This is an interesting story from the NYT about the correlation between genius and misfit. Obviously the headline caught my attention because I am a genius and I’ve been called a misfit.

The article references a 1962 book by Thomas Kuhn called “The Structure of Scientific Revolution,” which said that identifying “paradigm shifts” was the key to advances in science and technology.

Here’s the quote from the article that really got me:

The often-ignored side of the Kuhn theory is that for long stretches of time, the frontier of science and technology is ruled by diligent people who are quietly filling in the grand vision that spawned a new paradigm in the first place.

These people are heroes of their own sort, keeping the home fires burning until the reigning paradigm is played out. “The celebration of misfits promotes a worrisome anti-intellectualism and presents a distorted picture of the innovation process,” says Mr. Hollinger, the historian.

So where do I fit in? I’m not sure I have the risk tolerance to create a “paradigm shift” like the home computer.  But given my tendency to hero-worship, it’s hard to imagine being happy with anything less than a paradigm shift.

Maybe, like most 20-somethings, I’m just struggling with limits.  But I think this is a problem that runs pretty deep in our culture.  We worship the lucky ones and call them “misfits,” and we ignore the contributions of incremental innovators.  Perhaps growing up is a steady process of learning how to be happy with ourselves?

Also, what is innovation? Does it require truly original ideas? Is there such a thing as a truly original idea? Every good idea I can think of was essentially an incremental combination of other good ideas.  (Ayn Rand might disagree, but it’s about time I thought for myself a bit…)

Perhaps we set our sights too high.  A wise person once told me: “Strive to be average, and your performance will rise.”