You are Not so Dumb

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“You are what we call a processor,” my boss said in a one-on-one meeting. “You study the details of a question before you answer. It might take you more time to arrive at a conclusion, but once you do, you come up with some unique, creative thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with it. We just think differently, and when I say we,” Merri added to soften the blow, “I include myself as well, for I am a bit of a processor too. So, it takes one to know one.”

Merri added some personal anecdotes to illustrate her point, but the gist of her comment appeared to spring from the idea that she was a quality manager who knew I was struggling under the weight of a quick thinking co-worker that she considered a marvel. I may be speculating here, but I think Merri knew that the best way to get the most out of me was to sit me down and inform me that in my own way I was a quality employee too.

That woman just called me slow, I thought as she illustrated her point. She may have dressed it up with a bunch of pleasant, pretty adjectives, but the gist of her analysis is that I was a slow thinker. I tried to view the comment objectively, but the sociocultural barometers list a wide array of indicators of intelligence, but foremost among them are speed and quickness. She just informed me that I was the opposite of that, so I considered her analysis the opposite of a compliment.

I tried to come up with some compelling evidence to defeat her analysis of me. Yet, every anecdote I came up with only proved her point, so I chose to focus on how unfair it was that those of us who analyze situations before us, to the point of over-analyzing, and at times obsessing over them, receive less recognition for the answers we find. We receive some praise, of course, when we develop a solution, but it pales in comparison to those who “Boom!” the room they own after with quick formulation of the facts that result in a quick answer. Even on those occasions when my superiors eventually deemed my solution a better one, I didn’t receive as much praise as the person who came up with a quick, quality answer in the moment.

I don’t know how long Merri spoke, or how long I debated my response internally, but I changed my planned response seven or eight times based on what she was saying. Two things dawned on me before Merri’s silence called for a response. The first was that any complaint I had about the reactions people have to deep, analytical responses as opposed to superficial, quick thoughts, were complaints I had regarding human nature, and the second thought I had was any response I gave her would be a well thought out, thoroughly vetted response that would only feed into her characterization. “And that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” was what I expected her to say to anything I thought up.

Putting those complaints about human nature aside for a moment, Merri’s characterization of my thinking pattern was spot on. It took me a while to appreciate the depth of her comment, and that, too, proves her point, but she didn’t really know me well enough to make such a characterization. I think it was a guess on her part that just happened to be more spot on than she’ll ever know.

Merri’s characterization eventually evolved my thinking about thinking, and it led me to know a little bit more about knowing it than I did before my one-on-one with her. Her comment also led to be a little more aware of how I operated. Before I sat down with her, I knew I thought different. I went through a variety of different methods to pound facts home in my head, but I never considered the totality of what she was saying before.

This was my fault for the most part, but I never met a person who thought about the thinking process in this manner before. They may have dropped general platitudes on thinking, with regard to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning styles, but no one ever sat me down and said, “You’re not a dumb guy, you just need to learn how you think.”

Merri’s commentary on my thinking process was an epiphany in this regard, for it led to a greater awareness about my sense of awareness, or what psychologists call my metacognition. The first level of knowledge occurs when we receive information, the second regards how we process it in a manner that reaches beyond memorization to application, and a third might be achieving a level of awareness for how we do all of the above.

When she opened my mind’s eye to the concept of processing speeds, I began to see commentary on it everywhere. I witnessed some characterize it as ‘deep thinking’. This might be true in a general sense, but the reader’s inclination might lead them to view this as a self-serving characterization. Slow processors, I thought, have endured so much abuse over the years that we might reconsider this re-characterization a subtle form of revenge against those who have called us slow. When a person informed me that I might be a deep thinker, I loved it so much that I wanted to repeat it, but I cringed every time I felt the urge, because I think we should leave such characterizations to others. There is an element of truth to it, however, and it arrives soon after a processor begins to believe he’s incompetent, slow, or dumb.

