Genius Loves Company Benefits

My desk in the teacher’s room is the farthest away, in pure radial reckoning, from the vice-principal’s desk, which is the emotional epicenter of the room – the nerve center. I sit at the end of a block of desks, hidden from view by a column. Besides a few teachers who smile at me as they walk by or politely say ‘hello,’ or ‘goodbye,’ I don’t get a lot of unprovoked interaction action. If I walk up to someone and start talking, or flag a teacher down on her way by my desk, we might talk for seconds, perhaps even minutes, at a time. But, the ball is always in my court, it would seem.

Sitting in my corner of solitude with an encompassing view of all the other desks in the room, I have observed that my situation is a tad unique. Other teachers (not all mind you, but a substantive majority) indeed interact with each other on a more regular basis, and what’s more, the average interaction time of an interaction event is substantially longer. I have also noticed that there appears to be more laughing sub-events and general jocularity in the larger interaction event.

I wondered, naturally, if my physical position in the room was responsible for my paucity of interaction events. After all, the strength of many interaction forces in this world, electromagnetic and gravitational, for example, weakens as the distance between the players grows. Perhaps I too was subject to some inverse square law. That theory was quickly laid to rest, however, when I observed that the teacher seated directly to my right, and thus not all that much radially closer to the epicenter, consistently ranked in the top 3 in overall interaction events and in the top 7 in average length of interaction time, while some teachers much closer to the epicenter hardly broke the top 20.

If radial distance is not the culprit, I mused, surely there must be something else in my situation that dictates my dearth of interaction events. For months I puzzled over why a mid-20s, often gregarious, white male with limited Japanese language knowledge was not approached more often by his generally mid-40s, Japanese co-workers who have functioned in a predominantly homogeneous and historically wary of foreign influences society their whole lives, most of whom speak no English and are extremely busy all the time. In time I discovered the reason, and I’ll admit that I was surprised that I had not come up with it much earlier. It’s quite simple really. My co-workers shy away from me because I am a genius.

The vast majority of teachers must need climb the Tower of Knowledge to become an expert in their field, and the road up is fraught with 864 steps of loose boards, slippery boards, uneven spacings, giant gaps, riddle toting trolls, and enticing yet ultimately dead end detours. The view at the top is certainly stunning, but perhaps a little bittersweet as well, because the new expert must share the roof of the tower with the geniuses, or genii, who have already been helicopter-dropped at the top. The genii have no blisters on their feet from climbing, no scars from close encounters with trolls, and they certainly didn’t waste years of their life climbing. It also doesn’t help that genii are often socially inept and so bound to say something like, ‘Wow, this thing sure is high!’ and ‘Boy I’m glad I didn’t have to climb it.’ What’s even worse is when genii change their minds, or realize they overlooked something. At that point, they call up the helicopter and shuttle off to the next Tower, leaving a roof-full of disgruntled and probably suicidal and homicidal experts at the top of a condemned building.

Genii have some otherworldly ability to reveal and coax correct answers without so much as lifting a finger. They just know, which is incredibly frustrating to everyone else because often a genius can not explain his reasoning. An expert will go back to the books, dust off the tomes, question the witnesses, calculate and recalculate, and, finally, prove the genius’ clairvoyance. At which point he will return to the genius and say, ‘Behold! I have done it! Your answer is correct, but here is why! Here is the proof!’ The genius doesn’t care, though. He knew the answer to begin with. Then, the genius says something like, ‘Oh, I see what you did there,’ pointing to a double reverse quadrahedical anti-gravity cylindronal derivegral, known only to eight mathematicians and select goat-herders in Timubuktu, who themselves use complex flute harmonics instead of supercomputers to solve the same problem unknowingly. The genius continues, ‘That’s cute,’ as his donut crumbs and powdered sugar sprinkle the pristine report.
But, the expert can not offend or rid himself of the genii because the expert needs the genius too much. Experts, for the most part, really are concerned with the progress of knowledge, and the continuing expansion of understanding and truth. You certainly don’t climb 864 perilous steps if you aren’t genuinely invested in what’s at the top. The expert knows that a genius can push the universal understanding in leaps and bounds, bettering everyone. It’s much easier, after all, for the expert to get somewhere if he knows where he is supposed to go. Generally, the genius can give the destination, if not the path, sort of like Google Maps but without the driving directions feature.

