Genius Grants

“How the hell have I not won a MacArthur Foundation ‘Genius Grant’?” you ask aloud, voice brimming with indignation. “Who the fuck are these clowns they’re picking instead of me?”

You’ve been a little obsessed with the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation lately, ever since you started listening to Public Radio, ever since you Googled the vaguely familiar name of the foundation that seemed to sponsor literally everything on NPR. That was when you first learned of their annual grants, the MacArthur Fellowships; that’s when you first fell in love with an idea.

The concept of recognizing and rewarding creative genius immediately resonated with you, in both an abstract, and yet personally specific, manner. Initially spurred on by curiosity, you studied up on the foundation, consuming all you could about the fellowship. Soon, though, casual interest gave way to something else. The thing that the fellowships stood for was concrete, it was true. You absorbed it, consumed it, personalized it. You thought back to elementary school, how indescribably apart from the others you’d felt; what a free-thinker you’d been and still were, still could be. You dwelled among your memories. Only then could you admit how deeply it stung you that your own creative genius had gone largely unnoticed and unappreciated. Only then did you exhume the ancient frustrations you’d buried deep, angst from harboring a genius so obvious that it should have only taken the briefest of conversations for one to recognize and appreciate its presence. The resentment never died, and you are surprised by how easily it swells into life with just the smallest bit of fresh air and sunlight.

As you internalized more about the MacArthur Foundation, your imagination departed on a bit of a fantasy cruise, and you found yourself dedicating large blocks of time to envisioning what winning one would feel like, how satisfying it would be when people you knew discovered this surprising turn your life had taken. The fellowship became meaningful, the most meaningful thing in your life, the only thing in your life that mattered anymore. You would gladly surrender your previous identity, meticulously carved out as it had been, in order to don the trappings, the literal skin if necessary, of a MacArthur Fellow.

You left no scenario unexplored, no possible detail neglected. A morning shower stretches beyond thirty minutes because you can’t stop imagining how that first phone call from the Selection Committee would go; when it could possibly come (What if they called while I was on the toilet? How perfect would it be if they called during my annual review at work?); who might be there with you (You’d love to share such a moment with your Mom, but how awesome would it be if you just happened to bump into your ex when they called?); and what your response to the good news might be (You eventually settle on dignified, humble, and surprised but don’t completely rule out a haughty, triumphant laugh). Thoughts of the award tempt you at all hours of the day, but especially in the evenings as you unwind from a disappointing day at the office. You place your imagination on repeat and close your eyes, reclining, drifting away to soothing visions of a someday you confirming the award to everyone you’ve ever known.

“I’m as shocked as you are,” you say. “I never even considered the possibility of something like this happening.” You believe what you tell them.

“I never held a grudge against you for being blind to my talents,” you assuage them. “It’s like I always say: you can’t blame the simpleton for being so simple. No, I actually made that up myself.”

Eventually, though, the daydreams no longer soothe. Eventually, after an excessive number of repeated scenarios, your inner critic inevitably returns from exile to pose the question: “Could you realistically even win one of these?” It doesn’t feel very good and the question just sort of rolls around in your mind, like a marble in a big ceramic bowl. You quickly distract yourself, hoping the internet can change the subject for you.

But you never truly notice the asymmetry between your imagined sense of fulfillment from winning a ‘genius grant’ and the rewarding experience inherent to actually creating something that would merit the fellowship in the first place. There is no means for you, only a single end, which actually would function as a means itself, one that would, in turn, lead to an innumerable number of further ends. You strive to fend off the persistent reminder that, in order to win a fellowship, you’re going to need a body of work for the committee to evaluate. This reminder is otherwise known as reality. Sure, you haven’t actually finished one of your short stories yet, but anyone who reads the parts that you have written would be hard-pressed to deny the presence of real talent. And what about that blog you had going back in 2003 and 2004? You were getting hundreds of visitors per day at your peak – not too bad.

Unregulated curiosity collides with a pathological penchant for all things negative, and you soon find yourself under the control of your inner tormentor, whom you catch sadistically poring over the list of last year’s winners. Fear of a distant and indecipherable concept that you think might be ‘being realistic‘ holds you at bay, but only for a futilely short period of time, and you eventually sidle up next to the twisted part of you that loves this kind of shit. Sitting cross-legged you whine, “Quit hogging the iPad, I want to see, too.”

You are horrified by what you read in each profile piece, as the magnitude of exactly what is required becomes evident. And while you also hate that past winners are becoming real, live people to you, at least you can accept that a few of the winners each year are chosen from arcane fields like modern science, your eyes practically glazing over as you slowly disassemble the word “neuroendocrinologist”. And you can also deal with the musicians and artists for similar reasons, seeing them as you direct competitors about as much as a football player would view a left fielder. You can pretty much handle all of the various professions and specialties until you arrive at the names of last year’s winners in writing, and then suddenly your vision is overtaken by the color red.

One name in particular, Junot Diaz, flings you into the past, to a very specific, very vivid memory from last year. You recall the scene that name has reconstructed and you don’t feel happy about being back. It was Fall and you were walking your girlfriend at the time back to the Tribune Building, where she worked. You’d only been dating her for a few months, but you were enamored. The two of you had eaten your sandwiches by the river and now it was time for her to get back to work. She asked if you’d read “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” and you just couldn’t help yourself, could you? Instead of simply answering “I have, but tell me what you think of it”; instead of allowing her to share her thoughts on a book she’d obviously enjoyed; instead of maintaining your relatively effective impersonation of a well-adjusted person, you chose that specific moment to demonstrate just how clever you were by derisively poo-pooing the book, quipping, “So overrated. People get excited about the dumbest shit – just because the guy splices Latin-American vernacular amongst halfway decent sentence construction, all of a sudden people think he’s some kind of genius?” The look she gave you in return, surprise flashing across her widened eyes, the thoughtful pause that considered what sort of person would even consider saying such a thing, her short reply that she’d actually enjoyed it and thought Diaz to be an incredible writer, and finally, the deflating embrace she’d given you before saying goodbye, more formal than before; it was all foreshadowing. The end was already close by that point, you’d just been too self-absorbed to have seen it coming. Junot Diaz wound up winning a MacArthur a few months later, and all you did was find yourself alone again.

You try to salvage a daydream that would vindicate you, but you’ve already accepted the truth. Make-believe time is over. You will not win a MacArthur Fellowship, you will never be able to prove yourself to her.