Accidental Genius

I’m at an age when little surprises me. When you reach seasoned middle-age ‘been there, seen that’ becomes the prevailing attitude. However, I was amazed—indeed somewhat shocked—when I heard about acquired savant syndrome which makes geniuses out of ordinary people following a trauma.

Take the case of a Colorado man who began playing the piano like a virtuoso after a bad pool accident. The forty-six-year-old was a very ordinary person who never had any musical training of any kind, yet after he recovered he felt the need to play the piano, which he did … like a prodigy. Music is now his life. He plays classical to pop as he sees it in his head.

Isn’t that amazing? There are only a few people in the world who have experienced this type of phenomena. An elderly woman became of prodigious artist although she never had any training in this area after being diagnosed with dementia. A young boy who was hit by a baseball now has an amazing memory for numbers and dates. A man who survived a stroke suddenly became a poet and a sculptor.

Makes me wonder if we all have artistic abilities hidden somewhere in our brains. The challenge, of course, is to bring those abilities to the forefront without having to injure ourselves. But then again, why is it only a few people who can awaken these talents, and not everyone who has a head injury of one stripe or another? Quite a conundrum for researchers.

I am somewhat envious of those who can sing since I was born totally tone deaf and thus unable to carry a tune. How I would love to become an accidental singing genius! Without having a serious brain injury, of course.

One can dream, can’t one?