Tesla was robbed!
He was also a genius ahead of his time.
For those of you who don’t know who Tesla is (not the car, the man), he invented AC motors and “wireless communication” (radio)–his work is literally the bedrock of our modern age. Yet, he died penniless and heartbroken when his favorite pigeon when to Pigeon Heaven.
Tesla’s obsessive search for a solution to the AC motor problem gave us the invention that made electrification of the world possible. That same obsessiveness drove him to build a tower to bring free energy to everyone on the planet–a fruitless quest that snapped that thin tether holding him in the world.
I have to wonder how a man like Tesla would have fared in a world more accepting and understanding of neuro-atypical behavior. Would we try to medicate away Tesla’s genius? Or would medication help tame his demons and allow his genius to flower rather than consume him? Or maybe we would just understand that genius can sit beside mental illness, and that would allow us to benefit from the full heft of his intellectual might.
I watched a fascinating documentary on Tesla last night, and there was one quote that I strongly disagreed with–“Part of creativity is knowing how to communicate that to the world.”
No. It’s not. Creativity is completely separate from that practical ability to render one’s work in a way that is understood by others. Much like creating a novel is a completely separate process from *marketing* a novel–I do both on a regular basis, and I can tell you with certitude that they involve different parts of the brain.
I understand the point–creativity that cannot be communicated is lost to the larger world. But not every person will be able to do all the things… that doesn’t mean we should lose their gifts.
What Tesla needed was a partner. A Watson to his Sherlock (or a male-female version of that relationship).
It is our loss that he didn’t find one.