Eradicating Boredom, Losing Creativity: The Double-Edged Sword of Digital Distraction

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“I’ll never be bored again!” I said the day I purchased my first smartphone. I said that in reference to one of the very few games we play that has no winners: the waiting game. With a smartphone in hand, I thought I could finally resolve one of my biggest complaints about life: waiting.

“We’re not going to live forever,” we complain when someone is involved in the life and death struggles of a grocery store price check. Most of us don’t take out our life expectancy calculator to figure out how long we’re going to live, or to calculate how much of our lives we’ve wasted waiting in line, but we all love sharing that snarky joke about the guy complaining to the clerk that the price tag said asparagus cost $3.47 as opposed to the register’s reading of $3.97.

We’re all waiting for something, all the time, but what makes us angrier, waiting for something to happen, or doing nothing for long stretches of time? We’ve all experienced our frustrations inch their way over into anger, then boil over into rage, and we’ve all experienced that sense of helplessness when it happens to us. With a smartphone in hand, I correctly predicted that I could avoid falling into that trap of claustrophobic silence and inactivity by filling it with something, something to do with my hands, and something is always better than nothing in the waiting game.

Promptness is About Respect

The waiting game is not selective or discriminatory. Everyone from the most anonymous person on the planet to the most powerful has to wait for something, but there’s waiting and then there’s waiting. The waiting game is all about power and the lack thereof. When we’re stuck in line, at a restaurant, waiting for a seat, we experience a sense of powerlessness. We’re so accustomed to having power over our own life, as adults, that when we find out the wait time for that restaurant is forty-five minutes, we exert that power by walking away. When we find out every decent restaurant in town has a thirty-to-forty-five minute waiting time that sense of frustration sets in, and we eat at home. When someone we love leaves us sitting in that restaurant for a half an hour to forty-five minutes a sense of helplessness creeps in when we realize that we’ve accidentally put ourselves in a position of dependence yet again.

I don’t know if everyone feels this way, but I replay a Madonna quote in my head. “If you have to count on others for a good time, you’re not doing it right.” When I’m sitting in a restaurant with patrons passing me, looking at the vacant side of my table, I realize I’m counting on the wrong people in life, the narcissistic, irresponsible, and disrespectful people I count on for an enjoyable lunch. If they leave us there long enough, by ourselves, we’ll start to dream up all sorts of motives and agendas for their tardiness. That frustration can lead to anger and a level of teeth gritting and grinding that damages the expensive and painful dental work the impatient we’ve had done. 

I know that the search for what could tip me over into some form of mental illness is over when I am on the other end of the waiting game, and I eventually hear, “What is the big deal, I was only a couple minutes late, and I had to …” They usually fill that void with utter nonsense that we cannot disprove, so we just let it go. 

Life happens when we least expect it sometimes, and sometimes we’re going to be late. If we respect the other person, we call, text, or email us to inform them we’re going to be late, but that would be respectful on our part. That’s really what we’re talking about here, the respect or lack thereof, on their part. If we respect our employer, we show up on time. If we enjoy the company of someone we’re dating, we show up on time, or early. It’s about respect, the lack thereof, and narcissism. And when they show us this lack of respect, quality friendships can be tainted and temporarily damaged, and dissociations with associates end what could’ve become a friendship. We overreact to such slights, and we know it, but it all boils down to the fact promptness is all about respect.

The Eradication of Boredom

When we’re immersed in the maddening waiting game, the mosquito paradox comes to mind. Anyone who has ever had a beautiful day at the park ruined by a scourge of mosquitoes has asked why scientists don’t find some way to bioengineer an eradication of that relatively useless species? Biologists, with a specialty in mosquitoes, provide arguments for why we shouldn’t, but when we’re swatting, slapping, and running from the scourge, we develop seven counter arguments to every one of theirs. The only vague but true answer we’ll accept is “Anytime we mess with nature, there will be consequences.” We’ve all heard that in relation to the mosquito, but what about waiting and the resultant boredom? Boredom is a naturally occurring event. What could possibly be the consequences of eradicating boredom? We’re not talking about that simple, “I don’t know what to do to pass the time” boredom. We’re talking about levels of boredom that takes us to the edge of an abyss that stares back at us, until it roars to the surface and frightens everyone around us.

Some of us loathe the boredom inherent in the waiting game so much that it whispers some scary things about us to us, but when it’s all over, it dawns on us that something happens to us when we spend too much time in claustrophobic silence with nothing to do but think.

How many useless, pointless thoughts have we had in such moments? We flush most of those thoughts out of our mind after it’s over, as we will with that which our body cannot use, but some thoughts collect, mate, and mutate into ideas that we can use. How many of our more meaningful, somewhat productive thoughts had hundreds of useless, pointless parents conjugating during the waiting game? 

***

The child and I often talk a lot about how relatively boring things were when I was a kid. This involves me recalling for him what we did for fun, and how we thought those things were so much fun at the time. “We had to do these things,” I say when I see his face crinkle up, “because we were all so bored.” These complaints could be generational, as I often hear the previous generation describe their youth as “Such an incredible time to be a kid,” and they were raised on farms! I’ve been on farms, trapped there for huge chunks of my youth, and the only thing I found incredible about it was how incredibly boring it was. It takes a creative mind, more creative than mine, to believe that being raised on a farm is an “incredible” time.

