THE GENIUS GENE

Reading or hearing a word for the first time, now suddenly we seem to keep bumping into it. Cliches, however, seem to keep bumping into us. They've always been around. Always asserting their special kinds of truth and wisdom. However, not so among the literati. For them, cliches are dismissed as uninformed tribal sayings, old-wives-tales, downright nonsense in a very sensible age.

I wonder.

Cliches -- like dismissed religiosity -- have somehow been around so long, the cynic has to grant there must be a hearty grain of truth here. Or, to mix metaphors, cliches are like the pimento in the olives; they may actually be what makes the olive so edible.

The Iroquois had this cliche: "Rain before seven ends by eleven." Personally, I have always found that cliche more accurate than my morning newspaper. Franklin's: "Stitch in time saves nine" has never to my knowledge proved wrong. Then there's the one that describes the greatness of great artists thusly: "A gift of God."

That last one has always seemed true enough when it comes to the genius of a Michelangelo, Shakespeare, Mozart, or Micheal Jordan. However, here the literati of modern biology have eagerly pursued the evolutionary genetics that may someday more precisely explain such genius. Now to my knowledge, they have yet to identify the genes that have and can trigger such genius. However, not so primitive as to accept the cliche, some biologists continue their search for the Genius Gene.

Were one to be found -- say like Richard Dawkins' much publicized God Gene -- some of us would be confronted with the great Orwellian Dilemma. Namely, the stunning price of knowledge. With each new door new knowledge opens to us, another old door is closed on us. Doors like myths, legends, dreams, mystery, magic, and an insuperable kind of youthful joy that only aged facts have a way of slaying.

Till then, some of us will cling to the young joys of summertime romances, autumnal Halloween nights, winter Christmas Eves, and year round heaven-inspired-symphonies. Cliches, every happy one of them....!