lucrative job offer that tempts us to do something other than what we would have freely chosen? The state is one potential tyrant. The laws of physics and chemistry may be another. But these are hardly the only two. Each one of our appetites is a potential tyrant—especially when there are plenty of corporate tyrants offering to satisfy our appetites in exchange for obedience. Somehow Continental Europeans have managed to remain aware of the connection between freedom and asceticism. Americans are optimists. We like to imagine we can have our luxuries and our freedom too.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The ascent of man
Could anyone imagine a better way to destroy the humanities than to prohibit the one syllable word used to describe its subject matter, leaving nothing but awkward, convoluted substitutes?
Friday, April 8, 2011
Find your genius now
There is a widely accepted notion that excellence consists in integrating oneself into society, in performing some socially useful function exquisitely. I believe precisely the opposite. The great man performs no function other than being a great man. He is not great because he makes a great contribution to something. He is great because he is something. His existence needs no justification. His goal is to make his existence perfect, not to make it a perfect instrument for society.
The temptation to do something “useful” is the downfall of the intelligent man. There are always dozens of predefined projects that tempt him because he knows he can complete them easily. If he succumbs to the temptation, he will never find the project he desperately wants to do, the project that will take his intellectual development to the next level.
The urge to participate in society is the urge to escape from the restless demands the intellect makes upon itself. The utopian urge to improve society will consume mental energy (indefinitely, since it is always hopeless) in something that I already know how to do.
When someone asks me what I do for a living, my answer is, “There is something that my intellect, and mine alone, is capable of. My sole task in life is to determine what that is.” Emerson said that his eye was placed where one ray would fall that he might testify to that particular ray. What if, instead of testifying to that ray, Emerson had become a lawyer, or exquisitely fulfilled some other determinate function in society? This would have been a tragedy, both for him and for society. The same is true of every intelligent person.
It will be objected that the world could not function if everyone adopted this attitude. But I am not so arrogant to think that I am indispensable. The world will continue to function without me. Economists predict that the market will adapt, of its own accord, to shrinking supplies of copper and oil. Surely it can also adapt to a shrinking supply of servile intellectuals.
The most important question, the question I am faced with anew in each moment is—shall I take the easy way, and do something I have done a dozen times before?—or shall I take the hard way, and create something I have never created before, perhaps something no human being in history has ever created before? It doesn’t matter if what I create is useful to me or to anyone else. What matters is that it sets my mind on a path toward perfection, rather than running in circles.
A great intellect is not something I am given. It is something I create. I create it by working to perfect my intellect. In the course of this I may undertake tasks that help others. But the primary purpose of those tasks must always be to perfect my intellect. If I don’t make this my primary purpose, I shortchange others as much as I shortchange myself. At the end of my road, one moment of my help will be worth years of help in my present state. If there is a “duty” to others, it is to become the greatest man I can be. Only then will my help be the greatest I can provide, the help I alone can provide.
The fact that every man and woman doesn’t aspire to be a genius is a fault of our education. As it is, not even every genius aspires to be a genius. Most aspire only to be competent professionals, performing the same task over and over, the task demanded by their clients, not the task demanded by their genius.
To be a genius means first and foremost to pay attention to genius, to treat its desires as legitimate, as, in fact, the most urgent of all desires. When we place the petty desire for material comfort above the desire of genius for its own development, we make the worst bargain a human being can possibly make.
Unless I am entirely certain that my intellect has reached its full potential (how could I ever be certain of that?), putting my intellect wholeheartedly in the service of society, leaving no time for its own development, is a very bad bargain, both for myself and for society.
Every man and woman is capable of creating something unique. Every man and woman is too much of a genius to be merely fulfilling a predetermined role. Abandon your unfulfilling social roles as much and as soon as you can, and concentrate your effort on finding and developing your genius.
The temptation to do something “useful” is the downfall of the intelligent man. There are always dozens of predefined projects that tempt him because he knows he can complete them easily. If he succumbs to the temptation, he will never find the project he desperately wants to do, the project that will take his intellectual development to the next level.
The urge to participate in society is the urge to escape from the restless demands the intellect makes upon itself. The utopian urge to improve society will consume mental energy (indefinitely, since it is always hopeless) in something that I already know how to do.
When someone asks me what I do for a living, my answer is, “There is something that my intellect, and mine alone, is capable of. My sole task in life is to determine what that is.” Emerson said that his eye was placed where one ray would fall that he might testify to that particular ray. What if, instead of testifying to that ray, Emerson had become a lawyer, or exquisitely fulfilled some other determinate function in society? This would have been a tragedy, both for him and for society. The same is true of every intelligent person.
It will be objected that the world could not function if everyone adopted this attitude. But I am not so arrogant to think that I am indispensable. The world will continue to function without me. Economists predict that the market will adapt, of its own accord, to shrinking supplies of copper and oil. Surely it can also adapt to a shrinking supply of servile intellectuals.
The most important question, the question I am faced with anew in each moment is—shall I take the easy way, and do something I have done a dozen times before?—or shall I take the hard way, and create something I have never created before, perhaps something no human being in history has ever created before? It doesn’t matter if what I create is useful to me or to anyone else. What matters is that it sets my mind on a path toward perfection, rather than running in circles.
A great intellect is not something I am given. It is something I create. I create it by working to perfect my intellect. In the course of this I may undertake tasks that help others. But the primary purpose of those tasks must always be to perfect my intellect. If I don’t make this my primary purpose, I shortchange others as much as I shortchange myself. At the end of my road, one moment of my help will be worth years of help in my present state. If there is a “duty” to others, it is to become the greatest man I can be. Only then will my help be the greatest I can provide, the help I alone can provide.
The fact that every man and woman doesn’t aspire to be a genius is a fault of our education. As it is, not even every genius aspires to be a genius. Most aspire only to be competent professionals, performing the same task over and over, the task demanded by their clients, not the task demanded by their genius.
To be a genius means first and foremost to pay attention to genius, to treat its desires as legitimate, as, in fact, the most urgent of all desires. When we place the petty desire for material comfort above the desire of genius for its own development, we make the worst bargain a human being can possibly make.
Unless I am entirely certain that my intellect has reached its full potential (how could I ever be certain of that?), putting my intellect wholeheartedly in the service of society, leaving no time for its own development, is a very bad bargain, both for myself and for society.
Every man and woman is capable of creating something unique. Every man and woman is too much of a genius to be merely fulfilling a predetermined role. Abandon your unfulfilling social roles as much and as soon as you can, and concentrate your effort on finding and developing your genius.
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