What is a genius?
Is it someone who is calm in any situation?
Is it someone who can manipulate everyone?
Is it someone who is academically brilliant?
Is it someone who is absolutely confident in their abilities to the point of arrogance?
Or is it someone who can read anyone like an open book?
The answer, I might never know.
But then, why do I want to find the meaning of "genius"?
Maybe it is because I myself want to know if I truly am a genius.
Maybe it's my insecurities that make me feel as though not being a genius means I can never achieve my goals in life.
It could be for many reasons, but the reason I believe the most has to do with the type of content and media I consumed during my pre-teen and teenage years.
Most of the characters in those stories were able to remain calm in any situation.
They could manipulate people or situations to their liking as if it were second nature.
Many were academically brilliant to an absurd degree.
They were always confident in their abilities and never backed down from any challenge.
In my pre-teen and teenage years, those were the people I wanted to be — to be able to do anything and everything without a moment of doubt or hesitation.
I truly set my standards high.
But you might ask: what is the difference between those characters and me?
The difference is that I am, was, and will always be human, and they were just characters.
Humans can never fully let go of hesitation, doubt, and insecurity.
Humans could never perfectly manipulate a person without them knowing — or at least without them doubting the manipulator's motives.
Do you know why? Because we, as humans, hesitate, doubt everything, and are insecure.
A human could never perfectly read the personality of another person.
Why? Because the human personality has so much nuance that we, ourselves, can barely understand our own.
Even though we are the ones with the personality, we still can't fully grasp it 100%, with all its nuances. How, then, can anyone else understand our personality without studying us closely?
There are ways, of course. One way is by placing people with similar personality types into categories.
People with similar personality types will mostly have the same reactions to similar situations.
But again, it's not to the same degree as those fictional characters.
This doesn't mean a person can't be a master manipulator or can't read someone's personality or be confident in their abilities.
But they can never do it to the same degree as those fictional characters.
They are always on a different level because they are characters, and we are humans.
They will never have the same nuanced personalities that we do — the insecurities and doubts we have.
So, in a way, I could never be like the characters I always looked up to.
Why do I say "in a way"? Because even after saying all this about me, I still have doubts about whether I am a genius.
That doesn't mean I never manipulate people or read their personalities at a single glance.
Still, it will always be "in a way" because, as a human, I have empathy and limits.
I could never manipulate people in the dark and twisted ways they did.
Oh, do you want to know why? Well, aren't you curious?
Okay, I'll tell you why.
There are two reasons.
First, because I, as a human, live in a society, and if anyone found out that I did what I did or wanted to do, my life would be over.
Not in a death-type way, but in the way that my social life would be finished.
I would have nowhere to go if such a thing truly happened.
As a human, I am inherently a social creature, so I can't have that.
To us humans, a social death is as bad as actually dying.
Let me give you a more accurate example:
Human society is like a group full of animals. They have their leader who makes the main decisions and the members living in it.
Now imagine if the group stopped interacting with one animal in the group.
That animal would not be able to function normally without the group they have been part of since the beginning of their life.
For that animal, it would be as if all its limbs were cut off.
The ground that it ate with, played with, slept with, and defended for all its life — losing that would be the worst thing that could happen to it. Even death might not compare.
Our human society is just like this group, except with more animals in it.
And the second reason?
Well, the second is for me to know and you to find out.
So, in the end, I can never truly find out if I am a genius similar to those characters.
...
...
...
Well, there is one way: to have a stage where I could do all this without any societal repercussions.
Like a fresh start, with no personal or social chains binding me.
Then maybe I could find out if I truly were a genius.
Not that it will ever be possible.
"Haa" I sighed for the nth time tonight .
"Man, I really have a problem in the head".
I couldn't help but chuckle after saying this. Well, I guess it's time to go to sleep.
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Hey, law_of_luck here.
The main character is meant to be a genius. What do you think about this idea? I'd love to hear your opinions.
And if you have any advice or criticism about my writing, please do let me know.
Thank you for reading the chapter.