'Now, professor, as one of the world's leading thinkers, can you tell our readership what makes a genius?'

'Firstly, I am too modest to sing my own praises, so thank you for doing it for me.

'Crazy thinking is what makes a genius. The hoi-polloi are only interested in football, cars and drinking, so spend very little time thinking – and that is just the women!'

(They both laugh at the little joke, a very little joke).

'No, but seriously it takes effort and skill to make these leaps across the barrier of restraining logic to A) discover the truth or B) be creative with the facts at your disposal, to create a profound theory, to explain some strange phenomena, that perplexes lesser minds.'

'So, can anyone do this, then?'

'Potentially, but most people are too lazy and suffer from overwhelming ethical cowardice, to plunge into the pit of their own dark ignorance and grab the cord that switches on the light of their own magnificence instead. I say this of course in all humility.'

'Are you sure about that?'

(They both laugh again at another of their little in jokes).

'So, hard work –'

' – and the joy of exploration –'

' – creates geniuses like you?'

'Basically, yes. Hard work is never enough on its own or every road sweeper, every builder in the world would be a genius. No, you have to have some goal that drives you and involves you indiscovering or creating the new, the unknown, the different. If we don't have that, we as individuals or societies, get stuck in a rut and are no better than the cattle in the field, the mud on my shoe or the whisky in my hip flask. This of course is not to distract from the reality and need for all or some of these in our lives – not the mud, of course. Without my wife to get my breakfast, my valet to dress me, my secretary to deal with my correspondance and my classroom assistant George to set up my work space for the day, I would be forced to do all this myself and would have as little time to do this as they do, ruminating about life's great questions.'

'Thank you, professor. I think our readership will now have a greater understanding of the inner workings, of a great mind like yours.'

'You are too kind – in fact you are three kind. That's a little joke, by the way.'

'Yes, professor, I get it.'

'Good, I wouldn't want it to go over your head.'

'It didn't.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

(silence ensues)

'Well, goodbye, then.'

(They shake hands and after an awkward few seconds, the interviewer leaves.)

'Strange man,' the professor says to himself.

'Strange man...' the journalist thinks to himself as he walks up the garden path.

Paigetheoracle

03.02.20 Front Page

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