“Eventually everything connects — people, ideas, objects...the quality of the connections is the key to quality per se...I don't believe in this 'gifted few' concept, just in people doing things they are really interested in doing. They have a way of getting good at whatever it is.”
― Charles Eames
The combined life of Charles and Ray Eames plays out like an explosive stream of technicolour and passion. Their multidisciplinary pursuit for new ideas, forms and design is truly inspiring.
The label 'Genius' or 'Gifted' is lauded with so much weight, strength and mystery. It is unfailingly easy to dismiss anything we cannot comprehend as something beyond ourselves. Frank as that may be, there are certain faults in such an assumption. The term attains a prestige and the labelled detonates someone who possesses exceptional cleverness and achievement in their fields. Afterall, if everyone is a genius, then the meaning of the term comes to naught. However, the prestige and rarity of "geniuses" presents an image of effortlessness and as trait or gift that is uncontrollable by the individual. To categorize something or someone as a genius is to be unscrupulous and dismissive of the long arduous process and effort that are invested in the creation and execution of any idea. It robs the labelled of their effort. Our inability to understand how they get where they are/how they are able to come up with radically novel ideas and creations does not allow us the lazy luxury of not giving in enough perseverance and effort in anything we do.
The Eames couple have never identified with the label because they understood the gift of hard work and perseverance and passion. I strive to be as passionate and diligent as them.