“It’s all about perspective,” they say, and they’re right. If we don’t know any better, skipping stones in a pond and fishing can be a lot of fun. We rode our bikes around the block a gazillion times, and we thought that was an absolute blast, and then we played every game that involved a ball, but they all seem comparatively boring when compared to the things kids can do now. We could argue all day about the comparisons, but they do have better things to fill the empty spaces. Yet, what happened to us as a result of all those empty spaces, and what happens to them as a result of mostly being devoid of any?

How much of our youth did we spend sitting in chairs, looking out windows, waiting for something to happen? Some of us did something, anything, to pass the time until the event we were waiting for could happen, but there were other times when we just had to sit and wait. We’d sit in those chairs and think up useless and pointless crap that ended up being nothing more than useless and pointless crap, but how many bountiful farm fields require tons of useless and pointless crap per acre? 

We have cellphones and smartphones now. That’s our power. That’s how we eradicate boredom. “4.88 billion, or 60.42%, of the world population have cellphones, and the number [was] expected to reach 7.12 billion by the end of 2024. 276.14 million or 81.6% of Americans have cell phones.” We don’t ever have to be bored again. 

We have game consoles. “The Pew Research Center reported in 2008 that 97% of youths ages 12 to 17 played some type of video game, and that two-thirds of them played action and adventure games that tend to contain violent content.” These kids may never have to face the kind of boredom I did as a kid. We didn’t even have an Atari 2600 in our home when just about every kid we knew did, and it wasn’t because our dad wanted to prevent us from becoming gamers. He was just too cheap. So, we were forced to do nothing for long stretches of time.

When you’re as bored as we were, the mind provides the only playground. “Is there something on TV?” There never is, and I don’t care how many channels, streaming services, apps, and websites we have, an overwhelming amount of programming is just plain boring to kids. We could go out and play, but when you’re from a locale of unpredictable climates, you learn that that is not possible for large chunks of the year. The only thing we can do, when we’re that bored, is think about things to do. I invented things to do to pass the time, but they could get a little boring too.

Filling the Empty Spaces 

“You’re weird,” is something I’ve heard my whole life. I’ve also heard, “I’ve met some really weird fellas in my time, but you take the cake,” more than a few times. That’s what I did when I ran out of things to do. I sat around and got weird. Your first thought might be, “Well, I don’t want to be weird, and I don’t want anyone thinking my kid is weird either.” Understandable, but what is weird? Weird is different, it’s having divergent thoughts that no one has considered before, until they grew as bored as we did. Weird is rarely something that happens overnight. It takes decades of boredom, and it takes a rewind button of the mind, replaying the same thoughts over and over, until we’ve looked at the same situation so many different ways, on so many different days that we’ve developed some weird ideas and abnormal thoughts about people, places and things around us. This is what happens when we stare out windows too long, looking at nothing, wondering how the world might look different if it was weird, strange, or just plain different. It’s what happens when someone lives too long in the mind, and their peeps start worrying that they’re not doing it right. 

Some weird, strange, and just plain different thoughts led us to think about the difference between success and failure. Success is a short-term game that will mean nothing tomorrow if you’re not able to back it up, so you better enjoy it while it lasts, because if there’s one thing we know about success, it has a million parents and failure is an orphan. We also realize that, in those dark, quiet moments we spend alone, looking out the car window on the drive home, that failure does define us. Athletes and business people say, “Don’t let failure define you,” but it defines us. Some remember those moments, and some will never forget, but what we do shortly after failing will define us too. The thing that plagues us is, “Was that moment of failure an irreversible blemish?” and when we’re left staring out the window at nothing, it can feel like it is. Some will never forget, and we know who they are, because they always remind us who they are, but most forget. As any trained public speaker will inform us, an overwhelming number of people will forgive, forget, and dismiss errors. Most people aren’t paying near as much attention as we think, and most people aren’t dying to see others commit errors. When we’re left alone for long chunks of time, replaying moments over and over, we can make the mistake of thinking it’s the opposite. 

“Reach for the stars,” they say. “Become the next Albert Einstein, Vincent van Gogh, Isaac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci, fill your empty spaces, and reshape your world.” It’s great advice, and we think about how we should try to be better today than we were yesterday, and we shouldn’t spend those dark, quiet moments obsessing about trivial notions we consider our limitations. As we sort through those famous names, we ask how bored were they, when they were kids? Those guys had nothing to do either, when they were kids. They didn’t have movies, TV, devices, or consoles to occupy their time. As boring as it could be to be a kid in our generation, we can only imagine those previous generations were just itching with boredom back in their day, and they were so bored that they dreamed up some things that laid the foundation for everything we find interesting now. We can imagine that most dismissed them as dreamers and daydreamers that wouldn’t amount to much, and they ended up conjugating all of those pointless and useless thoughts into something that ended up reshaping our world.    

