Wired 14.07: What Kind of Genius Are You? A new theory suggests that creativity comes in two distinct types – quick and dramatic, or careful and quiet. By Daniel H. Pink In the fall of 1972, when David Galenson was a senior economics major at Harvard, he took what he describes as a “gut” course in 17th-century Dutch art. On the first day of class, the professor displayed a stunning image of a Renaissance Madonna and child.
“Pablo Picasso did this copy of a Raphael drawing when he was 17 years old,” the professor told the students. “What have you people done lately?” Now, however, Galenson might have done something at last, something that could provide hope for legions of late bloomers everywhere. What he has found is that genius – whether in art or architecture or even business – is not the sole province of 17-year-old Picassos and 22-year-old Andreessens. After a decade of number crunching, Galenson, at the not-so-tender age of 55, has fashioned something audacious and controversial: a unified field theory of creativity.
“No. Good and Bad Procrastination. December 2005 The most impressive people I know are all terrible procrastinators. So could it be that procrastination isn't always bad? Most people who write about procrastination write about how to cure it. But this is, strictly speaking, impossible. There are an infinite number of things you could be doing. No matter what you work on, you're not working on everything else. So the question is not how to avoid procrastination, but how to procrastinate well. There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That's the "absent-minded professor," who forgets to shave, or eat, or even perhaps look where he's going while he's thinking about some interesting question.
That's the sense in which the most impressive people I know are all procrastinators. What's "small stuff? " Good procrastination is avoiding errands to do real work. The Benjamin Franklin Effect. The Misconception: You do nice things for the people you like and bad things to the people you hate. The Truth: You grow to like people for whom you do nice things and hate people you harm. Benjamin Franklin knew how to deal with haters. Born in 1706 as the eighth of 17 children to a Massachusetts soap and candlestick maker, the chances Benjamin would go on to become a gentleman, scholar, scientist, statesman, musician, author, publisher and all-around general bad-ass were astronomically low, yet he did just that and more because he was a master of the game of personal politics.
Like many people full of drive and intelligence born into a low station, Franklin developed strong people skills and social powers. All else denied, the analytical mind will pick apart behavior, and Franklin became adroit at human relations. Franklin’s prospects were dim. At 17, Franklin left Boston and started his own printing business In Philadelphia. What exactly happened here? Let’s start with your attitudes. Www.lucidity.com/BuckyMcMahonKalani02.pdf. What Psychopaths Teach Us about How to Succeed [Excerpt]
Adapted from The Wisdom of Psychopaths, by Kevin Dutton, by arrangement with Scientific American/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC (US), Doubleday Canada (Canada), Heinemann (UK), Record (Brazil), DTV (Germany), De Bezige Bij (Netherlands), NHK (Japan), Miraebook (Korea) and Lua de Papel (Portugal). Copyright © 2012 Kevin Dutton Traits that are common among psychopathic serial killers—a grandiose sense of self-worth, persuasiveness, superficial charm, ruthlessness, lack of remorse and the manipulation of others—are also shared by politicians and world leaders. Individuals, in other words, running not from the police. But for office. Such a profile allows those who present with these traits to do what they like when they like, completely unfazed by the social, moral or legal consequences of their actions.
“Do not be afraid, doctor,” said Saddam Hussein on the scaffold, moments before his execution. “This is for men.” Geraghty is one of the U.K.' 65 Great Articles about Psychology. Men's Journal Magazine - Men's Style, Travel, Fitness and Gear. The first thing Daniel Kish does, when I pull up to his tidy gray bungalow in Long Beach, California, is make fun of my driving. "You're going to leave it that far from the curb? " he asks. He's standing on his stoop, a good 10 paces from my car. I glance behind me as I walk up to him. I am, indeed, parked about a foot and a half from the curb. The second thing Kish does, in his living room a few minutes later, is remove his prosthetic eyeballs. Kish was born with an aggressive form of cancer called retinoblastoma, which attacks the retinas. He knew my car was poorly parked because he produced a brief, sharp click with his tongue.
But not silent. Bats, of course, use echolocation. This is not enough for him. Kish preaches complete and unfettered independence, even if the result produces the occasional bloody gash or broken bone. Kish and a handful of coworkers run a nonprofit organization called World Access for the Blind, headquartered in Kish's home. How I learned a language in 22 hours. "What do you know about where I come from? " That was one of the first questions I ever asked Bosco Mongousso, an Mbendjele pygmy who lives in the sparsely populated Ndoki forest at the far northern tip of the Republic of Congo. We were sitting on logs around a fire one evening four years ago, eating a dinner of smoked river fish and koko, a vitamin-rich wild green harvested from the forest. I'd come to this hard-to-reach corner of the Congo basin – a spot at least 50km from the nearest village – to report a story for National Geographic magazine about a population of chimpanzees who display the most sophisticated tool-use ever observed among non-humans.
Mongousso, who makes his living, for the most part, by hunting wildlife and gathering forest produce such as nuts, fruits, mushrooms and leaves, had teeth that had been chiselled to sharp points as a child. "I don't know. "Have you ever heard of the United States of America? " He shook his head. I didn't know where to begin. How I learned a language in 22 hours.