Strands of Genius: On Plagiarism, The Cult of the Enhanced Self, Please Return To Your Seat

Strands of Genius is a newsletter from the co-founders of Genius Steals, Faris & Rosie Yakob.

They are award-winning strategists, facilitators, creative directors, writers and public speakers who get excited about working with smart people on interesting challenges.

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We just got back from seeing our lovely god daughter and her family in Italy and it was once again very hot, but delightful nonetheless. We are in our last few days on this side of the Atlantic and this summer has really sparked something in us. Last summer, we shortened our trip to spend more time in the USA. This summer, we’re wishing we had longer. (Yes, even in spite of the heat waves!)

While we love our home in Chattanooga, it’s been a long journey to build community there, to find people with shared perspectives, or a similar sense of humor. We’re still doing it, but it’s been hard and it feels like we have to be careful about how we present ourselves in the South. Whereas here in London we can just be ourselves. There’s something to be said for the immense value that comes from not having to mask a part of yourself. (There’s also something to be said for central air conditioning… ha!)

We’ve always thought we’d live in London for some part of our lives, but this summer has us thinking maybe we should try to make that a reality sooner rather than later. (Should we?!) Lots to think about on our flight home at the end of the week ;)

ON PLAGIARISM

• It’s been a minute since we had a piece around the titular thesis of Genius Steals and our beliefs about creativity and the thresholds of originality. So here’s a fresh one from famed literary critic and theorist Terry Eagleton. [He literally wrote the text book intro to literary theory. ‘Literary theory: an introduction’ has sold 750,000 copies. That is A LOT.]

  “Even so, there’s a sense in which what we say is always borrowed from others. “I love you” is always a quotation, however sincerely one may intend it.

  
  All language is second-hand, reach-me-down, off-the-peg, and clichés are simply those bits of it where this is blatantly obvious.

  
  An entirely original utterance, like the message of an alien, would be incomprehensible.”

  “The truth is everything is shop-soiled, tarnished, woven out of something else.”
  

  How then, does anything that feels new appear? Everything is built from that which came before, but change need not only be incremental. This applies to politics and society as much as our flavors of creativity.

THE CULT OF THE ENHANCED SELF

• Derek Thompson is one of my favorite writers over at The Atlantic, and he just published a really thoughtful piece on his Substack. He describes the enhanced self as such: “The Enhanced Self is the evolution of medicine, technology, and consumer culture from an emphasis on curing illness to an obsession with optimizing normal, healthy life. We see this with the rise of GLP-1s, the explosion in biohacking with peptides(injectables that affect inflammation and gut health and are also the “P” in GLP), and the continued growth of supplements. More Americans are using therapies not only to cure what is wrong with them but also to improve what is not wrong with them.” (emphasis is mine). Thompson says there are three pillars to this cult: optimization as the new virtue, fitness as the new class marker, and health as the ultimate job. But, the pursuit of health can go too far, and sometimes it even comes at the expenses of others. These pillars are rooted in individualism, in fact “many of them are inherently solitary,” Thompson writes. “It is no coincidence that the age of the Enhanced Self is also an age of aloneness.” It’s really interesting to think about the forces at play, and Thompson - as usual - does a great job with sharing perspectives that leads my thinking down different paths.

PLEASE RETURN TO YOUR SEAT

• When I was younger, I remember hearing about the golden days of flying and thinking ‘well, it’s not that bad today.’ But that was 15-20 years ago now, and in that time, it seems our flying experience has degraded even further. And yet, we who travel must accept the requirements of traveling by plane. Scott Monaco has written a piece that details our collective torment when traveling by plane. It starts with “No one on this plane is here for the plane. We have each spent a great deal of money specifically to be somewhere else. But to get there, we must first sit still for thirteen hours in a sealed tube with two hundred strangers.” and “We are a miniature society now, and the injustices began before takeoff.” I was giggling out loud, and then moaning in despair remembering we have a long day of flying ahead of us in only a few sleeps.

In a world awash with mis- and disinformation, reality becomes ever more malleable, warping in response to strongly felt emotions and the secret rules everyone holds everyone else accountable to. We cannot control what others say about us, what others do, or much else in this world we must still live in and attempt to navigate.

This week, we’re writing to you from Surrey. We’re especially thankful for:

everyone who has made this such a wonderful summer - Dad, Makbulla, Berna, Amal, Janka, Lucy&Rich&George&Lilly, Andy&Tanya&Elsa, Ty&Alayna&Henry&Seren, Cordy&Louis, Matt&Anthony&Sam, Steph&Helen, Nazia&Dave, Asad&Dan, Sam&Lizzie, Polly&Gregg&Oscar&Casper, Clare&James, Sara, Antonia&Ronan, Sibilla&Aran&Lily&Max, all the dishes from our farewell BBQ (gah, our friends are like… really good in the kitchen!) & YOU!

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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing [“Ex nihilo nihil fit”]. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. We have a distributed team ourselves, an accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)