No matter how much we daydream, or dream up interesting thoughts, most of us will never actually reach those stars. Yet, something happens to us when we’re so bored that we think up weird and interesting thoughts that will never amount to anything. We accidentally, incidentally, or just by the natural course of filling empty spaces become more interesting. Thinking so much that we think too much could lead us to divergent thoughts that some people find so weird, strange and just plain different, but that can lead them to ask us about matters that they consider trivial, relatively unimportant, to important. Our unique perspective often attracts people to us, and it could lead us to have more friends, which could be one of the primary reasons we should consider inserting more boredom into our kids’ lives. Our kids might not know who they are, or who they could be, if they find artificial ways to avoid ever sitting in front of a window with nothing to do but think about everything. Even if they never make it above the lower-to-middle stations in life, they might learn how to make life more interesting, and they might accidentally figure out how to enjoy their lives better, and in the process of being so bored, they might learn how to become happier, more interesting people. 

Mike Patton: Maestro del Differente

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You want to get weird? I’m not talking about the weird music our aunts and uncles might chuckle at or say, “Hey, that’s kinda neat-o.” I’m talking about a strain so close to normal that they might be a little concerned about our mental health when they hear it. “If you think that’s quality music, then I’m probably going to have to edit my perception of you.” I’m talking about a definition of different carved out in a band called Mr. Bungle, then chiseled into with Fantômas, and ultimately destroyed and reconstructed in a project called Moonchild. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, let me introduce you to the outlandish innovations of a bizarre brainchild named Mike Patton.  “Isn’t he a one-hit wonder?” a friend of mine asked, decades after Mike Patton became Mike Patton. “Isn’t he the “It’s it what is it?” guy?” I was so stunned that I couldn’t think up an appropriate term for cluelessness. Then, VH1 went ahead and confirmed his uninformed characterization, by listing the band Patton fronted, Faith No More as one of their one-hit wonders of the 80s. I knew most didn’t follow the career of Mike Patton as much as I had, but I was stunned to learn how even those with purported knowledge in the industry could dismiss him in such a manner. I had to adjust my idealistic vision of the world to reconcile it with the reality that if Billboard is your primary resource, Mike Patton and Faith No More were one-hit wonders. To those of us who live in the outer layer, seeking the sometimes freakishly different, “It’s it what is it?” or the single Epic, was only the beginning.  Mike Patton discovered he had a talent at a young age, he could mimic bird calls. He found that he could also perform some odd vocal exercises on a flexi disc that his parents gave him. The idea that he could do that probably didn’t separate him much from the four-to-five billion on the planet at the time, and I only include that note to suggest that Mike Patton probably didn’t even know how talented he was at the time either.  Yet, the young Mike Patton knew he loved music. He loved it so much that he and his buddies in school, including Trey Spruance and Trevor Dunn, decided to form a band they called Mr. Bungle. They were all around fifteen at the time, and anyone who listens to their early self-produced demos, Bowel of Chiley (1987) and The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny(1986) can hear how young and inexperienced they were. These demos were a chaotic blend of metal, funk, and juvenile humor. It’s so chaotic that it’s as difficult to categorize as it is to listen to, but suffice it to say whatever general definition we might have of traditional music, the music found on those demos is likely the opposite.   While devoting himself to Mr. Bungle, and studying English literature at Humboldt State University, Patton worked at a local record store, immersing himself in everything from punk to classical. He obviously kept himself busy during this period, and we can only guess that he was probably as surprised as anyone else when, in 1988, a man named Jim Martin invited Patton to audition for the role of lead singer in Martin’s band Faith No More, after seeing Patton perform in a local gig as the lead singer of Mr. Bungle. Patton won the job after displaying his raw energy and his vocal range for the band.  If this were one of those always disappointing biodocs, the moviemakers would depict Martin and the other members of Faith No More as being blown away by Patton’s audition, and they would say something like, “This is obviously the man to lead us into the 90s.” I understand that these movies are often constrained by formulas and time constraints, and they often take shortcuts just to get a point across. I was all prepared to dispel that movie trope by writing that while the members of the band, their management, and the execs thought his audition was great, they heard the demos, and they didn’t think his talent would translate to Faith No More’s furthered success. It turns out, they were so blown away by the talent he displayed in that audition that they did consider him the man to lead them into the 90s. After hearing Mr. Bungle’s early demos, firsthand, all I can say is that must’ve been one hell of an audition. 
Mike Patton and Jim Martin