Most reflective processors are former dumb people. Intelligent people may disagree, but if most theories are autobiographical then we must factor my intelligence into the equation. My autobiographical theory goes something like this. I spent my schooling years trying to achieve the perception of a quick thinker, and I failed miserably. When the teacher asked a question, I would raise my hand. My answers were wrong so often that a fellow student said, “Why do you keep raising your hand? You’re always wrong.” I would also hear groans, ridicule, and embarrassment for other incorrect answers in other classes, until I was so intimidated that I decided not to answer questions anymore. In school, as in all other areas of life to follow, we know that rewards go to immediate, quick thinkers.  

Before Merri provided my thought process a much-needed title, I assumed I didn’t know enough to know enough. I took this perspective into everyday situations. I didn’t just consider other, more knowledgeable perspectives to resolve my dilemmas I relied on them for answers. The cumulative effect of this approach led me to begin processing information more and more often, until I gathered enough information to achieve some level of knowledge on a given subject.

In my search to find intellectuals who could conceptualize this notion better, I discovered the ‘down the stairs’ concept. This concept is not revolutionary, but it does frame the idea well. The ‘down the stairs’ thinker attends a corporate meeting in which a corporate idea, or concept, is introduced. The supervisor will conclude that meeting by asking if anyone has any questions or input they would like to add. The quick thinkers, flood the room with thought-provoking, leading questions and concepts that the supervisor appreciates. The processor says nothing, because he can’t think of anything in the moment. The meeting ends, and he walks back to his desk (down the proverbial stairs), when an idea hits him. We write that specific timeline to stay true to the analogy, but our ideas unfortunately do not occur that quickly. We often have to chew on the concepts and problems introduced in the presentation for far too long sometimes, so long that the cliché ‘let me sleep on it’ definitely applies to our style of thinking.

The opposite occurs in boardrooms and classrooms throughout the country. Hands go up, an exchange of ideas occurs, and quick thinkers are rewarded in all the ways quick thinkers are rewarded. We would love to write, right here, in this space, that these ideas are not well thought out, impulsive, and short-sighted, but some of these ideas are pretty good. How do they come up with these ideas so fast? It can prove overwhelming and depressing. I heard some great ideas in what that guy had to say, this other guy had some nuggets nestled in his otherwise impulsive, short-sighted idea, and that other guy’s idea was worthless, but I wondered if I flipped it around and turned it inside out if there might be something worthwhile in there. 

The meeting, just like every meeting, class, and group setting of any kind, depressed me, because I wasn’t the participant that I should’ve been. Once I got over all that, and I slowed everything down, I came up with my “down the stairs,” ideas over time so often that my long time manager, Merri, began to notice the pattern. 

This dilemma might lead us to ask, if an idea is good enough, who cares when an idea hits as long as it hits? The processor who wants the perception of being quick cares. He wants others to marvel at his intellect in the moment. The depressing aspect of being a processor is that you rarely receive the “time and place” credit quick-witted types, like Ron and Bret, receive. “You came up with that idea? Not bad. Why didn’t you say anything in the meeting?” 

“I didn’t think about it at the time,” we’d say if we knew what we were talking about when it comes to our way of thinking. If we were brutally honest with ourselves, we’d add, “I just don’t think as fast as Ron and Bret.” We don’t add that, because we know even if the boss loves our idea, she’s going to say something like, “Well, it’s a good idea regardless.” It’s that word regardless that just sticks in our craw. There shouldn’t be a regardless in that compliment. The compliment should be a standalone, but it’s human nature to reward hair trigger intellect. They might even implement our idea over Ron and Brett’s, and that’s some reward, but it sits on our mantle with a ‘regardless’ ribbon wrapped around it. And if they add a “Hey, you’re just as smart as Bret and Ron” pat on the back that’s just dripping with condescension, it feels like a consolation prize.

The inevitable question arises, “Why do you care so much about credit and rewards?” They also ask those questions based on Ronald Reagan’s quote, “There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.” These idealistic platitudes are from people accustomed to receiving credit for those of us toiling away in obscurity, we would love to know a world where we receive so much credit that we can humbly brush it aside. 

Slow processors do receive some credit, but it pales in comparison to quick thinkers. Our mission is self-serving, of course, but we want the level of credit we’ve been denied for so long. The seeds of frustration and confusion are borne there, until someone, like Merri, comes along and clarifies the matter for us.

