It takes a genius.

I write to inspire, not conspire

How many life-size defeats can 1 man handle in 4 weeks? You count.

August 15, I was fired as Editor in Chief of the Philippine Journal of Crop Science (PJCS), based at UP Los Baños in Laguna. Take that!

September 12, I learned I lost the Most Creative Writer Award for an alumnus of the UP College of Agriculture. And that!

A double whammy – that must be a Guinness Book of World record, and I’m the one who set it. It takes a genius.

This, as it turns out, is a study of genius; no, it’s not a sob story.

Technically, I resigned from the PJCS. I had been Editor for the last 8 volumes (8 years) and in the process set 2 records. One, I made that journal up-to-date where it was late 2 years when I came in January 2003. It was the genius of desktop publishing (DTP) – I used neither PageMaker nor Publisher but Word 2003, which is software not classified as DTP. That’s the genius of Microsoft, and I’m the one who discovered it. Two, I made that journal world-class – it became an ISI journal, where ISI is the Good Housekeeping seal of approval for technical journals anywhere in the world (click here for more details: ‘PJCS: A management issue,’ my other blog). It was also the genius of hard work – I put my body, mind and spirit into it. It was also the genius of being almost word-perfect – reading 5 times each manuscript word for word over the course of 5 weeks for every issue. Genius is in the details.

Acknowledging my displays of genius, they fired me. Ouch! The reason? I did not have the credentials, meaning I couldn’t put a ‘PhD’ after my name to save my life. I couldn’t even put an ‘MS’ if it comes to that. Degrees do not a person make, nor iron bars a cage – except if we don’t think like geniuses, meaning, if we don’t think out of the cage.

After writing 2 original books – one an intellectual biography of the national hero of the Philippines, Jose Rizal (indios bravos!), the other an intellectual (and amusing) book of essays on the great institution of ‘science with a human face’ with the name International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) captained by genius Director General William Dar, another Ilocano – and after publishing a hundred and one long essays in the American Chronicle (click here to view the list and read if you please), not to mention many others in my many other blogs – that particular UP Los Baños award committee tells me I am not creative enough. You can’t please them all.

That creative writing award is part of the celebration of the UP Centennial, to be received during Loyalty Day (October 10). I was told of my loss by Pids Rosario, and that happened despite his superb recommendation as President of the UP Los Baños Alumni Association (UPLBAA). (I thought I may have ghost-written that recommendation myself – what’s the matter, not smart enough?) I smiled. I did. I told Pids my wife and I expected it. Well, this was the time it would have been wonderful to be wrong.

My life as the editor of a technical journal has just been abbreviated; my life as a writer of creative pieces has just been stymied. What a way to celebrate a birthday!

Can you disappoint a genius? Only if he isn’t.

Caryl Churchill is a genius playwright, Mark Ravenhill says (‘She made us raise our game,’ guardian.co.uk):

It’s her ability to continually reinvent the form that most writers would identify as her genius. In Churchill’s plays, there is a constant search for new kinds of language and theatrical structures: devices that can reveal the essence of a moment.

Touches of genius. Sounds familiar.

You don’t recognize the genius in me? It’s okay. I forgive you. If I have it, you can’t take it away from me by denying me a UP Centennial award. If I don’t have it, a hundred and one friends swearing of my genius won’t make any difference.

I’m not surprised. Genius or not, I know I’ve changed – now I know for sure my alma mater UP hasn’t. Now I can see the goodness beyond the badness you see in people like Ferdinand E Marcos (click here: ‘Marcos in Hall of Fame,’ frankahilario.blogspot.com) and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (try this: ‘GMA’s Indian Summer,’ same blog). My cup overflows. To see a cup overflow with possibilities where others see a cup overflow with perils takes more than Barack Obama’s audacity of hope to be able to do that. It takes a great leap of faith.

You don’t believe me? As I was born on September 17, 1940, I’m 68; if you knew Frank A Hilario, that double loss completes 68 years of his disappointments, right?

Wrong. The disappointing years entirely stopped in 1998 or earlier when I learned to smile at the moment, the occasion, the event, the happening, any which way it goes. It’s attitude. No, there is no frustration if you don't allow a setback to disappoint you. There is no disappointment if you don’t allow a failure to discourage you. There is no discouragement if you don’t allow a lost dream to dismay you. There is no dismay if you don’t allow a lost cause to unsettle you.

