I was reading Albert Camus’s famous lecture, “Create Dangerously,” when I came across this sentence: “A man’s obedience to his own genius,” Emerson says magnificently, “is faith in its purest form.”

Bruce George, originally of Def Poetry Jam, has led the way for a new movement called Genius Is Common.

Genius Is Common is what George calls the “tearing down the Berlin Wall of the word genius.” At a recent poetry workshop I attended, George spoke about the relationship of the word genius to the word genie, that the etymology of genius is a tutelary spirit that guides you. It also defined as your innate, personal ability and power (gene-, engine, engineer).

As George says, “’Genius is Common’ means that all beings have a genius in them. Genius manifests itself through each being’s own unique way of expressing their passion, be it their profession, their art, their talent. A woman from the inner city who knows how to micro braid hair like Picasso painted, that’s her talent, her skill and genius. [It] levels the playing field of who and what is traditionally thought to be a genius.”

Manifest your genius!

Watch below my video where I say what my genius is!