When he first “discovered” Patton, I imagine Martin returned to his FNM bandmates and said, “I found the guy!” and he handed them the demos. As musicians themselves, I imagine they heard Patton’s talent, but they couldn’t reconcile it with Faith No More’s sound and image, until he auditioned for them. Again, that must’ve been one hell of an audition to blow them away like that.   When Patton joined FNM, the music for The Real Thing (1989) was 80-90% written, primarily by keyboardist Roddy Bottum, guitarist Jim Martin, bassist Billy Gould, and drummer Mike Bordin, but Patton wrote all of the lyrics for the original tracks on what happened to be Faith No More’s third album, often crafting those lyrics quickly to fit pre-existing music. Patton contributed vocal melodies and arrangements, that ended up shaping the songs’ final sound. Patton’s contributions transformed the album, and some suggest his input proved instrumental in this album’s eventual success.  As popular as FNM’s The Real Thing proved, there’s evidence to suggest that at least some of Patton’s motivations for joining this Epic band was to expand and amplify his beloved Bungle’s reach. If we stop right here, we all have to thank Jim Martin for taking a chance on this nineteen-to-twenty-year-old singer, because at the time, Mr. Bungle was nothing more than a local act in Eureka, California. They had a couple of almost unlistenable self-produced demos to their name, but how many starving artists had that in late-80s California? How many of those same starving artists dreamed of Billboard Top 100 hits, stardom, and vast amounts of money to follow? Anyone who says this is what motivated Mike Patton doesn’t know his ethos or his outlook, yet he was quite proud of what he and his Bungle bros created, and he wanted us all to hear it. In a 1992 Kerrang! interview, Patton admitted he initially viewed Faith No More as a “means to an end,” hoping their success would open doors for Mr. Bungle. As evidence of that, Patton wore a Mr. Bungle T-shirt in the video for Epic, and he handed a Bungle demo to Faith No More’s label, which led to Warner Bros signing Mr. Bungle to a deal in 1989. Again, those of us who heard those demos, in their raw form, would have a tough time believing Warner Brothers would’ve signed Mr. Bungle if Patton didn’t have some standing as the frontman for Faith No More.  This isn’t to suggest that Mike Patton didn’t devote himself to Faith No More, as he devoted an overwhelming amount of his time and energy to the band during their recording and touring of The Real Thing and Angel Dust (1992). He wrote the lyrics and melodies for both albums, toured extensively (over 200 shows for The Real Thing alone), and handled media duties. Mr. Bungle, meanwhile, was more of a side project during this period. Their self-titled debut (1991) was recorded in gaps between Faith No More’s schedule, with Patton contributing vocals, lyrics, and some production alongside bandmates Trey Spruance and Trevor Dunn.  In 1995, Mike Patton basically proved that a man could toggle between two bands and produce two great albums for each outfit. He played a pivotal role in both Faith No More’s King for a Day and Mr. Bungle’s Disco Volante. Patton wasn’t the first to play in two bands at once, by any means, but it wasn’t commonly done in this era. He stated that his daily routine consisted of recording King for a Day at Bearsville Studios, during the day, then driving down to record Disco Volante late into the night and repeating the same process the next day. “It was insane,” he told the Alternative Press in a 1996 interview. He admitted he barely slept while juggling both bands’ demands.  Patton never claimed to be a trailblazer in this regard, but he’s acknowledged the strain. In a 2001 Kerrang! interview, he called 1995 “a blur,” saying Mr. Bungle was his “heart” while Faith No More paid the bills. If you haven’t heard him interviewed, this is Mike Patton. He is a humble man who often downplays moments the rest of us consider groundbreaking. King for a Day was another great FNM album, not as good as Angel Dust, but better than The Real Thing, in my humble estimation. Disco Volante was, and is, an incredible album that any serious artist would consider a career achievement, better than the self-titled disc but not as great as California. Most Bungle fans disagree on the latter. After spreading himself so thin in 1995, Patton went and got bored after Faith No More’s 1998 breakup, which the band “officially” stated was due to the fact that Faith No More had run its course creatively. Anyone who thinks that Patton would devote himself entirely to Mr. Bungle at this point just isn’t following along. He gets so bored that he ventures out and creates other artistic enterprises that take that definition of weird out to “Here, there be Dragons” locations on the map. He takes it to the ‘if you think Faith No More was outlandish in places, you should check out Mr. Bungle, and if you think Mr. Bungle stretches the boundaries of genre, you should check out a band he created called Fantômas.’ Fantômas became Patton’s new passion project while devoting an overwhelming amount of his time to what I consider the Mr. Bungle masterpiece 1999’s California. We write all of this, and we don’t even get to Patton’s role as the lead vocalist in the five albums of Tomahawk, and then there’s his varying roles in the bands Peeping Tom, Dead Cross, Lovage, and the killer role he played in one of The Dillinger Escape Plan’s albums. He has two proper solo albums, two works with Kaada, various film scores, and over 60 collaborative efforts, various ensembles, and guest appearances on other artists’ albums, including John Zorn and Björk. The overall brilliant catalog this “one-hit wonder” has amassed can be so overwhelming to the uninitiated that they may not even know where to start. 