A college professor once praised a take-home, assigned essay I wrote on some required reading. She stated that the ideas I expressed in that essay were “unique and insightful” and she included a note about wanting me to participate more in in-class discussions, because she said she thought I could add something to add to them. My wrong answers in high school and the resultant teasing all but beat class participation out of me, but I tried to live up to her compliments the next class. That experience only reiterated why I shouldn’t be answering questions in class. I was so wrong so often that she gave me a confused and somewhat suspicious look. I didn’t see the suspicion in the moment, and I wouldn’t think about it again until we took the final, which involved an in-class essay on another book. That teacher watched me in a manner similar to a shop owner watching a suspected shoplifter. She thought I had someone else write that prior essay she loved. I received the same grade on that final, and many of the same compliments followed that grade, and this experience may have taught that teacher as much as Merri taught me about the different ways people think.  

How many of us grow up thinking we’re dumb? How many brilliant minds grew up with a complex in that regard? What did they learn about themselves through life? 

The theme of David McRaney’s You are Not so Smart was obviously that we are not as smart as we think we are. The various essays in that book describe why we do the things we do, and how various psychological mechanisms condition us to do the things we do. I loved that book so much that I’ve written probably thirty of my own articles on the theme. This particular article is entitled You are Not so Dumb for the reason that I think it’s the antithesis of that book, and its purpose is to provide some relief for those who are so confused and frustrated that they cannot think quicker. Some of us think in different ways and at different speeds. This could be why the art of writing attracts some more than others, for it allows us to sit in our vestibule and prove we were/are not as dumb as we thought we were/are in the classrooms and boardrooms where quick thinkers beat us to the rewards through quick answers. The reader who doesn’t know what we’re talking about here, might think that we’re attempting to right the wrong to prove something to you, and to be brutally honest, we are, but by writing this article, and everything else we’ve written, we’re also proving something else to ourselves. 

The depression slow processors experience can be like a slow drum beat that beats them down over time, until it defeats them. If this antidote spares one person from the decades of frustration I experienced in this regard, I might consider this the best article I’ve ever written, but I would do so without ego, for I am merely passing another person’s observation along. If the reader identifies with the characterizations we’ve outlined here, I do have one note of caution: You may never rid yourself of this notion that you’re less intelligent than that firecracker over there in the corner, and the frustrating fact is he will always receive more rewards professionally, socially, and otherwise, but if you can come to grips with the manner in which you think, how you process information, and know it to the point of arriving at an answer without all of the frustration you experience when everyone else is shouting answers out, it’s possible that you might achieve some surprising results. We might never reach a point of bragging for I don’t know how anyone could dress up the idea of being a slow thinker, but attaining knowledge of self can go a long way to understanding how we operate, and it’s our job to take it and use it accordingly. 

Don’t Go Chasing Eel Testicles: A Brief, Select History of Sigmund Freud

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We envy those who knew, at a relatively young age, what they wanted to do for a living. We may have experienced some inspirations along the way, but we either lost interest quickly, or we never follow through. Whatever the case was, no one I know read medical journals, law reviews, or business periodicals in our formative years. We preferred reading the latest NFL preview guide, a teenage heartthrob magazine, or one of the many other periodicals that offer soft entertainment value. Most of us opted out of reading altogether and chose to play something that involved a ball. Life was all about fun for the kids in our block, but there were other, more serious kids, who we wouldn’t meet until we were older. They may not have known they would become neurosurgeons, but they were so interested in medicine that they devoted huge chunks of their young lives to learning everything their young minds could retain. “How is that even possible?” we ask. How are they able to achieve that level of focus when they were so young? Are we even the same species?

At an age when we’re so unfocused, some claim to have had tunnel vision. “I didn’t have that level of focus,” some said to correct the record, “not the level of focus to which you are alluding.” They might have diverged from the central focus, but they had more direction than anyone we knew, and that direction put them on the path of doing what they ended up doing, even if it wasn’t as specific as we might guess.

