An Acceleration of Calling

In times of change, just as in periods of personal crisis, there can be intensification and an acceleration of calling. Whether it comes as a daunting challenge or a crushing blunder, a big dream or a cutting loss, each major life event has within it an opportunity to awaken to the call of the deeper self and the resident genius of the soul.

What calls us calls for the giving of the inherent gifts and natural talents we brought to life to begin with. What calls to us calls to the dream set within our soul before we were born. Because each soul is unique, calling comes differently to each person. There is no pattern into which we must fit, because it is the unique pattern at the core of each soul that is the aim of the calling. Because what calls to us is timeless, the calling can come at any time. At each turn in the road our life’s work awaits us; thus, our calling keeps calling no matter our age, position, or condition in life.

In answering the call we must depart from the common maps and follow where spirit would have us go; for the aim of spirit in each life involves something uncommon and exceptional. Answering the call opens pathways of genius and imagination that can lead to finding one’s “dharma” or natural way of being in life and serving in the world. We are each called to become more fully ourselves and our transformation liberates our spirit, but it also serves something beyond ourselves. In transforming each of us, genius also transforms the world.

The problem isn’t a lack of calling, for each of us is called to bring something meaningful to life. Calling and vocation are part of the ancient sense of being born into an adventure of self-discovery aimed at awakening to greater consciousness and life purpose. The problem is that most people now fail to hear the call or else fail to answer to it, so that there can be little evidence of genuine calling to learn from or be encouraged by. The problem is hearing the call amidst increasing levels of distraction and confusion in modern life.

Genius points to something deeply ingrained, markedly original, and ultimately transcendent in human nature.

Although widely accepted in traditional cultures, the idea that genius is an original spirit residing in each soul causes problems in modern societies based upon objectivity, rationality, and scientific methods. Modern people tend to talk about things that are useful to them without realizing that the most useful thing in the world is to know who you are at the core of your life and what you are intended to serve in this world. The call to awakening that has been the inherited opportunity of each soul born becomes harder and harder to hear because of all the distractions and misinformation and blatant superficiality of life.

During the statistical era and the age of information, genius becomes reduced to something quantifiable that can be proven, measured, and even developed by will power and hard work. In some cases, genius does appear as high intellect or reason, yet in others it might appear as surpassing imagination, inspired innovation, or even deep compassion. The presence of genius can be awe-inspiring; however, our understanding of genius now suffers from attempts to reduce it to something measurable and controllable.

Genius has its own logic and is a presence of a different order. Genius is a mythological presence that must be intuited in one’s own soul. Although it cannot be factually proven to be present, the presence of genius is a fact of life and a defining issue of each person’s true identity.

No one can simply prove that human genius exists; yet we know it when we see it and feel it when we hear it. We celebrate its presence in all the awards that must be given out each year as if we must continuously mark its presence, just as its presence continues to mark each person born as unique and worth celebrating in some way. Each time we celebrate the genius qualities or accomplishments of those who succeed, we are unwittingly blessing the genius that each carries within; for everyone has some genius.

As the source of uniqueness and spark of individual life, genius is an indelible, if often overlooked, element of the human soul.

Whether it is called a guardian angel or an inner muse, a divine twin or the genius within us, this original resident spirit of the soul gives each person inner purpose and a unique way of perceiving life. The genius of a person refers to a distinct and distinguishing complex of inner gifts, innate talents and native potentials. It is also a unique style or way of being that characterizes each person from within. Genius is the inner spark and spirit that animates each soul, making each person born unique and never to be repeated again. Genius also makes us purposeful and meaningful from within.

When human efforts are reduced to blind production and consumption, life becomes reduced to consuming the world and being consumed with the obvious. People become increasingly available to distractions and obsessions, to trivia and nostalgia. Under the rule of literalism and the dominance of a statistical world view, the children of modern mass cultures can easily find themselves feeling devoid of all purpose and lacking in direction exactly at the time when you would expect them to awaken to a meaningful life. What seems troubling in a new way is that hordes of young people, both educated and less fortunate, enter independent life believing that they are empty inside and lacking any inherent purpose for being in this world.

The myth of the modern world is that this world has no meaning, that it has no center and that we, who find ourselves in the midst of a random universe, are simply accidental beings, both empty of a personal center and lacking in any essential purpose in life. The genius myth offers the sense that each soul enters this world gifted in certain ways and is distinctly shaped from within. In the same way that each infant arrives with a unique set of fingerprints as well as precise brain printing, each soul bears an inner imprint and unique psychic pattern. Human nature includes the hallmark of genius and a stamp of uniqueness provided by great nature. Nature produces life on a massive scale, yet each person born remains singular, never to be repeated. Just as there is no such thing as an average rainfall or an average tree, there is no such thing as an average person. We each stand on the common ground of life with our own way of being present and our own once in a lifetime chance at becoming the person we are intended to be.

Genius stamps each soul as rare and valuable in some way that can both satisfy the individual and serve the world. When seen as an archetypal presence in the soul, human genius marks each person—regardless of age, gender orientation, ethnicity, or social status—as being essentially unique and inherently valuable. More than raw talent or potential ability, genius gives a person their unique way of being in and contributing to the world.

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