Finding Happiness: Reclaiming Genius from Loneliness

“I’m a genius! I’m actually a genius!” Those were words I first uttered at 18 years old on college after writing an essay about Mary Shelley and it being selected to appear in an academic journal. It was my first semester of college after 8 horrible years of being homeschooled and no one in the world out there to appreciate my genius. So I hit the ground running my first semester of college with a 4.0 gpa and complete unawareness that being talented and gifted was a curse that would haunt me my whole life. Incel horror is a relatively new genre in horror with the most recent release Obsession setting the bar of the horrific concept “what if a lonely man had total control over me?” Male lonliness has been a growing issue in the US and it absolutely gets my rocks off as I laugh manically that all these men that thought they were better than me can’t get laid. I thank the stars I’m bisexual and have an amazing girlfriend to make fun of men with because even if I was straight, I would not be dating men in this climate. “Geniuses” like Elon Musk have a large number of baby mamas but still feel the need to create an AI sexbot because no matter how many women they can “get” they are still lonely. Why? They are unreachable. I saw Picasso at the Lapin Agile three times at the El Paso Playhouse and it really reflected on incel culture with the idea that Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso and even the sex symbol Elvis Presley might have been incels. That they realized that they only had one thing going for them: their genius. They watched people around them profit off of their talent and suck them dry so that all that was left was their genius. You see these men struggle with romantic relationships and their lonliness spiral them into isolation in realizing they have never been intimate with the same woman more than once. They are alone. Steve Martin writes this play and while I really enjoy the writing, you could tell this play was written by a man, in the fact that all the female characters only contributed to advancing the story arch for the male characters. Except one character: CD Shmendiman. She, like the male geniuses was herself a genius. However, she was not focused on making a name for herself, so she was forgotten in history. She instead, created art to enhance her quality of life and feel enriched by it, instead of focusing on using it to boost her own ego. I found her character most inspiring because I’m at the point of my life of realizing that being a talented and gifted kid only set me up for a life of disappointment. So now, I only do what I want, when I want. My room is covered in paintings that I painted myself and will NEVER sell. I write a poem every single day and save it as a little treat for me to look back on. Yes there are some talents that I do like to share with the world like my karaoke hosting and my script writing and my banjo plucking and my joke telling, but I’m not trying to get anywhere with my skills anymore. I’m just trying to be happy, feel less lonely. Because in the end, someone will try to capitalize on us if we give too much of ourselves, sometimes we need to save our genius for the ones that actually deserve to see it.

The author reflects on their experience of being identified as a 'genius' from a young age, initially perceiving it as a curse that led to disappointment and isolation, especially in contrast to 'incel culture' and the perceived loneliness of public figures. Inspired by a character in 'Picasso at the Lapin Agile,' they have shifted their focus from seeking external validation for their talents to using their creativity (painting, poetry, performing arts) for personal enrichment and happiness, aiming to reduce loneliness and protect their 'genius' for themselves and those who truly deserve it.

Proud of you

this is beautiful honestly. the shift from proving yourself to the world to creating just for the feeling of it, that's real freedom. cd shmendiman gets it