The questions regarding what we should do for a living has plagued so many for so long that comedian Paula Poundstone captured it with a well-placed joke, and I apologize, in advance, for the creative paraphrasing: “Didn’t you hate it when your relatives asked what you wanted to do for a living? Um, Grandpa I’m 5. I haven’t fully grasped the importance of brushing my teeth yet. Now that I’m forty, I’ve finally figured out why they asked that question,” Paula Poundstone added with a comedic pause. “They were looking for ideas.”

Pour through the annals of great men and women of history, and you’ll find that some of the greatest minds of science didn’t accomplish much of anything until late in life. Your research will also show that most of the figures who achieved success in life were just as dumb and carefree as children as the rest of us, until something clicked. Some failed more than once in their initial pursuits, until they discovered something something that flipped a switch.

Even those who know nothing about psychology, know the name Sigmund Freud. Those who know a little about Freud know his unique theories about the human mind and human development. Those who know anything about his psychosexual theory know we are all repressed sexual beings plagued with unconscious desires to have relations with some mythical Greek king’s mother. What we might not know, because we consider it ancillary to his greater works, is that some of his theories might have originated from Freud’s pursuit of the Holy Grail of nineteenth-century science, the elusive eel testicles.

Although some annals state that an Italian scientist named Carlo Mondini discovered eel testicles in 1777, other periodicals state that the search continued up to and beyond the search of an obscure 19-year-old Austrian’s in 1876.[1] Other research states that the heralded Aristotle conducted his own research on the eel, and his studies resulted in postulations that stated either that the beings came from the “guts of wet soil”, or that they were born “of nothing”.[2] One could guess that these answers resulted from great frustration, since Aristotle was so patient with his deductions in other areas. On the other hand, he also purported that maggots were born organically from a slab of meat. “Others, who conducted their own research, swore that eels were bred of mud, of bodies decaying in the water. One learned bishop informed the Royal Society that eels slithered from the thatched roofs of cottages; Izaak Walton, in The Compleat Angler, reckoned they sprang from the ‘action of sunlight on dewdrops’.”

Before laughing at these findings, we should consider the limited resources those researchers had at their disposal. As is oft said with young people, the young Freud did not know enough to know how futile the task would be when a nondescript Austrian zoological research station employed him. It was his first real job, he was 19, and it was 1876. He dissected approximately 400 eels, over a period of four weeks, “Amid stench and slime for long hours” the New York Times wrote to describe Freud’s working conditions. [3] His ambitious goal was to write a breakthrough research paper on an animal’s mating habits, one that had confounded science for centuries. Conceivably, a more seasoned scientist might have considered the task futile much earlier in the process, but an ambitious, young 19-year-old, looking to make a name for himself, was willing to spend long hours slicing and dicing eels, hoping to achieve an answer no one could disprove.

Unfortunate for the young Freud, but perhaps fortunate for the field of psychology, we now know that eels don’t have testicles until they need them. The products of Freud’s studies must not have needed them at the time he studied them, for Freud ended up writing that his total supply of eels were “of the fairer sex.” Some have said Freud correctly predicted where the testicles should be and that he argued that the eels he received were not mature eels. Freud’s experiments resulted in a failure to find the testicles, and he moved into other areas as a result. What kind of effect did this failure have on Freud, professionally and otherwise? 

In our teenage and young adult years, most of us had low-paying, manual labor jobs. We did these jobs to get paid when no one else would pay us. We bussed tables, took bags to hotel rooms, parked cars, and did whatever we had to to get paid. Our only goals in life were to do the job well enough to keep the boss off our back. We had no direction, and no one I know did what they did to end up in the annals of history. When we got fired or quit, we just moved onto the job that paid us more. We didn’t think about rewarding or fulfilling. We just knew we didn’t want to do that (whatever we did in the first job) anymore. 

Was Freud’s search for eel testicles the equivalent of an entry-level job for him, or did he believe in the vocation so much that his failure devastated him? Did he slice the first 100 or so eels open and throw them aside with the belief that they were immature? Was there nothing but female eels around him, as he wrote, or was he beginning to see what plagued the other scientists for centuries, including the brilliant Aristotle? There had to be a moment, in other words, when Sigmund Freud realized that they couldn’t all be female. He had to know, at some point, that he was missing the same something that everyone else missed. He must have spent some sleepless nights struggling to come up with a different tactic. He might have lost his appetite at various points, and he may have shut out the world in his obsession to achieve infamy in marine biology. He sliced and diced over 400 after all. If even some of this is true, even if it only occupied his mind for four weeks of his life, we can imagine that the futile search for eel testicles affected Sigmund Freud in some manner.

