The Trouble with Geniuses Parts 1 &2

For the past few weeks, my Gifted & Talented class has been reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The book is about success, and how a person comes to be successful.  Gladwell says that the opportunity that one has defines their success, and shows this through many examples. He talks about advantage, and how that plays a big role in success. In the book, Gladwell also mentions how to become good at something, you must spend time on it. He uses many famous people to prove his points, such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and The Beatles. In fact, Gladwell writes, "We do owe something to parentage and patronage.......beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot. It makes a difference where and when we grew up."

In chapters 3 and 4 of Outliers (The trouble with Geniuses Parts 1 and 2), Gladwell emphasizes his point on how most people that win prizes and are very successful in life are not always those who have a high IQ. For much of the two chapters, he talks about who some say is the smartest man on Earth, Chris Langan. Langan has an IQ of 195. Einstein only had an IQ of 150. Gladwell writes about Chris's life, how no one cared or recognized that he was smart. Langan was officially considered a genius, and nothing less. However, Langan dropped out of college- twice. The first time, Langan's mother forgot to renew his scholarship, and so Langan quit. The second time, the college was giving Langan a hard time, so Langan also quit that school too. Now Langan lives married on his own farm in Milwaukee after years of being a bar bouncer. One would think that a genius like Langan would go on to be a doctor, or a profession of a similar sort. But Langan turned out to be a bar bouncer! For someone of Langan's potential, that is not very practical.

On the other hand, Gladwell also writes about Robert Oppenheimer, who was a physicist who helped to develop the atomic bomb during WWII. As a child, Oppenheimer was at a very similar level to Langan, they were both geniuses. However, Oppenheimer's parents cared about his education. He came from a much better background. Although Oppenheimer was slightly crazy by the fact that he tried to poison his tutor, he was extremely brilliant. Oppenheimer possessed something that Langan didn't, "practical intelligence." This is knowing what to say at the right times, to the right people. Gladwell also makes many other points about how it really doesn't matter how much of a genius someone is. As long as they have the potential to be smart, and the right background, they have a great potential to be successful.

In my Gifted & Talented class, we defined successful as "to maintain a balance between financial stability and happiness with self and others and to accomplish the goals you want to achieve." In an interview that my class saw about Chris Langan, he said that he was happy with his life. He's married, he owns his own farm, and he still continues to surround himself with knowledge and other things that he loves. He has enough money to do what he wants, and I think that he has achieved most of his life goals. Chris Langan might not be rich and famous, but he is definitely successful. He fits our class definition almost like a glove.

There is a lot that I'll take away from this chapter. First of all, I now realize that some of the people who are famous and rich aren't much more of a genius than I am. They just had better chances and opportunities than others. I know now that it doesn't really matter in terms of being successful how smart I am. I know that I come from an excellent background, and that will help me in life. But I now also know that being successful isn't just about being rich. It's also about the pursuit of happiness. There are those who may think that Oppenheimer was successful. Sure, he was rich, and famous, and remembered through history. But Oppenheimer wasn't happy like Langan. Oppenheimer was in a state of depression for most of his life. And because of this, I would say that Langan is more successful than Oppenheimer ever was. I strive to be as successful as Langan.