Since some people seem confused I'll add my interpretation. The boy was a genius because he looked at the ocean and saw that the label he had been trained to place on what he was seeing didn't apply. The issue is not whether the ocean was pretty or not, it's that we've been conditioned to believe certain things about the world when we are very young and we don't reexamine those beliefs to figure out if they were ever correct or at least if they apply to the specific thing in front of us. I've thought about this with cows. We are told that a cow is an animal that says moo, and so on. We tend to assume therefore that we understand them. So it's quite interesting to look at a cow as a bizarre, alien creature that you don't understand, moving past whatever beliefs you acquired from your teacher in preschool. Not the most useful way of thinking for the sake of survival, but it's arguably closer to the truth given our fundamental ignorance about everything in our sensory experience.

@nakedandalive

6 ай бұрын

That' a great way to think about this and summary. As I espouse --- one big struggle in all our lives is to "think for yourself". It begins with questioning and often ends with a surprising, different conclusion.

@juliendesousa9803

2 ай бұрын

Thanks for the explanation, I love that. It can be applied to greater concepts, like love.

I used to use this poem when I trained teachers - getting them to stop pre-judging students and allowing them to see all students are "special", and especially those in special education.

One could argue the genius here is recognizing that a seemingly mundane comment is actually profound.

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

Totally!

@deathchips926

6 ай бұрын

Bukowski might not have considered himself a genius; in fact, he likely would have rejected that label, as those who truly possess it often do. I don't think he's suggesting the child is a genius in the traditional sense, but rather highlighting how children offer unfiltered observations. His rare sensitivity to the child's comment stands out amidst the common adult perception that kids lack keen observation or intellectual depth. His willingness to value the insight speaks volumes about him: A. He acknowledges a child's observation as significant, and B. he accepts that the ocean isn't inherently 'beautiful,' but simply exists. In my opinion, this ability to recognize and appreciate such nuances is what in part defines a genius.

@Daniel_Fo77

5 ай бұрын

@@deathchips926In that case, he would be a genius for discovering the profound within the mundane and at the same time no genius for rejecting his own genius. Which highlights that things often are two opposites within a dimension at the same time, depending on what facet you are looking at. For instance, you often could be seen as good and bad, wise and stupid, etc. - all of which is true. One could say that my comment was genius too, which however only builds on those comments before me. So maybe we all are geniuses - and at the same time nobody is.

@deathchips926

5 ай бұрын

Interesting perspective, and I do follow your line of thinking as it relates to the occasional paradoxical nature of genius. I would counter by arguing that Bukowski rejecting the idea of genius doesn't negate the possibility of him being so, I also don't think anything can be arbitrarily regarded as genius, even though theres a degree of subjectivity to regarding a piece of work or person as such. The reality is, this concept is highly abstract, unscientific, and at times limiting as a quantifier.@@Daniel_Fo77

Wow! So so so profound!!!!!!! Ya right….🤷🏻‍♂️

This is real poetry

The Ego in children hasn't fully developed. As adults if we could conquer the Ego we would all be geniuses.

How creative he was!!!!, Poetry is all about your feel, that's what he felt at that moment!!! He felt that the boy was genius, and true he was!!!

@Lili-Benovent

Ай бұрын

WRONG, Poetry is all about rhythm, rhyme and telling a story, Bukowski's work doesn't have any of those things, just negative misery.

actual message from the poem: if you are rolling down the comment section for what it means, yes you, you are not the genius.

@HexagonSun990

4 ай бұрын

Wow ok.

oh, i am so happy to have made your acquaintance! thank you.

@nakedandalive

10 ай бұрын

Same here! Hope you find something that "means" - I try to push buttons, yours, mine, us all.

@mari-greciaodal2436

10 ай бұрын

@@nakedandalive i like your difference of being. it is rare in here, and out there. how refreshing! thank you.

Nice

@nakedandalive

Жыл бұрын

Yes, a classic. Good old Hank sure knew how to end a poem.

👏

we did the montage slay so hard tho. you inspired me !

@nakedandalive

16 күн бұрын

Inspiration is good when it is done naturally, comes naturally.

Deep thoughts by Jack Handy

@stickshaker101

10 ай бұрын

The crows seemed to call out his name, thought Caw.

Kiitos siitä janne saari

Ocean is pretty! I do love hank though!

@Gokusaiyan.

8 күн бұрын

Nope it's not never understood why ppl find ocean pretty 😂

I guess I’m not smart enough to think the ocean isn’t pretty. Maybe next lifetime. 🙂

@nakedandalive

11 ай бұрын

You might be a different kind of genius ...