1989’s The Real Thing might, in fact, be the place to start, but I am so far past that starting point that I can’t even see it any more. That’s the problem with true fans of artists, they’ve listened to the artist for so long that they don’t know where to tell you where to start.  Those who like Mike Patton, but don’t have an unusual, almost concerning adoration of him, tell me that Faith No More’s Angel Dust is probably the best starting point, as they say it’s probably the best, most mainstream album he took part in. If that’s the case, I would add Mr. Bungle’s California, Tomahawk Mit Gas, and Patton’s work with the X-Ecutioners as the second class of the Mike Patton beginner’s course. If you make it past that point, and you might not, I would submit Tomahawk’s Anonymous, Fantômas’s Suspended Animation, and Disco Volante as great second-level albums. A trend in Patton’s music I’ve noted, is the 2nd album trend. The first albums are great, but they seem to set a template from which to explore the dynamic further, and Patton and his various crews seem to peak with the ideas germinating around in their heads concerning what more can be done with this band. He helps build on the base idea of that first album, and they usually create something of a creative peak with those second albums. Don’t get me wrong, I love the third albums, as in King for a Day, Suspended Animation and Anonymous, and as I wrote I think California is better than Disco Volante, but the second album peak seems to be a standard for most of Patton’s ventures. (Most true Bungle fans would say Disco Volante is superior to California.)  I imagine those with some authority in the conventional music world might begrudgingly admit that they once considered Mike Patton one of the most talented singers in rock music. They probably all acknowledged that he possessed one of the most versatile and dynamic voices in modern music, characterized by an extraordinary vocal range, stylistic adaptability, and emotive depth. His voice spans six octaves, reportedly from E1 to E7, though some sources conservatively estimate around five octaves (approximately C2 to C7). This range allows him to seamlessly shift from guttural growls and primal screams to operatic falsettos and silky crooning, often within a single song. The experts who admitted all that might also add, “At some point, it didn’t matter how talented he was, because he wasted that incredible voice on music so abrasive that he basically alienated so many of us. In 1995, we all loved the underappreciated King for a Day, but when he hit us with Disco Volante, we shook our heads trying to figure out what he was doing. Most of us dismissed the initial Bungle album a one-off side project, then he doubled down with an even weirder album, and he topped it all off with an album we considered career suicide with the vocal experiments on Adult Themes for Voice (1996). That led us to dismiss him, because we realized he had no interest in becoming a marketable talent.”  If you’ve read the writings of mainstream rock critics for as long as I have, you know that they have a difficult time understanding why someone would pick up a pencil and musical instrument and not try to do everything they could to sound like Springsteen, Dylan, or Joey Ramone. They don’t understand why someone would use vocal effects, as opposed to writing meaningful and important social commentary to help us reshape our world. We could excuse this with the idea that musical tastes are relative, but their blanket dismissal of anything different led me to start reading periodicals like Alternative Press and Decibel, who recognized what artists like Patton were trying to do. They praised Patton for his risk-taking, and they hailed his fearless innovation. As for the “marketable talent” comments we’ve heard, some fans and critics note that while he abandoned whatever mainstream potential awaited him, Mike Patton did develop a substantial cult following with each progression into the weird, strange, and just plain different.    The next question any gifted artist must ask themselves soon after they discover they have a talent for something is what do I do with this? Patton, and Faith No More, could’ve followed up 1989’s The Real Thing with some version of The Real Thing Part Deux, and they could’ve gone onto develop a template, or a formula, in the ZZ Top, AC/DC vein. The mainstream music critics often eat up commodification of a brand as a cash grab. Mike Patton, and all of the musicians he chose to surround himself with in his numerous ventures, could’ve made a whole lot of money, enjoyed all the trappings of fame as rock stars. We can saw all we want about artistic integrity and all that, but it can’t be easy to turn away from the prospect of making truckloads of money. Contrary to what detractors say, money and fame can bring a us whole lot of happiness … if we love what we’re doing. If Mike Patton, and all of the musicians he chose to surround himself with in his numerous ventures, followed the formula of “building trust” with listeners, they would’ve been so bored and unsatisfied artistically. Patton obviously chose to use whatever gifts and talent he had to confound us and obliterate our boundaries in his pursuit of his version of artistic purity, and he chose projects and players who shared his philosophy. If the young Patton had a career path, or a place he “wanted to be in twenty years,” he obviously grew so bored with the “current” direction of his career so many times that he needed to do something decidedly different and out of his comfort zone so often that I don’t think he has any comfort zones left to destroy.

