Curse of the Polymath

[gurdonark]

In the reality I experience, the world is literally filled with gifted people who are not appreciated for their manifold talents. My mail these days brings me works of genius and beauty, drawn by hands that will not be seen for their immense skills by the public at large. I meet musicians installing wiring, great novelists in waiting sitting at desks (if they are fortunate) in cubicles of major corporations, and great savers-of-humanity trapped behind retail counters.

I also meet many people who are just brimming with gifts,
if only the universe were structured so that those gifts could spring forth. They do more in a weekend than I get done any month, read more novels in a month than I do in a year, and still have time to bewail the manifold shortfalls of Fate.

In general, everyone I know is more talented than their level of achievement. In general, I see more raw talent misapplied in life than I had imagined possible.

I really love the Strangers and Brothers series of novels written by CP Snow. The work is an exploration of the English professional, government and academic classes, spread across 11 novels, told through a single protagonist narrator. During the novels which touch on scientists--Snow himself started as a scientist--a recurring plot theme is "which are the truly inventive minds and which are the 'second raters'". Characters' egos rise and fall based on whether they are truly gifted (Snow, though not religious,
speaks of this almost as though it were Providence), or merely "second raters".

I have discovered over time that I am among the "second rate" intellects. I did not have the genius to be a scientist. I did not have the gifts to be a writer or artist or painter. I am a hobbyist in creative expression, not a real rabbit, perhaps not even a velveteen rabbit. I was mediocre, but not awful at sports. I can live in an ordinary home, in a non-bohemian area, and partake of cable TV without guilt. I can read at the middlebrow and the low as well as the high. I am an above-middling chess player, though chess was once a passion for me. I do well as a lawyer, but isn't law almost by definition a place for people like me?

I do not say this with any particular self-pity or longing.
I find that being a "second rate" mind is a fairly workable arrangement. For one thing, one does not worry about the fact that one has not arisen to one's fated level in life. Fortunately, one is just about where one should be in life. One does not worry that one wants to find practical solutions to problems, as one knows one is not gifted, and instead must rely on workaday solutions. My IQ tests always come out just above average--caution, non-genius at work!

I always think of that anguished character in the film Interiors, who had the soul of an artist, but none of the talent. What an agony! But I would much prefer to the person with the soul of a non-artist, and no talent. I have to think that folks who staff soup lines have no talent. I like to think that talentless people start businesses, work a little harder because they know they have to do and not depend on their gifts, and do not satisfy themselves with just being a cut above the rest.

I love the film Weapons of the Spirit, a documentary about a small town of French Protestants who sheltered a large number of Jews from the Nazis. They had no plan or genius or saintliness. They did it because they could not imagine doing otherwise. I wish I were this sort of second-rate mind; I strive to be of such limited gifts that I do the right thing automatically, being too second rate to do anything else.

Despite my ironic tone here, I have a fairly non-satiric point to make. I feel that too often we shortchange ourselves when we dream instead of giving ourselves permission to do. It's no accident that a B movie character like Ronald Reagan could imagine he could become President. His talents were so limited he could not imagine being unqualified for the role. I am not a Reagan admirer,
but I have to wonder how many of us should give ourselves permission to strive for things, even if we fear we are second-rate. In this respect, positive thinking is all well and good, but I'm in favor of positive action--one really does "Climb Ev'ry Mountain" better with hiking shoes than with an operatic voice.

My father, with whom I share some similarities, used to console me..."Bob", he'd say, "you and I are polymaths. We're not much good at anything,but we can do a little of everything". He meant we knew a little of everything, but also that we were not much good at any one thing. He could tell it much better than I do, but the story essentially meant that being no good at anything, but a little good at everything was some family coat of arms--I'll metaphorically call it a crest with 3 ordinary looking goats on it, busily grazing. Actually, my family surname is an Old English phrase, which means "Nun's Meadow". It refers to the chap who tends the garden for the convent. To me, it is the essence of my family tradition--unremarkable people who do quirky little jobs as if that were their Fate.

I must resign myself, I suppose, to what I called in an earlier post "the problem of mediocrity". But I take this comfort--because I know I am no good at anything, fear of failure rarely informs my actions. I try business, I try the arts, I try recreation--heck, I even try to overcome my shyness and relate to people. Why? Because I know I am no good at it, any of it. Even at law, which comes naturally to me, I use my gifts to solve problems more than to try to prove I am Clarence Darrow. It's no accident that I hold a degree in physics though I am nearly as calculus-impaired as any science person can be (let's skip over Cal III in college, and my grade there). I used to imagine it was a shortcoming, but now I see it as one more colorful thread in the great quilt of second-rate polymathism. It's a red badge of courage, for the talentless.

