Table of Contents
Words of Philosophical Wisdom
The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age, which means never losing your enthusiasm.
Aldous Huxley
Attitude: The Secret Ingredient
There is a secret to genius, wouldn’t you agree? Just how often do we see it in our day-to-day lives? As I look upon the great philosopher Socrates, who lost his life to his genius, it reminds me that some stances supersede the notion of standing for the status quo. How boring would it be if every day was like the last? But maybe that is the key, to live every day as if it were the last.
To See with Unbiased Eyes: The Soul’s Yearning
The soul yearns for complexity. But it secondarily yearns for routine. Routine and the need to complicate life is a paradox of consciousness, inviting us to moments of safety, but secondarily encouraging us to traverse unknown grounds and grow. If we never expand our horizons, we cease to grow, creating apathy and degeneration. Where do you fall upon this spectrum?
The secret to genius is to see the world with genuinely unbiased eyes. But this is more challenging than it seems. You take the whole history of your life experience with you at any moment of judgment. Not being aware of the log in one’s eye negates the ability to call out a splinter seen in the eye of another. As Christ alluded to, hypocrisy is rampant, but its cure can take place when we identify those biases we hold within.
Psychology: Inroads to Personality Development
The science of psychology has created inroads into processes that help others identify and work within the confines of the attitude they assume of the world. Personality constructs such as Jung’s extraversion and introversion, Hippocrates’ four temperaments, or even the well-known ideals of optimism versus pessimism create categorical means to understand the world. However, are these based on something other than our human capacity to be conscious of, categorize, and explain the root of what we experience through language?
You see, attitude is the lens by which we view the world, and one set of eyes differs not from any other. It just filters the information from the consciousness that perceives the experience. So, let us examine who has the experience versus not.
The Divine Radiance of Childhood Consciousness
Sigmund Freud stated, “What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.” Here, we see a mirror of Huxley’s words about the divine wisdom possible when we carry the divine radiance of childhood lack of understanding into adult consciousness.
In making this point, I do not believe adults exist from a perspective of weakness. From this position, Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud would ultimately split and form two competing schools of psychoanalysis. While Freud saw divinity in childhood development, Jung expanded upon his theory to examine the wisdom possible when we engage in our adult developmental journey.
We cannot turn back time. However, we can expand upon experience to return to that unbiased nature of childhood consciousness. We may not be able to undo what is present within the consciousness and all its grand polarities, but by being conscious of its presence, we can create enthusiasm at the moment, and maybe we can see for the first time that which may have been present all along. From this perspective, we can begin to understand that possibility is possible. What can we do with a bit of wisdom like that?
Concluding Blessings
There exists a secret genius to the attitude we hold. It is the mask that we present to the world. But when we assume that persona, we ultimately offer one piece of the beauty that is our innermost Self. That Self exists not only in the attitudes adopted but also within dreams, aspirations, and goals we ambitiously worked on during that time of childhood radiance when all possibilities were possible.
Thank you for reading, and may blessings find you on your journey to ignite your inner attitude of genius and advance confidently in the direction of your dreams.
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