@theinfjgoyim5508

11 ай бұрын

Lol how do you not get it? Have you ever been on a boat in the ocean... I assume not. Go out miles into the ocean on a boat. You will realize that water is your death. Don't be a TV brain, you have more potential I am sure of it.

@mrwojna

11 ай бұрын

@@theinfjgoyim5508 but that’s why I love the ocean! Because it seems so intent on swallowing me! I find it delightfully terrifying!

@bensharp4851

11 ай бұрын

​@@theinfjgoyim5508 If you took this poem as a literal truth, then you missed the entire point. Just because something is dangerous, or life threatening, does not mean that it can not also be simultaneously beautiful. Space is an utterly gorgeous spectacle, but it is also an environment of death and sheer chaos. Does that then make space not pretty? Perhaps, Bukowski was trying to show us that pretty things have a level of ugliness to them that makes them so visually appealing in the first place. Or perhaps, given the name of the poem, he was applauding a person's ability to see the opposite of something, alluding to what makes a genius is the exercise of going against popular belief and finding a deeper understanding of something. Please be nicer to people on the internet :)

@nakedandalive

11 ай бұрын

You could be right. We each have our own adventure, we each seek our end, in our own way ...

It's about, like, society.

He added [and we both looked out the window at the ocean]

The only thing you need to be considered genius is certainty and a different opinion. That's a low bar probably.

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

Well it depends. Depends on whose bar it is, who is holding that bar. All too often, genius is never recognized because genius is someone "outside" and thus able to see the illusions everyone believes is real. Anthropologist from Mars a la Sachs. Defamiliarization is the realm of genius, the ability to see things as they are, beyond the skirt tails of culture. Poets and comedians are our modern day social anthropologists. I mean, look around you - you see everyone just looking into shiny screens. Isn't that insanity? But if you mention it - people say no, bla bla bla rationalization, benefits. They've drank the koolaid. Same goes for wearing ties - isn't that the kookiest thing around? And we think bones through noses is stupid.

@thehermit30

9 ай бұрын

@@nakedandalive Are you insane? You had to look into a shiny screen to listen to the poem and reply to me...

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

Never said I wasn't one of the guilty ones. But I'm trying my damndest.

@thehermit30

9 ай бұрын

@@nakedandalive If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. Teehee only messing - I'm insane too xox

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

hahaha or in Spanish jajaja. I've tried that and it only works for some things, on some occassions. I'm more of a middle road, buddhist guy these days. Old Hank, nobody ever wrote about all the times he tried to go all the way and didn't make it. Booze, cigs, women ... Life is bigger than us, often, I suppose.

How is an opinion genius? The carpet is beautiful-guess I am also!

@redeyed33333

10 ай бұрын

The genius laid in being able to think differently from society and to form an opinion for himself. It is not the opinion that was genius, it was the ability to form it.

@stevensteven3417

10 ай бұрын

​​​@@redeyed33333kid is authentic but still no genius.

@remainprofane7732

2 ай бұрын

Poetry isn’t for everyone buddy

Beware the Genius of the crowd...

I don’t get it, can someone explain to me?

@nakedandalive

10 ай бұрын

Hmmm. Maybe someone can help you. I got to refuse. It's kind of like explaining your jokes, once you start, you are in trouble. Give it time, it will come to you!

@talk2birds128

9 ай бұрын

I think the kid saying it wasn’t pretty is the opposite of what most people would say and the kid saw the darkness that comes with the ocean or recognised it’s ugly parts. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s how I took it.. Sorry if I’m way off!

We took a train and traveled down the coast and we came to the ocean...?? WTF??? If you're on the coast, you're already by the ocean, are you not?

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

Oh I've driven along the coast many times and for long stretches never saw the ocean ... but hey, poet's have a license, poetic license, stretch reality a little ...

the best musicians, are porch musicians. Was he a porch musician?

@nakedandalive

11 ай бұрын

I believe so. He took the time to sit back and sing.

@osmark86

11 ай бұрын

just made it up as he went along really

What the duck does this even mean

@anattablue

10 ай бұрын

Think for your self, construct your worldview around tangible things that you can understand, rather than what those tangible things are supposedly offered to you to be by others.

