Several times, I hear several 'brilliant' people discuss mediocrity, and how there's so much of it around. That brings us back to the fundamental premise of mediocrity, and therefore brilliance.
Brilliance could broadly be defined as the ability to observe, comprehend, analyze, synthesize and apply (and maybe some more words from psychology, cognitive science and neuroscience, used randomly.) Brilliance is what brilliance does. And to be of any utility to anyone, leave alone all of mankind, an ability to empathize, understand and feel for everything in the environment is of utmost importance.
But funnily, here's what is noticed about the most brilliant people of our times. A complete lack of empathy, coupled with the a pompous, elitist self image. A complete lack of sense of humour, coupled with an unnecessary arrogance. The belief that they know it all, coupled with the inability to acknowledge the fact that everything around us has something to teach. An endless ability for abstraction and application, but minimum awareness of the world they live in. I could go on and on, but more than anything else, I should give myself a break. Besides, it is the prerogative of the brilliant to ramble away so that no one around understands. Then again, isn't that the point of brilliance?! When you can convince them of it, why confuse them?
It's funny how our definition of brilliance has nothing to do with people anymore.
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Brilliance does not mean all that crap... brilliance means being able to "shine" amongst the lot you are in..
In other words it is the art of regognising your lack of an eye and finding your kingdom of blindmen :)
The angst that you are encountering is, thus, from people who haven't realised their lack of an eye... or finding a kindom where some people have a 20/20 vision. :P
On a more serious note, management theory cites the Peter Principle as "In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his (or her) level of incompetence." In other words members of a hierarchical organization are eventually promoted to their highest level of competence, after which further promotion raises them to a level at which they may become incompetent.
So prior brilliance does not necessarily mean present on the job brilliance... I think you can think of atleast ONE such example :P
Chillax... and be brilliant..
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