Poe is God.

I’ve never claimed to be well read in anything that wasn’t a textbook but I’ve got to say Edger Allan Poe kicks major arse. If you have read my other blogs you may remember me bragging about the unremarkable feat of memorizing “The Raven”, his most well know poem. It’s good, and there are some passages in it that are amazing that I have read and reread, stunned by his diction.

“And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;”

Damn… that’s good. Very few will ever write a single passage that compares to the one above but his other works are so much more impressive. If you haven’t read “The murders in the Rue Morgue” you need to drop the channel changer for about 20 min. and crack open a tallboy…I mean a book. You can do it, come on, hoist up that gelatinous meat sack that you call an ass and pick up a damn book for once. You don’t even have to read the whole short story but rather just work through his commentary on “Analysis”. It is life changing. I’ve never read anything that so well encapsulates some of my own personal thoughts on the analytical mind as the start of this story. Good stuff. Here is a nugget:

“The mental features discoursed of as the analytical, are, in themselves, but little susceptible of analysis. We appreciate them only in their effects. We know of them, among other things, that they are always to their possessor, when inordinately possessed, a source of the liveliest enjoyment. As the strong man exults in his physical ability, delighting in such exercises as call his muscles into action, so glories the analyst in that moral activity which disentangles. He derives pleasure from even the most trivial occupations bringing his talent into play. He is fond of enigmas, of conundrums, hieroglyphics; exhibiting in his solutions of each a degree of acumen which appears to the ordinary apprehension praeternatural. His results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, have, in truth, the whole air of intuition.”

If you don’t get lost in all the “big words” the theme is extraordinary and dead on accurate, and it just gets better from here. By the way, you can download the story for free on the internet, so you won’t really have to pick up an archaic, leather-bound, paper weight. I realize most classic have you nodding off before you get through the TOC (Table Of Contents you nit), but a few are truly classics. Opiates or no, Poe is a God…and remember, “Never Bet the Devil Your Head.”

Profound vs. Complex

I am continually amazed at how moronic supposedly intelligent people tend to be. They take a few college classes, post-grad even, and suddenly they think themselves geniuses. The fact that they don’t know they are nothing special is what makes them morons.

Remember that scene in Goodwill Hunting where the Math professor is talking to Matt Damon and says something like “Only a handful of people in the world would be able to tell the difference between you and me.” I want to expand on this idea a little more. I’ve sat through a lot of classes, a lot, and have worked with many intelligent, learned people. However, there is one concept that most don’t quite grasp. The idea of doing something profound vs. something that is only complex. I emphasize only because really it is the basis for my argument. Complex just means a bunch of steps. I don’t know if it is inflated ego or just ignorance, but “The Learned” give themselves much more credit than they deserve. As a matter of fact, so do the observers of “The learned”. For example, take multivariable calculus; if you haven’t had the class, you may think that someone capable of learning this is highly intelligent and/or gifted. Sorry, it’s just a series of somewhat complex steps that, with practice, can be followed as easily as a dot-to-dot. Remember the steps, a couple of formulas, and you're set. This is only complex as is most higher level math. Now, being the one who invented Calculus, the one that thought of shrinking those little rectangles infinitesimally small to calculate that area under a curve; that is profound. This idea extends to more than just Calculus, it applies to almost everything. Laws, proofs, theorems..all memorization of steps and understanding of profound work someone else did, which to you, is nothing but complex. I give all the grads and post grads props for being diligent and working through the steps, but the truth of the matter is, almost none of you have done anything profound. I am absolutely in this category but the difference is, I know it. I am smart, but that’s it. You may consider it arrogant to call yourself smart, but my definition is nothing to brag about. Smart only means you have learned that with time and resources you have the ability to learn someone else’s work. That’s it. I’ve never been clever or inventive and never had any real talent, but I’m smart so I copy really well, like most people with a BS or MS. I’ll leave the Doctors out of it as I would be speaking out of turn.

I work with engineers all day long and they think reciting some random formula or proof demonstrates the significant brain power that they seem to mask with their daily work. Again, idiots; and I’m the worst of them. I actually memorized “The Raven” by Poe for bragging rights. It is really really long and I am really really smart. Again, anyone, anyone with too much time on their hands and the will to do so can recite someone else’s work. The tragedy is when you realize what you are incapable of doing…writing an original, inventing anything of your own, having an original thought. Unlike the high school student that says they just can’t do math, you know better. You know you can learn and think and work through problems and in doing so you also learn that you really have little more to offer than a copy machine. Sorry moms, those genius sons and daughters of yours are far from genius…you just didn’t know any better.