If Freud Never Existed, Would There Be a Need to Create Him

Every person approaches a topic of study from a subjective angle. It’s human nature. The topic we are least objective about, say some, is ourselves. Some say that we are the central focus of speculation when we theorize about humanity. All theories are autobiographical, in other words, and we pursue such questions in an attempt to understand ourselves better. Bearing that in mind, what was the subjective angle from which Sigmund Freud approached his most famous theory on psychosexual development in humans? Did he bring objectivity to his patients? Could he have been more objective, or did Freud have a blind spot that led him to chase eel testicles throughout his career in the manner Don Quixote chased windmills?

After his failure, Sigmund Freud would switch his focus to a field of science that would later become psychology. Soon thereafter, patients sought his consultation. We know now that Freud viewed most people’s problems through a sexual lens, but was that lens tinted by the set of testicles he couldn’t find a lifetime ago? Did his inability to locate the eel’s reproductive organs prove so prominent in his studies that he saw them everywhere he went, in the manner that a rare car owner begins to see his car everywhere, soon after driving that new car off the lot? Some say that if this is how Freud conducted his sessions, he did so in an unconscious manner, and others might say that this could have been the basis for his theory on unconscious actions. How different would Freud’s theories on sexual development have been if he found the Holy Grail of science at the time? How different would his life have been? If Freud found fame as a marine biologist with his findings, he may have remained a marine biologist.

How different would the field of psychology be today if Sigmund Freud remained a marine biologist? Alternatively, if he still made the switch to psychology after achieving fame in marine biology, for being the eel testicle spotter, would he have approached the study of the human development, and the human mind from a less subjective angle? Would his theory on psychosexual development have occurred to him at all? If it didn’t, is it such a fundamental truth that it would’ve occurred to someone else over time, even without Freud’s influence?

We can state, without fear of refutation, that Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual theory has sexualized our beliefs about human development, a theory others now consider disproved. How transcendental was that theory, and how much subjective interpretation was involved in it? How much of the subjective interpretation derived from his inability to find the eel testicle? Put another way, did Freud ever reach a point where he began overcompensating for that initial failure?

Whether it’s an interpretive extension, or a direct reading of Freud’s theory, modern scientific research theorizes that most men want some form of sexual experience with another man’s testicles. This theory, influenced by Freud’s theories, suggests that those who claim they don’t are lying in a latent manner, and the more a man says he doesn’t, the more repressed his homosexual desires are.

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law, a sexual orientation law think tank, released a study in April 2011 that stated that 3.6 percent of males in the U.S. population are either openly gay or bisexual.[4] If these findings are anywhere close to correct, this leaves 96.4 percent who are, according to Freud’s theory, closeted homosexuals in some manner. Neither Freud nor anyone else has been able to put even a rough estimate on the percentage of heterosexuals who harbor unconscious, erotic inclinations toward members of the same sex, but the very idea that the theory has achieved worldwide fame leads some to believe there is some truth to it. Analysis of some psychological studies on this subject provides the quotes, “It is possible … Certain figures show that it would indicate … All findings can and should be evaluated by further research.” We don’t know in other words, there’s no conclusive data and all findings and figures are vague. Some would suggest that the facts and figures are so ambiguous that Freud’s theories were nothing more than a provocative and relatively educated and subjective guess.[5]

Some label Sigmund Freud as history’s most debunked doctor, but his influence on the field of psychology and on the ways society at large views human development and sexuality is indisputable. The greater question, as it pertains specific to Freud’s psychosexual theory, is was Freud a closet homosexual, or was his angle on psychological research affected by his initial failure to find eel testicles? To put it more succinct, which being’s testicles was Freud more obsessed with finding during his lifetime?