I am an English genius. Through no special exertions, I possess an ability sought after by governments and institutions world-wide. I can look at an English sentence and immediately tell whether it is correct or not. And, what’s more, (please sit down if you are faint of heart reader) if the sentence is incorrect, I can fix it. The really crazy part is that often I don’t know why the sentence is right or wrong. I just know! This English thing is just something that I’ve been able to do as far back as I can remember.

Unfortunately, this mastery of English seems to be affecting my socializing opportunities in the work place. I have a feeling that my co-workers hesitate to disrupt me for fear of interrupting a ‘genius at work.’ I've noticed that my co-workers also can't seem to find the words, or the courage, to talk to the Korean genius and the Chinese genius either. And it is not that their fears are without foundation. If you interrupt a genius whilst he is on the cusp of formulating an idea and the idea vanishes accidentally, you might have just set humanity back decades or even centuries. Even so, I feel like I am being punished for wielding a power I never chose to bear. Would that I could, I would pass this on to someone else. As it is, I try to be as patient as I can with others who don’t have the Gift, but I fear that sometimes my frustrations might show through.

‘Excuse me, Sensei... Do you have a minute?’ she asks, barely audible.
‘Yes my child. What have you brought for me?’ I answer.
‘Oh, it’s really nothing. I can come back. It seems that you are working on something, yes? I would be loath to disturb your work. Although, if I may ask, what is it?’ she asks, awed by the convoluted pattern of boxes and scrawls on my computer screen, drawn to the fact that she recognizes the individual letters but can’t understand the meaning they have when arranged in such an unusual manner. But clearly, it is exciting.
‘Well, actually, this is not original work, but more of an exercise puzzle that another English genius has created for me. Often, we geniuses like to keep each other sharp by posing thought experiments to one another. This particular trial is a unique blend of quite advanced English grammar and vocabulary, which by itself is trivial for me, but when coupled with American cultural and historical references, as well as differential non-linear thought patterns, becomes mildly intriguing. We call it a ‘shared dual collisional apogee amalgam.’’
‘Amazing. And I suppose this up here is a shorter name for it,’ she says, pointing feebly at the screen.
‘Ummm… Yes. Yes, quite right.’
‘It seems that you are almost done with this…this… c-c-ross w-w-wor-rd po-poozle.’
‘Yes. I am. Actually I would probably be finished by now if it hadn’t been for you.’
‘Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry. I’ll come back later,’ she backs away and turns to scurry but I stop her with a wave of my hand.
‘You mean you don’t even want to know the answer to your question?’
‘What do you mean? How could you…I don’t understand… I haven’t asked yet,’ she stammers.
‘The answer of course is, ‘a three inch long worm,’ and not, ‘a three inches long worm.’ Don’t put an ‘es’ at the end of inch.’
‘I see. But what if I said, ‘that worm is three inches long!’ That is correct, isn’t it?!’ she pleads.
‘Yes, in that case you must add the ‘es.’
‘But, ‘That is a three inches long worm’ is not OK?!’
‘Precisely.’
She exhales and composes herself. Then she asks the question which even I can not answer. ‘But, why?’
‘NO NO! STOP RIGHT THERE! I can not be bothered with explanations and trivialities! Don’t waste my time with this nonsense! You have your answer. It’s 100 percent correct. Be happy with that!’
‘But, I, h-how did you know my question?’ she squeaks through.
‘I read it on the paper in your hand right there.’
Amazed, she looks at the paper and realizes for the first time the scope of my power, but still just the tip of the iceberg. ‘You read my note and anticipated the question? Even though my hand was blocking some of the letters? And then you discovered the answer in the three minutes I was here, while we talked about crossword puzzles?!’
‘My child,’ I smile to her and extend my hand. ‘It took far less than three minutes. Upon sight I knew the answer to your query. I can’t expect you to understand this power that I have, but I hope you can accept it. Now leave me. Your question has been answered. And now I must return to thinking of a word that has 7 letters and is related to ‘famous louvered windows of the French Renaissance.’