various genius walls
on the same day i wrote my genius wall post, i told my mom about prodigy, how she topped the school while preparing for the school festival. my mom told me if i actually worked hard instead of watching youtube i could have done that too. lol agreed, i should procrastinate less. a week before finals, i decided to keep track of how much i've actually focused, it's really made me focus for longer times. and i will do my english hakwon homework after writing this post, make sure to finish this post before 4pm ava.
the other thing my mom asked was, 'ok but do you want to play the piano and study for finals?' and the answer was not really. if i was playing piano as a hobby when i did have time, that'd be cool. i mean have you not seen me play 삼각함수송 once a day. but i do not want my money to depend on piano for the rest of my life. back in fifth and sixth grade i played in a bunch of recitals and i did pretty well. and by pretty well i mean in fifth grade i got second place in the whole competition, in sixth grade i got first in my age almost every time i played, and one time i went to seoul for a recital (i had to pass the first round where i live, and i got first place there) and i got first place. during winter vacation 2025 i practiced 2~3 hours a day. wow that was a lot of bragging, but in my last recital i totally messed up and got the lowest score out of all 11? 12? times. (i used to keep track of it but now the number is disappearing from my head)
but despite all that i always felt like i was missing out on something. while everyone else took extracurricular classes they liked at school, i was always taken by piano class. and the older i got and the more i practiced, i thought if this was really worth it, and what if i liked doing something else? i liked writing and linguistics after all. maybe it was because i didn't do writing and linguistics seriously to the point i had to go through something hard, maybe that's why most of my hobbies / desired career paths don't last more than a year. but who knows, maybe this is just building experience and everything will help what i'll be doing in the future. but the point is, i wanted to focus more on my studies and school activities, therefore using my finger hurting as an excuse (it actually hurt and they advised me not to practice for two weeks, and that my fingers are not suit for playing piano for too long) i quit piano right before going into middle school.
i think piano was a good example of a situation where people would see me as on the other side of a genius wall. but despite me being on that side, i thought of another genius wall (the one where i was on the non-genius side, and on the genius side where prodigy from my other post and the older students), plus for me there was no wall nor genius. it was more like a practice mountain. which connects with me previously saying that maybe the genius wall doesn't exist, and mason in his response post saying
What if the genius wall is one sided? only viewed by those who feel like they need to be there or its not good enough?
plus, being on a side of the genius wall didn't mean it was always good, because i missed a lot of opportunities in elementary school to do other things which may have benefitted me more or less, from hanging out with friends to joining that one school club. though i believe the experience of going to a piano concert with all my wannabe pianist friends was a great experience. but instead of working to the other side of the piano genius wall, or climbing the practice mountain, i could have gotten over another genius wall.
maybe there's actually loads of genius walls, with different requirements and things you can achieve after getting to the other side. some of them being equal to everyone by practice, some other being more related to luck, talent, or just personality traits and innate qualities. thinking of it, talented people (the ones that are gifted and need less effort to do things than other ppl) are just lucky enough to have random qualities that are for some reason valued in this specific modern world. and mason here suggests that it could be a tool for reflection or challenging oneself.
To circle back, I feel compelled to cross a 'genius wall' that stands between me and my peers and reflects the qualities I don't have. And at this point I would like to propose an idea that the genius wall is a blessing not a curse? it is a tool that can be used for reflection, comparison and if you use it correctly change.
so yeah conclusion: there are a lot of genius walls, you don't need to cross all of them, but find the ones you want to and challenge yourself to cross them. yeah it's 4:04 now, imma start my homework.