 

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eel_life_history

[2]http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/oct/27/the-decline-of-the-eel

[3]http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/health/psychology/analyze-these.html

[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_sexual_orientation

[5]http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/assault/roots/freud.html

Is Elon Musk Rasputin or Cosmo Kramer?

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How many of us thought we would not live long enough to see the mind-blowing innovations displayed in countless sci-fi movies? How many of us thought we’d live long enough to see portable communication devices as small as those in Star Trek? How many of us thought we’d see live to see phones where we could see the person on the other line? How many of us thought we’d have a computer in just about every home? How many of us thought when all these wild innovations hit, we would all be wearing silver suits while watching TV, mowing the lawn, or doing the dishes in the distant year 2000? If you watched movies or TV during the bygone era, you thought these were the visions of life on Earth in the future.

Photo courtesy of American Conservative

How many of us now laugh when we picture our deceased relatives trying to figure out how to use our current innovative gadgets? Our generation now knows that these sci-fi movies portrayed life in the 2000s correctly in some ways and incorrectly in others, but one thing they were right about is we know more technological innovation than our forebears did. Even the generation below us is more accustomed to life with such innovation than we were. Walk into any junior high in the country and you’ll witness work in robotics that is no longer speculative. You’ll also witness the work they do with computers that belies the fact that they are so accustomed to computers being a facet of human life that they’ve worked through any intimidation they might have had with the machines a decade before junior high. The question now is are we so accustomed to technological innovation that we’re more open to wild, crazy ideas than every generation before us, and are we so open to it that we leave ourselves susceptible to the possibilities of more from an ingenious charlatan?

The early 1900’s were another period of great innovation. Individuals such as Nikola Tesla and Henry Ford were at the forefront of innovations that intimidated most of their populations. How many of them had a difficult time initially conceiving of the extent of man’s capabilities? How many people thought the advancements made in medicine alone bordered on the heretical? How many of them feared that “modern medicine” was coming close to messing with God’s plan when it came to prolonging life? As the people of that era attempted to come to grips with the advancements man was making in the fields of automation and medicine, the image of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam must’ve danced in their head. Over time, the people of this era became more open to mankind’s ability to make life easier and better for their fellow man through advancement, but were they so open to these ideas that they became more susceptible to proclamations of a charlatan?

Some say the time Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin spent on farms in small, obscure parts of Russia may have helped him understand the healing properties of some natural medicines better than most. Some say that he might have learned hypnosis techniques elsewhere in life, and he understood how to employ it before most understood it. Others suggest he may have learned autosuggestion techniques that some farmers used to calm their horses, and that Rasputin may have used one or all of these techniques to calm the nerves of the mother of the young heir to the Russian Empire. Whatever the case was, his ability to alieve the young heir of some of the symptoms of bad case of hemophilia was a cause célèbre in the nation of Russia. Some honored the great achievement, and others were in awe of the possibilities of what Rasputin could achieve. Some also fear him with that rationale. The largely ostracized Russians believed Rasputin displayed mystical powers, God-given powers. They thought he was a chosen one, and the Russian Empire gave him an influential role in the empire as a result. Some say that this precipitated the decline of the Russian Empire, but others say that implosion was inevitable.

Is Elon Musk our nation’s modern day Rasputin? Rasputin cloaked his rise in mystical wonderment, and Musk drapes himself in the speculative questions of what a genius in the field of technological innovation can achieve. Both men also used their newfound status to make wildly ambitious claims to cause the citizens of their nation to hold them in speculative wonder.

Columnist Norm Singleton paints a far less provocative portrait of Musk in his, “Elon Musk is the Cosmo Kramer of Crony Capitalism” column. In it, Mr. Singleton details the wildly ambitious ideas Elon Musk and his fictional counterpart relayed to their respective audience. The difference between the two, of course, is that Cosmo Kramer never received the federal grants the taxpayer has given Mr. Musk to pursue his wildly ambitious ideas. Another difference, and one Mr. Singleton does not explore, is that Mr. Musk has achieved some results that have established him as a certified genius. He founded X.com, which later became PayPal. He has an admirable record of accomplishment at SpaceX and Tesla, and he has a list of accomplishments that no one can deny. Singleton’s column does not focus on that list of accomplishment, but it does challenge the current resume of Elon Musk in a manner that no politician dare explore by asking if Musk’s current accomplishments align with the continued, all too generous federal and state grants he receives. Some might argue that Musk is not a charlatan, because of those accomplishments, and because he actually believes in all of his ideas, but Cosmo Kramer believed his ideas too, and so did Rasputin.

