swallow it down, jagged little pill

so a little late, but i just heard about the mathematician Grigori Perelman who was awarded the Fields medal, in 2006 - basically the math equivalent to the oscars, but decided to reject it. someone in the committee spent a day or two trying to convince him, that there was no harm, in taking an award for solving one of the most complex mathematical problems to date. in fact it took mathematicians years to figure that his solution was actually correct..anyway more recently though, he rejected a million dollars for winning the millenium prize problem.


ok seriously, who does that?

i took abstract algebra on a lark in my undergrad years during summer school ie when the homeworks are longer, weeks are shorter and you are practically living and breathing those three courses that you signed up for .i can say for sure it was one of the most challenging courses i took and even after the course was over, i was confused on whether i actually learnt anything at all, forget the practicality aspect.

on a randomn but similar track (aah the confusion!) is this news article about a european girl who woke up from a coma and started speaking fluent german despite knowing very little german prior to the coma

which brings me to the question. very simplistically, are we really all geniuses (or in fact is being genius the norm,ie we haven't scratched the surface of our potential), and all we need is to figure out the correct wiring of our brain, in order to trigger our geniusness?