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Leon Moore

19 October 2009

The perception of normalcy in the present culture isdefined by how well one is able to fit in. A person must be able

to let go of their own beliefs, and be sucked into a world that

seeks to steal cultural identities and replace them with “the

norm”. To be normal in today’s society is to break away from

oneself and to strive to be someone else. One has to convince

themselves that he or she is normal based upon society’s

definition of normal. This disillusioned interpretation of

normal has, not surprisingly, been developed by the current

society, celebrities, and the media.

In viewing Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man”, and analyzing the

seemingly abnormal Timothy Treadwell, who spent thirteen summers

with wild Alaskan grizzly bears, the question was asked,” How

come brilliancy has to come from outside the box of normalcy?”

The image of brilliancy, much like the image normalcy, has been

seriously distorted. Brilliancy, like normalcy, starts in the

mind. It all deals with the way one thinks. Normal-minded people

tend to think inside of a box. This box restricts the higher

levels of thought that are often reached by brilliant people.

There are two problems with recognizing true brilliance.

The first is that some of the people who are stamped as

brilliant in our society are actually normal. They have tried toescape the box of their limited thinking, but allowed the “need”

to be normal to pack them further inside the box. A great

example is the explorer Christopher Columbus. Columbus almost

broke free from the box-like mentality by thinking that he could

reach India by sailing west. But upon arriving in the Americas,

Columbus then proceeded to kill and plunder like the rest of the

conquerors that conquered before him, keeping him inside the box

of society’s “normal”

The second problem with recognizing true brilliance is that

when brilliant people are honored, only the image of the person

is honored. The legacy and beliefs of the brilliant are often

left with the brilliant because they are too abnormal to conform

to. Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was a brilliant man. Unfortunately

the only thing that he is honored for is what he was widely

known for, his contribution to the civil rights movement he is

not honored in his efforts to end the militarism of our

government. Dr. King did not like how the United States acted as

the world’s super police. Now over 40 years after his death the

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United States continues to be the super police in every country

that has a problem.

True brilliance is most often achieved by the “little

people” rather in our communities than the large looming figures

in our society. True brilliance lies in the mind of the single

mother or father that is doing everything to provide for their

children with the little resources that they have. True

brilliance lies in the mind of the firefighter that runs inside

of the burning building without hesitation to save a life. They

have allowed themselves to think outside the box of fear and

failure that normal people frequent.

Now the question again arises, how come brilliance has to

come from outside the box of normalcy? It all boils down to

man’s need for competition. Someone has to be, to have, or to do

better than someone else. If everyone was brilliant, then

brilliancy would be the norm. Man would not and could not beable to compete. There would be nothing to strive for and nobody

to look up to. The world would be stuck in a cycling system of

societal socialism where everyone would be the same, where

everyone would be normal.