The Chosen Ones? Jordan, Einstein, and “The Babe” Defy the Myths

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Genius Chronicle: April 30, 1992, game three of the first round of the Eastern Conference’s playoffs, and Michael Jordan is nearly trapped in the corner of the three-point arc by Kiki Vandeweghe and John Starks. Jordan moves left and Kiki Vandeweghe drops off. Starks then baits Jordan into a trap, leading him into one of the most feared defenders in the NBA, Charles Oakley. Seeing those two Knicks narrow in for a trap into the corner would’ve led 99% of the NBA brightest stars to pass the ball. Jordan gambled. He faked left, and Starks fell for it, almost literally falling to the Madison Square Garden floor. Jordan then tucked under Oakley to take advantage of a sliver of real estate that existed between Oakley and the baseline. He straddled that baseline and dunked on arguably the most feared defender in the game at the time, future Hall of Fame inductee Patrick Ewing. If this wasn’t one of the greatest plays in NBA history, it might’ve been one of the most memorable. Jordan himself claimed it was his personal favorite dunk. Some said it was “Michael being Michael.”

Michael wouldn’t have been able to accomplish that play, against those guys, without incredible natural abilities. Yet, how many NBA stars, past and present, have been blessed with similar abilities? Jordan fans would say no one, but what separated Jordan from his peers was his ability to achieve the spectacular and the comparatively routine. He did both so well, so often, that he helped the Bulls achieve a 65.9% winning percentage in the regular season and a 66.5% in the playoffs, and six NBA Championships. Those of us who marvel at highlight reels often forget about that other half. Yet, a Michael Jordan, an Albert Einstein, or any of the geniuses of physical and cerebral accomplishment couldn’t have accomplished half of what they did without outworking their peers.

Genius Chronicle: June 30, 1905, Albert Einstein drops the first of four major contributions to the foundation of modern physics special relativity (later expanded into general relativity). The other major contributions included the photoelectric effect, and Brownian motion. In doing so, he helped fundamentally transform physics by redefining space, time, gravity, quantum theory, and atomic behavior, shaping modern theoretical and applied physics. Those who knew Einstein probably marveled at Einstein’s findings, but others probably said, “That’s just Albert being Albert.”

A line like that sounds like a compliment. It sounds like we’re saying that they’re so talented that they make the miraculous appear mundane, and we just came to expect that from them in their prime. Yet, I consider such lines reductive, because they fail to recognize their struggle to get to the point that their continued greatness was just “them being them”.

Dealing with Failure

Those who drop the “Michael being Michael” line should know that Michael Jordan wasn’t always Air Jordan, or Black Jesus, as some called him. He was cut from the Laney High varsity team as a fifteen-year-old sophomore, due to his height (5’10” at the time), his physical immaturity, and his lack of experience. Yet, how many fifteen-year-old sophomores make the varsity team? Prodigies do, and Michael Jordan thought he was just that. The coach, Clifton “Pop” Herring, later said he spotted Jordan’s potential, but that he didn’t believe the fifteen-year-old was ready to face varsity level competition. Herring basically told Jordan, he wasn’t a prodigy, not yet, and that crushed Jordan. He was so crushed that according to Roland Lazenby’s Michael Jordan: The Life by Roland Lazenby, Jordan kept that publicly posted tryout list as motivation. The young Jordan obviously sulked about it, but then he went to work. Over the decades that followed, Jordan developed a relentless work ethic that he double downed on anytime he experienced defeat.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career [12,345 regular season and 2,309 post-season for a total of 14,954],” Michael Jordan is famously quoted as saying, “I’ve lost almost 300 games [380 regular season and 60 in the post season]. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.” This number, twenty-six, is the best-known estimate, attributed to Jordan himself, but it’s not independently verified by modern statistical databases. It likely includes shots to tie or win games in the final seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime, across both regular season and postseason. Bleacher Report estimated Jordan’s clutch postseason shooting percentage at 50% (8 of 16 attempts through his first 16 clutch shots), but this doesn’t specify total misses.

Einstein was asked to leave his school at fifteen. The school’s administrators informed Einstein, “Your presence in the class destroys the respect of the others.” He failed an entrance exam at Swiss Federal Polytechnic, and then he struggled to find work postgraduation, leading him to experience some level of poverty firsthand. His initial attempts at academic recognition fell flat when all of his early papers were either ignored or rejected, as his peers deemed his work unremarkable. Yet, how many young scientists, with no connections, are accepted into the scientific community in their initial attempts? Prodigies, or the “chosen ones” who can remove the proverbial Sword in the Stone are. Like Jordan, the idealistic, young Einstein knew he was destined for greatness, but no one else did. They were both faces in a crowd of idealistic young people who knew they were destined for greatness. 

When we read such stories about geniuses, we can’t help but think of ourselves as faces in that crowd. We thought we were destined for greatness when we were young, and it would’ve meant so much to us to be recognized as the geniuses we were, back then. Is that irrational, considering that we probably didn’t have the remarkable talent we thought we did, and if we did have any talent, we didn’t put in the work necessary to hone it? It is, but we were young, idealistic, and a little delusional back then. When we attempted to remove the proverbial sword from the stone, we realized that we weren’t “the chosen one”. Learning this hurts, but the notion that we are a lot more common than we ever thought stings. Even when it was obvious to everyone around us that we weren’t ready, we resented the guardians at the gate for not recognizing our genius. We became bitter, and we sulked. I don’t care what any eventual recognized geniuses say, they sulked too, and then they achieved greatness by using that rejection as fuel to prove their detractors wrong. Most of them had no shortcuts through nepotism, or anything else to ease their rise, and their only recourse was to just work harder than the similarly gifted.

Dealing with Rewards

The question those of us who will never be invited into the historical halls of greatness would love to know is, was your eventual, hard-won invitation just as meaningful as it would’ve been when you were an idealistic, and perhaps a little delusional, young teen? We’ve all been taught to think that success is the reward for hard work, but how much hard work is too much? When we devote so much of our time and energy to achieving greatness, sometimes we sacrifice the ability to develop normal, human relationships, we might accidentally ignore family members, and we could employ a level of tunnel vision that effectively ruins what could’ve otherwise been a happy life. Is that moment of acceptance as euphoric as we think it would be, or is it almost, in way that’s “tough to describe” anti-climactic?

