Why Most Geniuses Are Childlike
“Every child is in a way a genius; every genius is in a way a child” — Schopenhauer
I. Teachable Moment
This morning I stopped by a fruit stand.
While I busied myself picking fresh broccoli, Life served me a teachable moment.
The fruit vendor offered a little girl a free banana.
She shook her head. “No thanks, mister…” she said. “I already’s full.”
Her mother, however, snagged the fruit. “Thank you! She’ll eat it later.”
If you understand the above, you understand what the Nazarene meant when he taught his disciples the Secret of the Ages:
💡 “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”
—Jesus of Nazareth
II. Why Picasso Remained Childlike Till the End
Picasso was once asked how to become an artist.
“Every child is an artist…” he answered. “The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”
Indeed, how many potentially great artists or entrepreneurs have society killed off?
“Be realistic!” the adult barks at the disheartened dreamer. Ahh, misery loves companionship.
No wonder in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, the theme constantly reminds us that “we must protect our inner artist,” which forever remains a child.
Until his dying day, Picasso remained childlike. He refused to accept the “grown-up” mask that society insists we wear after 18…
…Or is it 21?
Or which arbitrary number is it?
The child paints for the living; the adult paints for a living. Sheesh! Here lies the difference… God hides in the details, indeed.
Perhaps this explains why Picasso, till his dying day, refused to accept the world’s “grown-up” role. Purity, imagination and all such descriptions associated with childhood fuel genius. And Picasso knew this!
For adults, work is usually a means to an end. To get paid! This reveals why children get waaaay more enjoyment from playing for free than adults get from working for pay.
(*Note: the word “enjoy” = IN- + joy.)
Enjoyment is always an inside job. For the child of heart, then, “genius” is its own reward. All grown-ups were once children but so few remember it.
Bingo! When Schopenhauer called every child half a genius and every genius half a child, what he meant was this:
→ What play is to the child, work is to the genius.
→ The child + the genius both rely on imagination, solitude and innocence…
In short, the more I live, the more I’m convinced of this fact of life:
💡 When childhood dies, we call its corpse an adult.
III. The Takeaway
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
— Winston Churchill
Perhaps it would do us grown-ups well to remember that an “adult” is nothing but a child with responsibilities.
No wonder Margaret Atwood once confessed she privately believed “that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.”
In the adult world, everyone is treated as a means to an end. Children, on the other hand, treat all people as an end in themselves.
Heck, some people are so impatient and greedy that they’ll ask for a favor seconds after they’ve just complimented you. Especially here, in New York City. Sheesh!
Perhaps the above explains why Michael Jackson preferred the company of children.
Sure, most initially wince at such a thought. But most people are also prone to take superficial views. After all, ever noticed how most folks don’t have a problem with you thinking for yourself, so long as your conclusions agree with theirs’?
At any rate, given that child star Macaulay Culkin knew Michael personally and remained Jackson’s friend till the very end, I’ll take his word for it…
…“Look, I’m gonna begin with the line — it’s not a line, it’s the truth: He never did anything to me,” Culkin told People. “I never saw him do anything. And especially at this flash point in time, I’d have no reason to hold anything back. The guy has passed on.”
But people prefer sensationalism to the facts…
…As for the “facts,” as Culkin has pointed out before, until you’ve been the most famous person in the world, not to mention “survived people treating you as a dollar sign since childhood, it’s probably best to withhold judgment.”
Children never asked Michael for money. Instead, they preferred playing pinball and chasing after Jackson’s collection of exotic animals.
Children never used Michael for the spotlight. Instead, they treated him as a normal human — an end, not a means.
“I prefer children because they are honest,” Jackson once explained. “They don’t want anything from you other than to have fun. Adults have let me down. Adults have let the world down.”
Indeed, the very mercenary adults who monetized sensationalized stories about “Wacko Jacko,” quickly turned a blind eye to seeing the CNN story exposing “the woman who claims she and her son were victimized by Michael Jackson admitted Friday that she lied under oath.”
But this truth, which is stranger than fiction, extends to Wade Robson — the alleged victim in the shocking documentary Leaving Neverland.
Get this, at age 22, Robson told the court back in childhood he’d spent the night in Jackson’s bed but was never molested and their relationship was purely innocent.
Wow! That’s news to me. After all, Leaving Neverland casually glossed over the above important fact.
Years later, however, Robson claimed he lied in court. He’s now asking for a whopping $1.62 billion in damages.
“Michael was always too trusting and naive for the world,” Jermaine would later say about his baby brother. “From the start, he was an easy target.”
Such is the nature of the gift and the curse of the genius…
…C’est la vie.
After all,
💡 A genius is a grown-up who refuses to grow up.
P.S. I wrote this article for you, for free… 😉