Somewhere on the road to technological innovation, someone (likely a politician) convinced us that if our nation is fortunate enough to house a certifiable genius, we’re going to have to pay for the innovations he creates to make our lives easier and better. We’re not talking about paying for the final product of ingenuity at the proverbial cash register either, though there are some on the consumer end who don’t understand that concept. (They think the corporate responsibility suggests that all online innovation should be free.) We’re talking about taxpayers funding the creative process of the bona fide genius. For those who haven’t read as much as I have about the creative process, artists love to talk about it almost as much as they love creating. They love to talk about their influences, the structured method they used to bring their product to life, and the future projects they have in store for us. If someone were to pay these artists for such talk alone, I think most artists would give up the painstaking process of actual creation and opt for the life of describing their process instead.

Filing for government grants has been around for as long as I’ve been alive, and as one who has never filed for a grant, I will admit ignorance on this topic, but I would think that success in field of receiving successive grants requires constant proof of success on the part of the artist. Enter the technological genius. Many consider Elon Musk the rare innovative genius who should not have to worry about pesky concerns like money. Politicians, specifically, appear to believe that Musk should not have to provide continued results for continued money, apparently, for demanding as much from a technological innovator that promises breakthroughs in science, would be tantamount to career suicide for them.

Norm Singleton concludes his piece by saying that the best thing we could do for Elon Musk is to cut off all government funding for his ventures. Those who believe the concept that if we want technological innovation, we’re going to have to pay for the process, have never heard the quote, “The best we’ll ever see from an individual often occurs shortly after they’ve been backed into a corner.” Those who think the removal of financial support damages the creative process might want to go back and read that quote again. The politician who sticks their neck out to remove federal funding from Elon Musk would risk insulting Elon Musk, and Musk’s lobbying group might mortally wound that politician, but that insult might inspire Musk to prove the politician wrong, and that motivation might drive him to pursue greater profits as a result. Cutting him off from all state and federal funding might also force him to be a more traditional CEO, in that he would be more accountable to disgruntled shareholders, more cognizant of his companies’ profit margins, and it might force him to be more of a results-oriented man and less of a theoretical idea man.

I think Mr. Singleton has a great idea, but in order for his idea to work, he would need to find a significant number of politicians who have the fortitude to say no to an established genius in the field of technological innovation. That politician would also have to fight Musk’s powerful lobbying groups and the stigma of the “against science” label. No, Elon Musk carved out an enviable place by being an established genius. He has also developed an enviable formula for all artistic geniuses to follow. Once a person has established themselves as a bona fide genius (no easy feat to be sure) all that genius has to do is develop some ideas for wildly ambitious projects on a semi-annual basis to achieve headlines in major newspapers that no politician can ignore. Their projects may never see the light of day, but they will secure nonstop funding from easily intimidated politicians.

It may be a gross exaggeration to insinuate that the brilliant, innovative Elon Musk might be a charlatan, but when it comes to securing such regular, enormous chunk of the taxpayer’s hard-earned dollars, we the people, and our representatives, should hold the prospective recipient guilty until proven innocent.

I may be alone in this regard now, as those in charge of allocating our tax dollars appear unafraid of defying logic, but I hold an achievement devoid government funding in higher regard. As former president, Calvin Coolidge said shortly before his demise, “I feel I no longer fit in with these times.” Perhaps I no longer fit in with these times, but if an entrepreneur states that his or her project made it to the marketplace based on individual ingenuity and sheer grit, I respect that accomplishment more. I also appreciate the effort it takes to pound the pavement and secure private funding, but the Elon Musk methods of convincing a bunch of politicians to part ways with other people’s money seems far too beneficial to all parties involved and way too easy.