Our knee-jerk response is that instant recognition would’ve stunted their growth, and the great ones probably wouldn’t be as great if bitterness, resentment, and all that inner turmoil didn’t fuel their drive. Yet, we can also imagine that there had to be some measure of “Where were you when this really would’ve meant so much more to me?” involved in their acceptance.

Michael Jordan hugged and cried on the Larry O’Brien Award the first time he won it, but those in his inner circle say that his almost ingrained sense of bitterness and resentment drove him to win five more. This bitterness and resentment could also be heard after his retirement, in his Hall of Fame induction speech.

Einstein harbored a similar sense of “smoldering resentment” toward the gatekeepers who dismissed him. In a 1901 letter to his sister, he wrote of “fools” in academia who favored conformity over originality, implying that if they weren’t so rigid he wouldn’t have had to work so hard to gain acceptance. The two of them both had chips almost biologically attached to their shoulders throughout their lives, and we can speculate that they may not have achieved half of what they did if they weren’t rejected early. They both used those early rejections to fuel their inner fire to prove their respective communities were wrong about them, but even when they did, my guess is it didn’t remove the pain of those early rejections.

The Supernatural, Natural Abilities

We’ve since limited the idea that Einstein was a genius as Einstein being a genius, as if he didn’t achieve that status. He was just different, so different he may have been a slightly different creature. We’ve studied his brain to see why he was so much smarter than everyone else, to see why he was so different that he was special or supernatural. We discovered that his brain had what they called “a unique morphology, and abnormal Sylvius Fissure, increased glial cells.” We also found that his brain “was actually smaller than average (1,230 grams vs. typical 1,400 grams), contradicting the assumption that larger brains equate to higher intelligence.” Even though speculative estimates suggest less than 1% of the population might have neurological enhancements comparable to Einstein’s, based on neurodiversity research, I still find it reductive to limit his incredible accomplishments with the idea that he had an unusually efficient brain. Why can’t we just say that all of his findings could’ve been the result of a lifetime of intense research into general and specific areas of physics? Why can’t we say that he spent so much time studying physics, persevering through the failures inherent in trial and error that he ended up developing some incredibly creative theories? Why can’t we say while he may have been biologically predisposed to intellectually brilliant findings, many others had the same cranial gifts, and they didn’t do anything anywhere close to what Albert Einstein did with these advantages. Why can’t we just say he worked harder, and more often than his peers?

We know there was nothing supernatural about what Einstein or Jordan did, but it’s just not very interesting to talk about all the hard work they put into it. We’re interested in the origins of genius, and we’re interested in the results, but everything in between is the yada, yada, yada portion of that discussion. We’d rather ask “How did they do that?” than learn about how they actually did it. It’s far more entertaining to think in terms of a “natural talent fallacy” or a “the genius myth” than breakdown the hundreds of hours they spent in a gym, or in a lab, honing their ability, or dedicating so much of their mind and energy to their profession, or craft, that when they happened to be “around”, they probably weren’t much fun to be around.

The Babe

George Herman Ruth (AKA “The Bambino,” “The Sultan of Swat”, or “The Babe”) may have been the opposite of Einstein and Jordan in that he appeared to enjoy every step of his gradual ascension to greatness. The Babe didn’t face the same substantial levels of rejection Einstein and Jordan did, but that may have been due to the fact that The Babe never felt entitled to it. I don’t think anyone would accuse Jordan or Einstein of being entitled, but whatever vagaries we apply to the term entitled in these cases, The Babe was the opposite when he was but a babe.

Babe Ruth was born into poverty, in a rough working-class neighborhood well known for crime and violence. His parents were hard-drinking saloon owners, who provided their son a chaotic, unstable, and troubled environment that led him to commit petty crimes and truancy. His overwhelmed parents sent to a St. Mary’s Industrial School for Boys, a reformatory school. While attending this school, a Brother Matthias taught him baseball, but Ruth’s talent was confined to the school’s teams, unseen by wider audiences. Students of St. Mary’s were not expressly forbidden from playing in youth baseball leagues, but his confinement to the school’s isolated campus and strict schedule prevented participation in other organized, external leagues. Thus, while Ruth excelled, he toiled in obscurity, playing on St. Mary’s team.

Ruth’s luck changed when an owner/manager of the then minor league team the Baltimore Orioles, Jack Dunn, just happened to spot The Babe’s talent in 1914, and by 1916 he was a twenty-game winning pitcher for the Boston Red Sox who pitched a one-run, fourteen inning complete game (still a World Series record) to help the Red Sox win the World Series. Every talent has his or her story on the rise to fame, and they’re littered with personal motivations, including others seeing their raw talent that needed development and those who underestimated how talented they were, but compared to Einstein and Jordan, Ruth’s rise to fame was relatively quick and smooth.  