Just because you’re brilliant doesn’t mean people will understand, or accept, or reward you. So, how can I not allow some little sadness to enter my life? By allowing gladness instead. It’s brains. By accepting my humanity. It’s instinct. By learning to trust in God. It’s a gift. Almost completely. And of course, that’s the hardest thing to do. It’s very easy to say, ‘I love you, Lord,’ and then you go ahead and get frustrated. Or dismayed. Or disappointed. Or insanely mad. Or depressed.

You get riled at the slightest provocation. You get incensed at a perceived insult. If it’s a provocation, why yield? So what if things don’t turn out the way you want them, if you don’t get the pearl of great prize? You thank people they even considered you. That was enough compliment. Thank you Pids, and thank you UPLBAA.

When I was told to my face, right after I was congratulated for a job well done in front of those ladies and gentlemen members of the board of the publisher of the journal, that I no longer deserved to be Editor of PJCS for lack of a PhD, I thought of the University of the Philippines Los Baños proud of being the most densely PhD-populated campus in Asia if not the world; I smiled and said, ‘I have only one thing to say – your timing is bad.’ They didn’t understand.

Some people can’t recognize genius when they see it. If you have the genius, forgive them, for they know not what they do. You will have reaped coals of fire from your own head. And blessed your own heart.

Do I deserve that award? I know I don’t have to win any award to be the most creative writer in the country, bar none. In the first place, I don’t write for critics or award committees inside or outside the university.

Two geniuses are candidates for the highest offices in the United States; one is a rhetoric genius, male; the other is a small-town genius, female – having watched the video of the acceptance speech 5 times (click here to read the whole text), I can assure you the female is deadlier than the male. Of the Washington elite and their media friends, Republican candidate for Vice President Sarah Palin says, ‘I’m going to Washington not to get their good opinion but to fight for the people of this great country!’ Doing a Sarah Palin, I say, ‘I’m going to go on writing not to win awards but to serve the people of this great country.’ About people in small towns, Sarah says, ‘They love their country, in good times and bad, and they’re always proud of America!’ I love my small-town country, in good times and bad, and I’m always proud of the Philippines, if not the Tagalogs, Pangasinenses, Pampangos, Ilonggos, Cebuanos, Warays, Bicolanos, Gaddangs, Ifugaos, Kankanna-eys, Chavacanos, Maranaos, name them all.

I am an Ilocano. I am a BSA graduate major in Ag Ed, UP College of Agriculture ’65. I passed the very first Teacher’s Exam in the country, 80.6%, no review, no leakage. Some people have talent. I taught high school (UP Rural High and Asingan High) and college (UP Los Baños and Xavier U), many a diverse subject; I taught myself only one: Creative Writing. Creative writing is genius bordering on insanity. Is it hereditary? No, it’s acquired.

On my birthday, I know I am the greatest! I am the only one in the world who can claim that when my birthday comes around, September 17, without fail, a whole town celebrates – all of Los Baños, Laguna, the Philippines. They call the celebration Bañamos, let’s go get wet or something. That’s physical delight. On the other side of the world, the whole United States celebrates September 17 as the day they signed the US Constitution, the model of the whole democratic world. That’s intellectual pleasure. And on still another side of the world, in La Verna, Italy, September 17 was the day of the Stigmata of St Francis, when marks on his body appeared resembling those of the crucified Christ. I’m Catholic; my parents were Catholic, that’s why they baptized me Francisco; that’s why I call my essays Franciscan. That’s spiritual happiness. What more can I ask?

When I was in high school, 50 years ago, I discovered my talent for creative writing, and I vowed to become the best, and I succeeded, with a little help from my genius friends: Rudolf Flesch (Readability Formula) in the early 1960s, Edward de Bono (lateral thinking) in the mid-1970s, Peter Drucker (thinking information & management at the same time) in the early 1990s, Howard Gardner (multiple intelligences) in the late 1990s, Barney Glaser & Anselm Strauss (grounded theory, in science) in the early 2000s. Success is being the best you can be, over the years, in or out of science. That’s being a genius.

Aware that we are in difficult times, to help the geniuses out there, here’s my contribution to the world of thinking genius:

It takes a genius

To inspire where others conspire.
To console where others censure.
To encourage where others rage.

To preach peace where others preach war.
To preach understanding where others preach confusion.
To preach potentials where others preach population.
To preach evolution where others preach revolution.
To preach growth where others preach stagnation.
To preach victories where others preach defeats.
To preach gains where others preach losses.
To preach hope where others preach despair.
To preach faith where others preach fear.
To preach love where others preach hate.
To do genius where others merely preach.