A Rant? Surely you Jest!

STOP CALLING ME SHIRLEY!


I like to think of myself as a helpful fellow. I like to think that most of my fellow students, teachers compatriots, coworkers, bosses, underlings, think of me that way too. '

Every little place I find myself seems to have the token genius who seems to know everything about the topic at hand, but never shares their information. Now, like a white haired man once told me, there is a huge difference between being and seeming, and that is precisely why these types never share their knowledge.

Most people who know me will probably roll their eyes and say "Oh that fat Tony, he's such a know-it-all." But if you ask them, they'll also tell you that I gladly and enthusiastically share whatever information I have, humbly reminding everyone that I could most definitely be wrong - not because I doubt myself, but because I'm one of those pilots who's smart enough to know how dumb he is. (Did I mention I'm a pilot? It's hardly relevant, I think. I also knowingly use the word 'dumb' incorrectly)

So many years ago I came to a point in a journey where I had only slightly more information than those around me, but I shared it as much as I could. The others shared their information with me too, except for the token genius. He hoarded information like some sort of knowledge miser. And we all believed him to be a legitimate genius. He'd make outlandish claims, and they seemingly became true. I never did find out just how much he knew, or how much more than me he knew, and by the end of that part of the journey, when I knew I'd be starting another around that time, I was hardly the guru I was when I had started.

A decade later I find myself starting out on the same journey, with the advantage of being some one who had walked that path - and a few others - before. I knew what to expect. I'd already seen some of those twists and turns, and climbed a few of those mountains and crossed some of those streams, while still other streams that I had become very intimately familiar with had dried up to little creeks or nothing more than a depression in the ground.

ARE THESE DAMNED METAPHORS WORKING FOR YOU?!

Again, I emphatically share the knowledge I have with others, and when I hit a snag, those people reciprocate. It's not why I share knowledge, but it's a nice little bonus. Some of the people may have called me a smarty-smarty type guy, but that's only because I have had more time to learn what they're just now starting to learn. Or, maybe that's partly it, and partly because a smart person knows that feeding my crippled ego goes a long way with me, I hate to admit.

In any case, if I have even one iota more information than the others, i like to share it, because, after all, information wants to be free. And if I'm going to be labeled, I prefer the term guru to that of genius, because a guru teaches, a genius is just a certifiable smart-ass. 

Of course using the words guru and genius, I'm going way out on a limb, and feeding my own ego. But whatever, you get the picture. Now instead of imagining that I'm way better at whatever it is that I do than the people around me, imagine that the gurus and geniuses (myself included) are only slightly better than everyone around us, and that's only because we're all students, but some of us have been studying the subject matter longer than others, and that's the only difference.

So, of course, on this journey, there is a token genius. We had a difficult task one night, and I, as usual, collaborated with my peers. It was regular old team-work. I will point out that most of the flow of information was out of me, and in to everyone else. I point that out to draw contrast between myself (the self proclaimed guru) and the token (and not so humble) genius.

Stay tuned for my blog that
explains why you're using the
word "meme" incorrectly.

At the half way point of this task, the token genius claimed that she had discovered the hidden information that we were all seeking. This is the same person that I had helped many many times with very simple tasks for the sheer joy of sharing knowledge. Why then, when I asked her not what the information was, but where I should look for it, she said 'Oops, I can't remember. Guess you'll have to find out where to look for it on your own." She snubbed me, and without realizing it, snubbed the entire group as well, since we all  wanted to know where to look.

I've since given up trying to understand the why of these people. After coming to some conjectured conclusions of their motives that satisfied my curiosity, I've since moved on to the question of how to deal with these people. The first time around, my conflict with the token genius escalated over two years to fisticuffs. (If your wondering, I broke his face, then he tried to run me over, and I called him.... a cat, and people laughed at him. I shouldn't have let it get that far, but at the same time, I don't care, really)

But what am I going to do now? Nowadays, I'm too smart to get into a physical altercation with anyone. The last time, before fighting the token genius, I first tried sharing the knowledge I had with him in hopes that he would share his knowledge with everyone else. When that didn't work, I tried to expose him as the phony I thought he was. That didn't work because either he A) really was as smart as he lead us to believe, or B) was just that good at bullshitting us. Or, maybe it was C) mommy had a shit ton of cash laying around and a very guilty conscious, so she bought her troubled teen's affection, which led to him getting into the right typed of trouble, just enough to get noticed, and that's how he got that job at the local ISP. And finally, I resigned myself to that fact that I wasn't going to win this battle, and tried to keep out of his way (which he misinterpreted as weakness, and his move to 'up the ante', which led to his impromptu facial recognition, as young men are prone to do when full of hormones.)

Now, as I said, I'm far removed from that youthful version of myself. I'm not going to fight anybody. I'm too old and too smart for that. But the question remains, what do I do about this current 'genius'? Befriending, confronting, and ignoring have all failed in the past.  I could hypothesize that ignoring failed because I had first tried befriending, and then confronting. It is possible that if I chose to ignore her now, there won't be any conflict later. This is important, since I will undoubtedly have to work with her in the future, and in any business, I need as many friends as possible.

My fear is that we'll get along just fine, but when it comes down to the wire, she's going to be the one to get that fancy high paying job, while I'm left behind, once again. Sure, in the past, I left IT to pursue a career in aviation, and have returned to computers when the wallets shrank (It's money that keeps an airplane in the air, not this 'lift' bullshit nerds keep talking about), but I had tried to get an IT job in the interim, and that failed. My grades and internships were amazing, and my teachers and bosses loved me, and knew that I was the 'go-to' guy with just about every problem, but that dumb-ass genius would just drop some LSD, talk about suicide, have mommy buy him a better car stereo, and then get a swank IT job. So I've got to do something differently.

What I'd really like to do is, the next time she asks  me for some information, remind her that her time was too precious for her to share info with me when I really needed it, and then tell her to go fuck off, but I don't think that will garner the results I'm after. For now, I'm going to wing it. I'm going to play it by ear, be as nice to everyone as I always am, and just very carefully test the waters and see what I should do.

Maybe I'll ask for some advice in real life too. Writing about it here helps me clear my head after two very terrible weeks for me. I keep telling myself that these two weeks weren't really that bad - no one died or got sick or injured, we're not homeless, no one's in jail - but it seems worse. Whatever. I'm over it.

Epilogue. 

(not really an epilogue. A footnote, perhaps?)

One would think that after dry-humping a thesaurus as much as I have, I wouldn't need to resort to foul language to get a point across. 

One would think.