Based on Ruth’s upbringing, we can only speculate that he didn’t view rejection in the same way an Einstein or a Jordan would. Prior to being “discovered” Ruth likely viewed himself as nothing more than a poor, dumb, reform school kid. As such, we can guess that Ruth didn’t have the social awareness or the levels of expectation they did. As a poor, dumb, reform school kid, The Babe probably viewed anyone giving him a chance, someone paying him to play baseball, and all of his numerous accomplishments thereafter as gravy. In his autobiography, The Babe Ruth Story (1948), he describes his St. Mary’s days fondly, focusing on baseball and Brother Matthias’ mentorship, not on being overlooked. His 1914 minor league struggles (doubts about his discipline) were met with defiance, not despair, per teammates’ accounts. Therefore, we can say that bitterness and resentment never drove The Babe to accomplish rare feats in the beginning, or throughout his illustrious career, but something unusual drove him on the tail end, the very tail end, of his baseball career.

Genius Chronicle: May 25, 1935, George Herman Ruth is five days away from retirement. Did The Babe know 1935 would be his last season? He may not have at the beginning of the year, but his performance was so bad (he hit .181 that year, with thirteen runs batted in, and most importantly, only three home runs prior to 5/25/1935), and his 1935 Boston Braves were so awful, and that he knew. By the time he stepped to the plate in 5/25/1935, the accumulation of twenty-two years, and 2,503 games, of Major League Baseball play were also catching up to him, as his knees were so bad that he ended up only playing 28 games for a team that didn’t even know the definition of the words in-contention. He probably spent the 1935 season depressed with the knowledge that the natural talents, the grit, perseverance, and everything that made the man who changed the game into what he know today, were all gone. He was a shell of his former self, and he was only forty-years-old, relatively young for the average human but ancient for an athlete, particularly in his era.

Even with all that George Herman Ruth stepped to the plate on May 25, 1935, against the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirate pitchers he faced were “respectable but not dominant”. The days when Ruth dominated headlines were long-since passed, and I’d be willing to bet that most casual baseball fans probably didn’t know Ruth was still playing by this date. This was probably best reflected by the attendance of Forbes Field that day, was a mere 10,000 attended a game in which Babe Ruth played in a 25,000-seat capacity. Few wanted to see a man many considered one of the greatest to ever play the game of baseball, because it’s always sad to watch a broken-down, old horse gallop around the track in his final days. How many of them regretted that decision afterwards when they learned that Babe Ruth managed to put everything that made George Herman Ruth “The Babe” one final time, and in one final blaze of glory by hitting three home runs, which just happened to be the 712th, 713th, and 714th of his storied career.

Hitting three home runs in a game is still a remarkable feat for any Major League Baseball player, but at the point when Ruth did it, professional baseball was roughly sixty-five years old, and this feat had only been accomplished seventeen times by thirteen different players, including Ruth, who only accomplished it twice before in his lengthy and storied list of home runs. Ruth would go onto only have five more at-bats in the five games left in the season, before he retired. This entry is included in this article because Babe Ruth was often called the “Most naturally talented athlete of his generation.” Fans and players alike appreciated his talent and domination of the game of baseball, but there had to be some temptation to reduce his natural talents as supernatural, as if he  just picked up a bat on a Thursday and by Friday he basically invented the home run that we all celebrate today. Some fans probably marveled at the fact that this celebrated athlete put it all together in one final blaze of glory, but others probably laughed and reduced it to “The Babe being The Babe”.  It’s just kind of what we just do. It’s human nature.

Even with all the information we have about the rise of Jordan, Einstein, and The Babe, we still attach this The Sword in the Stone characterization to them, because we love the idea of superheroes. The three of them may have been blessed with superior natural abilities, but they weren’t supernatural abilities. Yet, belief in the latter permits us to worship them, and it gives us comfort to think “they’re just different”. We prefer to avoid thinking about all the “yada, yada, yada” of true grit, unusual levels of perseverance, and all of the work they put into honing their abilities. We prefer to focus on “natural talent fallacies” and the “genius myth” that suggests their Creator was so generous with them and comparatively stingy with us when it came to dispersing talent. I have news for you brothers and sisters, the idea of a chosen one being the only one able to remove the sword from the stone is a fictional tale, and there’s no such thing as a chosen one. Gifts require honing, dedication to craft, and a level of tunnel vision that would lead many of us to grow so bored with the mind-numbing hours of practice and work these men put in. We also wouldn’t be able to deal momentary, temporary embarrassment that arrives with the level of failure they dealt with under the scrutiny of white, hot lights. Those of us who admire these geniuses from afar often characterize them as the chosen ones, and ourselves as the character Sir Kay of that book, who attempted to pull the sword and failed, because it gives us comfort to think if we were as blessed as they were, we would do the same. It’s a compliment that we deem them different, of course, but it’s also uninformed and reductive.

To my mind, the greater details of the stories of Jordan, Einstein, and Ruth remind us that greatness and genius aren’t a gift bestowed at birth, but a fire forged through rejection, toil, and unrelenting drive. From Jordan’s high school cut to Einstein’s academic snubs and Ruth’s reform school obscurity, their triumphs—whether a baseline dunk, a revolutionary theory, or a final three-homer blaze—were built on the ashes of doubt. We marvel at their highlights, but their true legacy lies in the unseen hours of grit, proving that greatness belongs to those who dig deep enough to find that elusive “other layer” so often that we develop creative theories about how it’s all so unfair.