Beats Me

I don't know anything.

Actually that's not accurate. I really know a lot. But I can't do anything.

That's also a little misleading. I know what needs to be done but I'm not a hands-on person and I need more skilled people than myself to do it. I'm the big-picture type who makes a mess of the small details and can botch almost anything. But so what?

I saw the movie about Steve Jobs recently and can identify with him very well. At least I can identify with some of his characteristics. I don't mean to claim that I have his genius. I'm bright, but certainly not a genius. And I don't engender the dislike of others that was attributed to him in the film. But I like to imagine what could be and how to get there, even if I can't accomplish things on my own. And Jobs's way was to come up with the imaginative ideas and hire the people he knew could bring them about.

Thomas Edison is reported as having said, “Genius is 1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent perspiration.” (In other citations the division is two and ninety-eight percent, but the idea is the same.) New ideas may be easy for some people to produce, but to take the basic idea and make it meaningful requires a great deal of effort. Edison's words were intended to emphasize the idea that effort is what counts. To be sure, effort certainly does count, but without the inspiration, the only useful application of perspiration is in work that already exists; and important and productive as that is, no innovation is involved.

But even more so – and I happen to believe that Edison had the numbers wrong, that genius has a much larger component of inspiration that makes the “effort” much more productive and enjoyable – unless genius is productive and recognized, it is valueless. One percent may be inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration, but one hundred ten percent is determination. I know that adds up to over two hundred percent, but we're talking about genius, and real genius knows no limitations.

Well, there are some limitations. For Edison it was the determination to turn his ideas into realities, and then into products that the public would want. For other geniuses – Einstein for example – it is the determination of others to understand the concepts which have been introduced. Einstein's hundred percent is only the beginning of the story. For Steve Jobs the task was one of analysis of what the public would want, and the inspiration to imagine what would fill their needs and desires. His perspiration primarily involved the locating and employment of others who could actually implement what he imagined. And his determination was to convince the public that he could solve their problems. His genius and determination involved both the creation of electronic devices and their marketing.

I enjoy writing, and I think I'm reasonably good at it. And I like to think about the problems that seem to me to exist. Sometimes those problems are real, but I suspect that occasionally I create problems and puzzles for myself in order to work them out.

That's the fun for me – working out a problem. I often do it by writing, which requires that I outline all the implications of an issue that I can imagine and explore how the various considerations impact it and help me reach a solution to the problem. Having done that, however, and having put the entire matter into some form of essay, it is far less important to me that my thoughts are read. Whatever the inspiration, and whatever the “perspiration” involved in working out the problem, I have little interest in whether or not others read what I have to say. That's up to them. There's no determination on my part.

Does that mean I'm a failure? I know I'm not a genius but I don't care. My ideas and efforts may not exceed one hundred percent. They may not even reach that level. Perhaps they're valueless, but that's only to others. For me they're fine.