GENIUSES

I’ve had a problem with my MacBook’s email client for at least two months but did nothing about it. All I needed to do was march my lazy self to the “Genius Bar” at my neighborhood Mac Store and wait a few minutes for help that likely would take a nano-percentage of my life. But the reluctance, the complacency, the “put-up-with-this-ness” of my character. I marvel at how someone who claims to be solutions oriented tends to procrastinate.

The question is whether or not this is a common malady – the notion of people not listening to sound advice let alone seeking it. Am I alone in my contentedness that sometimes allows me to go months without changing simply because it’s easier to stay the same? For a more somber reference, let’s shift attention to the National Basketball Association past for today’s lesson. ESPN’s 30 for 30 featured a great piece on the late Len Bias, the Maryland basketball star who died due to cocaine induced cardiac arrest the day after the Boston Celtics drafted him in 1986. Bias’ skill, athleticism and dominance made him a virtual lock to change the course of basketball lore a la Mike Jordan. But Bias, like so many other athletes since, ignored the “geniuses,” at least at one crucial moment. The geniuses were easily his parents. But on the morning he died, he wasn’t with geniuses. Quite the contrary.

When a friend of mine who directs basketball camps showed the 30 for 30 clip to campers, they seemed dumbfounded. Footage of a man who played 25 years ago still impressed young aspiring athletes. The power, ferocity and precision of Bias’ game reminded me of the timelessness of a perfected craft. And yet also timeless is the foolish deference a person can make to unwise people and activities. Maybe a genius is merely someone who not only knows what you do not but they are willing to share such insights with you. And upon discovery of the genius you say, “Brilliant! Thanks man.” But what follows the epiphany is the harder step. After discovery comes the willingness stage in which you have to commit to the habit of seeking knowledge and acting upon it. Habits are synonymous with defaults and when your defaults are quality…you are quality.

When I watched the 30 for 30 piece on Len Bias, I couldn’t believe cocaine had killed him. I forgot how cocaine and crack’s advent set the inner cities of America aflame in the 1980s. I forgot about the dope dealers with the hydraulic truck beds bouncin’ to beat “outta dem sub woofers.” I had forgotten how easily I could have ben Len Bias minus the geniuses who overrode my indiscretions prior to high school and gave me the third degree about my “associates” and their habits. 30 for 30 brought it all back to me and while I was thinking,  “What was he thinking?” I realized you could insert the naive factor in the place of cocaine. We’ve all been Len Bias; we just haven’t all overdosed to the point of seizures and cardiac arrest. The name of the drug doesn’t matter. Bottom line is that when your dream beckons, your vocation, your calling…you can best believe something in the non-genius category will present itself as a worthy alternative. The hope is that when those moments or that moment arrives, you will have the habit of seeking wisdom as a shield.

²⁰ Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
she raises her voice in the public square;
²¹ on top of the wall^[d] she cries out,
at the city gate she makes her speech:

²² “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?
²³ Repent at my rebuke!
Then I will pour out my thoughts to you,
I will make known to you my teachings.

Proverbs 1:20-23

New International Version (NIV)

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