You see, I have turned my impairment into my strength.
I was not afraid to start my business, because as a polymath I knew I had no genius for it, and would have to work it, budgeting and getting clients. I didn't mind publishing my own booklet, and selling it shamelessly on ebay, because I knew I am never to grace academia or the salons of the literati, and could just huckster and market (archaic expression, but you get the idea). I can give myself permission to be bad, because I know on some level I am not really very good. The liberation from self-judgment can be very gratifying. When I send an "artwork" out in a nervousness.org exchange, I cheerfully warn the recipient how bad it is. They seem to appreciate it.

Being a polymath is a curse. I will never be anyone, anything. But it's a curse with compensation. I will not live in fear of talent squandered, opportunity lost. I will live in the moment, drawing my meager bow back to shoot my lightweight arrows. But you know, those lightweight arrows sometimes land, and unshot arrows never do.

Polymaths didn't get a line in the Sermon on the Mount, but I fancy sometimes that blessed are the polymaths, because they just don't know any better. I will count that as one more blessing, as the song says, instead of sheep.

Comments

[geisa.livejournal.com]

you are NOT "second-rate"...believe me, i know these things. what i would give to garden at the convent...as to who was first in line at the sermon on the mount..."blessed are the cheesemakers"!!!;)

you are NOT mediocre. you are a special person caught in a culture of mediocrity...at least that is my humble opinion, i don't care what you got in calculus III. chin up!!!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the encouraging words. I was just thinking about you earlier this evening. Did you win the Cornell? Someone sniped in on the one I bid on on ebay, and I hoped it was you! Also, I wanted to ask you what you did to your Volvo to make it look so good after picking it up so inexpensively. Did you get it detailed?

[geisa.livejournal.com]

no...i wouldn't snipe you..god!!! despite what some people think, i'm not THAT vicious on ebay!!!;) actually, i didn't get the hardbound on ebay either. i have about $100.00 worth of cornell waiting for me at the bookstore, so i let the ebay book go.

that picture of my volvo was taken after i had spent approx. 6 hours detailing it myself...which included a compound buffing...then waxing...two engine cleanings, and a complete interior cleaning. it was a lot of work...but i have managed to keep it pretty much the same with regular washings and a few more waxings since.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have minded if you had outbid me. I felt a little guilty for pointing out the auctions, and then bidding on one.
I had a chance with 7 seconds left to bid, but I refrained.
It was priced only okay, anyway, so it's no great loss.
I would have thought July would be an odd time to sell an art book, when in just a coupla months xmas shoppers will be on in droves, but I'm not psychic about sales philosophy.

That Volvo is impressive, and self-detailing even more so.

[geisa.livejournal.com]

gosh...i like that, already thinking of cool weather...and christmas!!! but i don't know how much you could apply "sales philosophy" to cornell books, ha!!! especially, based on my experience in trying to find them and his unfortunate obscurity in the art world...or so it seems.

i have NEVER cleaned a car like that...but i knew it was a diamond in the rough, especially with only 70,000 miles on it...but it was literally used on a FARM!!!

[holyoutlaw.livejournal.com]

You know, I understand this. Releasing oneself from the ego-attachment of "success" allows you to be where you are, and enjoy that place. And from that will come further progress than you might have made if you said something had to be "successful" to be good. Yeah!

Good company

[espvivisection.livejournal.com]

<snip>So, [Christopher] Marlowe. The film shows us a man who was the most eminent playwright and the finest writer in English of his day. A young guy, handsome; we have his portrait. He's the guy, as even the orthodox scholars say, who would have been Shakespeare, if not for having been killed, in May 1593, at age 29, in a sudden brawl at a rooming house. Marlowe was an authentic genius, a polymath, and it turns out, an apostate freethinker with a warrant on his head from the church, and an upcoming date with the torture chamber. And according to the evidence the film shows, he was a highly ranked secret agent for the queen, sent on missions overseas to stir up trouble and dig up information. </snip!>

Shortly after reading this lovely piece, I found myself being guided to the article containing the excerpt above by a fellow Shakespeare fan, and wanted to take this opportunity to point out what good company you're in. <grin>

Re: Good company

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Of course, the literal term "polymath" has a very positive meaning, along the lines of "encyclopedic knowledge", whereas I'm much more thinking about the common-usage "meaning" "knows a little bit about everything".

