Oh Yeah - There Are Some Assholes Running Around Loose

[AFTT47]

You don't have to be smart to be rich.

Oh, yeah, American celebrities make that quite clear.  I'm just wondering what his secret is.

There's no real secret. Human beings are very complex, skilled in some things, not so much in others. Sometimes you see extremes where a person is extremely good at one thing and so bad in another that it defies belief.

I had a coworker in 1981 who's father was at Princeton and knew Einstein. He said Einstein would frequently bump into someone in a corridor and get drawn into a conversation. When the conversation was over, Einstein would often ask what direction he had been headed in because he had forgotten why he had been in the corridor in the first place. It's consistent with his autobiography where he related he locked himself out of his apartment for something like 5 consecutive days when he was a young man and the owners thought he was an idiot.

It's like the brain has its limits. If it's extraordinary in one way, sacrifices seem to be necessary in others.