About genius, dictionaries of all sizes have a similar definition: a person with extraordinary intelligence. I don't know when I started, but I gradually questioned and even got tired of this kind of talk. One day, I couldn't help but feel embarrassed when I read Mr. Tian Yuan's "Fan Niu Gossip".
In Gossip about Cows, Darwin wrote The Origin of Species for 28 years, Li Shizhen wrote The Compendium of Materia Medica for 30 years, Xu Xiake wrote Xu Xiake's Travels for 34 years, Copernicus wrote The Operation of Celestial Bodies for 36 years, Tolstoy wrote War and Peace for 37 years, Marx wrote Das Kapital for 40 years and Goethe wrote it. It's amazing. I also thought of similar data: Edison invented the storage battery and tried 1000 times before he succeeded; Nobel failed to develop smokeless explosives, tried again and again, and it took eight years to produce results; Madame Curie repeated 1g (one in eight million) of radium from 8 tons of pitchblende residue for more than 350 days and nights. In order to prove (1+ 1), Chen Jingrun dragged his seriously tired body and faced all kinds of ignorant taunts, burying his head in the closet and under the oil lamp. ...
The above figures have made outstanding contributions to the progress of human society with their great achievements in literature, art or science and technology. According to the usual understanding, they are all outstanding in intelligence and belong to genius. However, when I read them, I read their extraordinary stupidity, not their cleverness. Write a book, some for decades, some for a lifetime, can you say that you are not stupid? The rest of the people, except for being almost madly immersed in their own choices, have no idea that there are other lovely things in the world. Can they say that they are not stupid? Our world is rich and colorful, and there are countless beautiful things to enjoy in life. Many smart people fully enjoy what they can and can't enjoy, and they try their best to create conditions to enjoy it. Unlike them, they are so confused that they give up the enjoyment that ordinary people should have and try their best to get it!
Are the outstanding achievements of these characters based on stupidity or cleverness?
A psychologist abroad has followed 1528 people with extraordinary intelligence for 20 years. In the later period of the study, he compared the 20% of 300 men with the highest achievement and the 20% with the lowest achievement, and found that the most obvious difference between them was not intelligence, but personality. The most successful 20% people are obviously stupid. Psychologists' research results tell us that people with outstanding intelligence do not necessarily have outstanding achievements. So people with outstanding achievements must have outstanding intelligence?
Edison, a genius inventor who won more than 1300 patents in his life, affirmed that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% sweat! In other words, it doesn't matter whether excellent people are smart or not, and the inspiration weight of 1% is too light. Modern talented scientists are also concerned about this problem. Their research results show that a person's professional knowledge or technology only plays a role of 65,438+05% in his career success, and other aspects play a role of 85%. Other aspects are related to "stupidity": such as sense of justice, sense of responsibility, cooperation ability, perseverance and so on. This conclusion also puts intelligence in the second place.
From this point of view, the definition of genius in the dictionary is somewhat biased, but it involves real life. Some people don't understand and rely too much on cleverness: how many people are fishing for diplomas and making up papers in various forums, but they don't want to sit down and use their brains to study hard; How many people, exquisite in all directions, don't change their faces when they provoke slander, hoping to become famous overnight; How many people keep digging wells everywhere, keep pulling away, and keep calling God unfair? ...
Therefore, I suggest rewriting the definition of "genius" in the dictionary, emphasizing achievements that are beneficial to mankind as much as possible, highlighting the meaning of stupidity as much as possible, and diluting the role of intelligence as much as possible. The advantages of this are:
People who are smart or not can be encouraged to develop their stupidity and strive for outstanding achievements.
You can remind all smart and not so smart people that if they don't want to be stupid, at least understand that most material and spiritual wealth is created by those who carry forward stupidity and give up the enjoyment of ordinary people. You shouldn't hit or laugh at those conscientious people around you while enjoying yourself.
You can warn all smart people that if you always use your intelligence to play your own tricks, then your intelligence will depreciate to nothing, not only will it be difficult to achieve your career, but you will even be timid all your life, and you will never experience the beauty of an open life.
Reference: /html/2007-04/ 1400.htm