I have always liked Marlowe. There's something about a couple of the speeches in Dr. Faustus that has always appealed to me.

Thanks for pointing out the similar "trait".

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's awfully close to it, and stated in less than five lines, no less :)

It might also be stated "the less I think about how good I am, the more that I can do".

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

You're 42? I wonder if you'll ever even have a mid-life crisis? or if these ruminations are the closest you'll come. You've got yourself so damned *figured out*--or maybe you're just trying to convince yourself that you do. I don't believe anyone can be that well put together. You lament what you think you aren't, and yet you are perfectly happy with what you are. And this is a constant theme for you. Where are you going with all this, Robert?

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

Now I'm going to fall into that trap you say you fall into sometimes by longing to tell you that you're not really mediocre. At least, not the "you" which is revealed here. Your gusto for life combined with the eternal quest for understanding makes you more than mediocre. And trust me, I should know. What's the movie where someone goes on and on about "championing mediocrity?" Oh, Say Anything. Anyway, I'm rambling.

But "Nun's Meadow." How lovely.

[gregwest98.livejournal.com]

It seems to me the mid-life crisis has already come and gone with the leaving of the godzillion/year job in the glass tower of LA and the moving to the plains of Texas to deal with the legal problems of the everyday texan. I think he *is* as figured out as he appears to be. I know I'm envious.

I used to have to budget a phone call no more than every few months to tap into his stream of thought-provoking consciousness; now I can do it daily. Technology is good.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Maybe this is the mid-life crisis--the vacillation between what works and what does not work, and the feeling that sometimes the same things are the same things, so to speak--the things that make me happy about myself are also the things that make me feel a bit less than special sometimes.

I don't claim to be particularly well put together.
I make so many mistakes, and the inside of my car
looks like Hiroshima. But this post is "going" to the place about accepting limitations, albeit it was a bit too self-laudatory to quite get there.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the kind words.

I love that movie Say Anything. It sets up all these expectations for what the character conflict in the movie is, and then shows that every expectation was entirely the opposite of the true situation.

I think we all feel a bit like John Cusack in that movie sometimes--without Ione Skye in the picture, quite, of course.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I'm blushing a bit at the kind words, so I'll skip over them.

I was curious, though--do you find me much different on LJ than all the other discussions we've had?

Re:

[marstokyo.livejournal.com]

Oh well, NOW I feel better ;-)--if the inside of your car looks like Hiroshima! MINE on the other hand, is neat as a pin! na nanny boo-boo!

you seem quite well put together, if you ask me. And like Greg, I'm envious of that.

Re:

[nacowafer.livejournal.com]

I don't want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed... or buy anything sold or processed... or process anything sold, bought or processed... or repair anything sold, bought or processed. You know, as a career, I don't want to do that.

Word.

Well....

[amatrixangel.livejournal.com]

I did not have the gifts to be a writer or artist or painter.

What are you doing now then? You are writing ~beautifully. Everyone can be those things if they want. It's not a matter of 'gifts' per se. It's the old 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. What you put in - is what you get out :)

Re:

[gregwest98.livejournal.com]

Not really.

I email a lot of folks and some of them are quite different in writing than in person though. Interesting.

Re: Well....

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks, and what I mean to say is 'viva perspiration'!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I find some difference in folks on line, too, altho in many instances I fancy myself able to "see" the truth underneath the persona even before I meet the person.

In general, I take on line as its own thing.
It's interesting, though, to LJ or e mail with longtime friends.....I find it fascinating.

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

is this hiding your light under a bushel or turning bread into whine?

again your level of self-awareness is exemplary and your human condition a wonderful tale to read

i like that we ask no miracles of each other, just simply a heart and an ear

and you have both in good measure

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

there is much to be said for the non-attachment of ego

i admire my artist friend Cheryl, who has this magnificent ability

i have to apply effort to untie the knot

it would seem to be an advantage in whatever form one's creativity ie. work manifests

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I can never quite untie the knot of "attachment", but I like to think that, on a good day, I can strain against the knot and do things anyway.
Your friend sounds much more enlightened on this score.

No matter what one does, the ability to lose that self-critical eye once in a while seems to me good, too.

Re:

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

yes, look at the praise and encouragement from your recent nervousness projects

plus, i see you're in an exchange with the wonderful Annie Bodelier of the Netherlands, she's grand, too

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Isn't Annie cool? I've only done an exchange or two with her, but she does cool stuff.

Greetz, Gurdonark

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

bread into whine? I like that phrase.

Thanks for the kind words.

Re:

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

yes i have two of her breathtaking beauties along with one of yours