Scenus: You Don’t Have To Be A Genius

“Well, I am just an average Joe, why would anyone care about what I have to say?” - You, probably.

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Have you ever look at someone who is extremely talented, whether he or she is an artist or a professional athlete, and you say to yourself, “Man, rest of us just gotta accept an ordinary life of mediocrity.“

Sure, if you are incredibility gifted at singing or has superhuman intelligence, you might have a slight advantage over the ordinary folks.  This blog post isn’t about the cliché hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. It is, however, about challenging the flawed idea that you must be the best at something to show your work.  In other words, challenging the, “Well, I am just an average Joe, why would anyone care about what I have to say?

I find that way of thinking to be utterly suffocating. The concept of “lone geniuses” paints geniuses and prodigies as these superhuman individuals with their God-given abilities or becoming extremely intelligent after being struck by lightning one night.  This genius, then, spends his or her life in the workspace crafting a masterpiece to show the world.  This concept is referring to great people like Mozart, Einstein, Picasso, and many more.  If you really do think that an average person has no place to express his or her ideas, then individuals with utmost talents are the only ones permitted to create while the rest of us are “left to stand around and gawk in awe at their achievements” -Austin Kleon,  Show Your Work.

Instead of thinking that you must have the most amount of talent or be an expert at something to create, there is a much healthier way of thinking: “Scenius.”  This model was first proposed by Brian Eno, and he defines it as “the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.”  Under scenus-ism, great ideas are the collective contribution of a community; and with the advancement of technology, it is now easier than ever have your ideas shared. 

Scenus-ism doesn’t take away the achievement and greatness of the great individuals we mentioned; instead, it redefines the concept of great ideas under the modern world of digitalization: the collective effort of connected minds.