You're a Goddamned Genius!

by Gregory Allen Butler

There is a scene in the movie Forest Gump when the mentally retarded Forrest is in basic training with the U.S. Army:

Drill Sergeant: Gump! What's your sole purpose in this army?
Forrest Gump: To do whatever you tell me, drill sergeant!
Drill Sergeant: God damn it, Gump! You're a goddamned genius! This is the most outstanding answer I have ever heard. You must have a goddamn I.Q. of 160. You are goddamned gifted, Private Gump.

Well guess what? You're a genius too.

You're a genius if you give yourself permission to be a genius. Genius is the ability to say yes to the perception of beauty and harmony, to see patterns with an insight beyond the ability of the rational mind. Gump had the insight beyond the rational mind that he had no free will-he saw that there was only the will of the drill sergeant.

I'm not talking about the kind of genius that has an IQ of 160, but the type of genius that can perceive what's hidden to so many and express it in creative ways. Or maybe the only expression is a smile on the face but that smile might be all that is needed to lift the spirits of a sad friend. But the expression might be in writing, dance, music, art, or even the athlete getting into the zone.

What we do with it has to do with our capacity for spontaneity. We only have to trust and be a witness to the unfolding of the creative process. It happens. The logic is incomprehensible but the magic is undeniable. Trust and surrender are the keys. If you remember times in your life when you made an astute comment or had a burst of creativity, you will recognize it as a moment of setting aside your ego and letting the flow of the moment unfold. It's a process of getting beyond the mind, of forgetting yourself, like a dancer surrendering to the rhythms of the music. There is a Hopi Indian saying: "To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak." That is genius.

So is Isadora Duncan saying "No, I can't explain the dance to you; If I could say it--I wouldn't have to dance it!"

When we are open to thoughts and don't try to control them, a certain beauty and order comes into form. In the movie, Finding Forrester, William Forrester, played by Sean Connery, tells 16-year-old Jamal Wallace, who is staring blankly at the typewriter, not to think, just write. "The first draft comes from the heart."

When we smile or laugh we are acknowledging the beauty of life. It's everywhere, but that is beyond the comprehension of most people. You don't have to go to a museum to find it. Look around. That's all the great painters did. Vermeer would look and see beauty in a room where no one else noticed. The same for Rembrandt, Monet, Matisse, and van Gogh. They were open. They didn't have to go to the pyramids or to the Taj Mahal or to the National Parks. There's a line in a poem I wrote years ago, "Misty mornings on the Seine waiting for Monet."

The poets only have to quiet their minds to perceive the beautiful in the realm of ideas and thought. Eloquence and symmetry and language have their own type of grandeur. Just as a swan dazzles us with grace and agility, so do words coming from an unseen universe.

When you are feeling joyous for no apparent reason, that is genius at work within you. You are in the zone. You have discovered on some level a perfect harmony. You don't have to prove it, you don't have to describe it. You just are a silent witness to it. And your state of being is transformed by an inner radiance. It's effortless. It's been happening since the beginning of time.

In those moments, there is nothing in the world that could bring you any more fulfillment. You already are fulfilled. There is no need, no want. And in that state of desirelessness, the state where the mind is quieted from all of its incessant demands, you are receptive to more and more of this inner beauty. The universe is unfolding into your consciousness--one moment after another. In this state of awareness you are connected to the source of your being. In these moments of aliveness, there is no lack. Each moment is a treasure of bliss.

That is the life of a genius--to live one moment after another--in a cornucopia of existence. Some people keep these moments private. Some try to express it. Einstein had such a moment like this when in a flash of insight he perceived the theory of relativity. The hard part was writing it down and proving it.

Trust your insights. A challenge for some people is that they could never conceive of themselves being worthy of having original ideas that were of genius quality. Their mistake is in the perception that genius is only limited to the few. It comes to everyone. We are all part of the universal consciousness. We are all members of the universe. We are in inviolable unity, an ocean of oneness. Genius comes to everyone-including you. Respect it and welcome it.

How do we access these moments that have these universal truths? We enter into this world by quieting our mind. The greatest insights will happen when you are not involved in anything. Maybe you'll be driving on the freeway or taking a walk through the woods, or taking a bath. Several of the posts on this blog had their ideas born when I was taking a bath, relaxing. That's why meditation is so important. It opens up the channels of receptivity.

Common sense might tell you that you have no business wanting to be a genius. But in actuality, you have no right to deny it. It's one of the benefits of membership in the universe.