Every newborn arrives with the capacity for genius. Then they meet their parents.
Children are resilient, though, and many maintain that capacity for genius all the way to puberty. At that point the capacity is naturally muted for a while but usually comes back in a year or two. It comes back because it's hard to turn a human into an idiot and even bad parents will have a few good days by accident.
Up to puberty isn't long enough for most parenting dullards to succeed in creating a failure. It takes about 17 years for most. If a young person still has a spark leaving their teens, they're probably going to keep it.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this. It might be that infants are geniuses. They all are in some way. We just hope life and learning lead them to those things that come naturally.
What I am sure of is parents don't turn little simpletons into thinkers, it's most certainly the other way around. Genius is born and morons are manufactured.
I know what you're thinking. And you're right, I'm no genius either. I might still be looking for my capacity, but I assure you my parents didn't hide it from me. They mostly lived by the "do no harm" policy and never got in the way of my imagination. Sorry I'm not a doctor Dad.
Nope, at this point in life I know all shortcomings in my capacity are self-inflicted and I'm okay with that. Life is better when you don't think you need to blame somebody else for your problems. Even if your parents are to blame.
Still not sure where I'm going with this. I get to spend time around some sharp kids whose sparks are bright every day. It's obvious no matter if they're 9, 5 or 2. There's a lot to be optimistic about.
But still I'm unsettled. So many of us have fallen for a lot of easily disproven mumbo jumbo. I'm not talking about politics. I'm just talking about good sense.
The anti-vaccine movement started in the far left world of mystical healing and natural medicine long before a pandemic and careless megalomaniac turned the whole opposite end of the spectrum against shots. One of the loudest anti-vaccination voices was a Kennedy for goodness sake. He has more followers in Idaho today than any Kennedy before him.
Conspiracy theories know no party.
As of this writing, over 960,000 Americans have died from Covid-19. At the current rate of deaths in the United States, we'll surpass 1,000,000 in a month. In the state with the lowest coronavirus vaccination rates, Mississippi, you are over 4 times more likely to die of Covid than in Hawaii, the state with the highest rates of vaccinated.
In the United States, unvaccinated people are 14 times more likely to die of Covid-19 than the fully vaccinated. In other words, 93% of deaths are people who chose not to get a couple of shots.
What discombobulates me is there are Americans who think they made the right choice.