Always somehow assumed, and apparently I'm wrong.....

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Every time I read about creations and success by great eccentric geniuses, I somehow am always under the impression that most of them got to where they were without help from others, and without the use of major drug problems too...that they were just f*cking brilliant.

I'm reading now about some place in Wisconsin called House on the Rock, and until reading about the architect on Wikipedia, somehow the thought that the guy offered tours thru his place to raise more money to build the place never once crossed my mind.

When I read a while back that Gene Roddenberry had a major drug problem, that also never crossed my mind.

Somehow I just always assume that most of these successful people just knew that one thing that everyone else seems to, that I don't.

It turns out they usually don't, and we're smarter but.....is it something about being Autistic that makes us think everyone else knows somethin' we don't?

I wonder if it's not that brilliant successful people have a hard time dealing with the celebrity of success and turn to drugs. The very part of their nature that made them famous also makes them vulnerable. Just a thought.

Maybe it's just that enough of the population has a major problem sometime in their lives, that famous people will get hit too just randomly. It's not like drug problems are exactly rare.

A lot of genius seems to be luck, actually--being in the right field, when the next big discovery or innovation becomes possible, and having exactly the right talents and interests to make you the most likely person to discover them. You do have to have the talent, of course; and you do have to have the ability to stick with the work; but beyond that it seems to be a lot of luck. Not that potential innovators who never have that sort of luck are completely left out of it; they'll probably take advantage of lesser opportunities that, while they don't afford fame, will provide other benefits.