People are inquisitive by nature. However, as we grow up, society and educational institutions often force us to choose a different path. Everyday life and work take up so much of our time that it becomes almost impossible to study the world around us and satisfy natural curiosity.
Take the life story of Einstein. He never received letters of recommendation from his professors at the university, so from 1902 to 1909 he worked as an ordinary clerk in the patent office. Nevertheless, he was able to satisfy his intellectual curiosity, even when he had to work six days a week. Einstein found an opportunity to develop his own scientific ideas, wrote four revolutionary articles and forever changed our understanding of what light, matter, time and space are.
Almost everyone is capable of critical, creative and innovative thinking. In a suitable environment and given time, we are able to improve existing ideas or come up with new ones. However, those of us who hone the natural human desire to understand the complex structure of life and the world around us are more likely to discover or create something unique.
There is no universal standard, law or rule that allows you to become a genius. Genius is a development process that has little to do with IQ level. Our abilities are not set in genetic stone. They are formed from the expectations of our parents and people close to us, as well as from ideas that have influenced us since childhood.
Successful people master the principles, practices and teaching methods that improve over time — and become geniuses. And any of us can achieve perfection in our business with a sufficient level of dedication and curiosity.
It takes years, and sometimes decades, to bring your skills to perfection. Such hard work is impossible without curiosity, without an uncontrollable desire to dig deeper and find new ways to hone the craft.
According to research M. Oshin. Are Creative Geniuses Born or Made? (Part 1) , people who take less than 10 years to reach a high level of skill are more likely to become geniuses. Mozart was incredibly passionate about music. It took him almost 20 years to write his first masterpiece. Leonardo da Vinci was insanely interested in everything in the world and was a real polymath. Thomas Edison was obsessed with light bulbs. Charles Darwin devoted his whole life to the study of the origin of living organisms. Einstein doubted almost everything about time, mass, light, and space. The people we think of as geniuses find the missing pieces of the big picture that everyone else ignores. They connect ideas and discover an invisible connection between things.
Every person's brain carries potential. Many dwell on what the education system offers. They do not push themselves out of their comfort zone and do not study what else they are capable of. They calm down. Or they are "eaten up" by everyday life. Or they can't go beyond what society expects of them. They learn to get good grades and stop moving forward when it is no longer necessary. They don't follow their curiosity.
Each of us has our own unique thinking. People of art don't think like people of science. But that doesn't make them any less outstanding. Geniuses differ in their skill sets. Picasso was a genius, but he was not a scientist. Beethoven threw J. M. Budden, R. L. Knapp. Ludwig van Beethoven / Encyclopedia Britannica I went to school at the age of 11 to help my family, and I never learned the multiplication table.
At the same time, anyone can become the same as Albert Einstein, Virginia Woolf, Charles Darwin or Marie Curie. This requires the right environment, commitment and constant interest in what deeply excites. Everyone is able to achieve their own greatness if they really want to and can devote a reasonable amount of time, sometimes decades, to what they really care about.
A genius is anyone who has enough curiosity to look for more complete answers to familiar questions, make discoveries, establish non-standard connections between objects and phenomena and come up with new ways to do something. It could be you.