@Paapi_purush

9 ай бұрын

@@anattablue more simplistic English please

@tommeakin1732

9 ай бұрын

@@Paapi_purush "Think for yourself, build your outlook on real things that you can know first hand, rather than looking at things the way you have been taught to look at them". This comment is hardly the worst to pick up on, but it'd be nice if more people would see that using words from a latinate base doesn't just make you witty; though *many* people do mistake it for wit. But as for the clip itself, I know nothing about the man speaking, but the take I'd agree with would that the child isn't just listening to adults say "look at how pretty the sea is!" - he's probably just thinking for himself and perhaps seeing it as foreboding and dark. This isn't to say the sea *is* ugly, or any one thing. I think it's most right to say that the sea, like most things, is all of these things at once.

Yeah I got out to the west coast with these beach bum plans it’s a fckn open cold sewer that literally wants to kill you and then there’s the street people looking to steal your shit place is all kinds of grimy add to all that beach time is before noon unless you wanna be covered in spf30000 who knew that just staying home and chilling with my dog is where it’s at❤

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

I hear you brother. Loud and clear. Enjoy your dog. Lost mine over a year ago in Nicaragua. He went out fighting and died on his feet but still hurts. Will add a video of some poems I wrote about it - but still too raw. Again, enjoy your dog!

Bukowski might have had a genius for self promotion but that's about it.

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

Oh, I don't think so at all. He was practically unread most of his life, just in his later years, gained a few readers and able to drink as much wine as he wanted.

@P3rson.lInf0

9 ай бұрын

Johnny Depp then I guess@@nakedandalive

@hossbeki9266

6 ай бұрын

Well you never been broken to understand him

If being a genius is to see things as they are, not as they've been taught or told to be, and the boy has not yet been taught or told about the ocean, then how is he a genius?

@nakedandalive

8 күн бұрын

He's self-taught. What did someone say, "the difficulty of life is to remain as a child?" Few do so. And then we have Illych's - School is the advertising agency that makes you believe you need the world as it appears to be.

Ha ha, it's a bit like when one meets a new born. Then you're obliged to say, "oh, how pretty!" and such.

@eltbuzz

7 ай бұрын

Exactly! So much is automatic reflex. Much banal like this, some deadly.

thats why Celibidache was a genius

@nakedandalive

16 күн бұрын

I will have to google that!

@ionutzamfir5794

16 күн бұрын

@@nakedandalive google away

Pretty is subjective. As a kid i also found girls not particulary pretty.

@Gaphalor

10 ай бұрын

Maybe like Schopenhauer said, men is the beautiful gender, and as a kid unclouded by hormones you recognized this 😂

Ei niiden vielä tarvinnu tuli kuitenkin

Bet he's laughing at y'all

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

I sure hope so. He deserves love and comfort and the destress of a good belly laugh.

@wellfuckit9936

9 ай бұрын

@@nakedandalive I don't know him personally so I can't speak on that but he was a great poet

@helmepodesarius2198

9 ай бұрын

He’s laughing at us, we’re laughing at him. That’s how everybody goes through this world.

This is hilarious, the clapping of the hip pretentious ones at the end makes it even funnier. Imho however, the added 'moral' at the end telling us what genius is, it is completely superfluous.

@nakedandalive

9 ай бұрын

Agree about the hipsters. We still have 'em and they were around back then too. Probably Socrates had his fans that laughed just because ...

Bukowski, a story of self indulgent misery, he enjoyed misery and his scribblings are so depressing, if you pretend to like his work it's only because you want to be trendy.

@nakedandalive

Ай бұрын

Oh, I see where you are coming from but there is more to it than that. What of peeps like myself, reading Bukowski pamphlets on the shitter in te 70s? Were we just pretenders then too? A lot of joy in Bukowski, you just need to read him more.

@Lili-Benovent

Ай бұрын

@@nakedandalive Firstly, he was not a poet, his work lacked rhythm, rhyme and any sort of story unless it centered on misery and depression, his philosophy was basicly about his observations of life through a drunken haze. You see Sophists at art galleries all the time trying to explain their interpretations of a piece of abstract art, the wine buffs who waffle on about the attributes of one glass of wine over another, it's all ego driven fakery and it's the same with people who pretend to understand Bukowski. Anyone can write real poetry about misery E.G. here's one of mine. DIFFERENT EYES Lili The rat infested holes in which we Derros dwell Fighting for our daily bread with us as much as them For others looking at our lives perceived as living Hell If we can find an alley, with a corner safe and dry Then we are Kings for just a night and we don’t question why We’re creatures of the shadows from which existence stems. - The city is a cruel Lord and all we have is time There’ll be no hand to lift us up, no help to find a bed We waste our time wandering, with others of our kind Talking dreams, opportunity, reality and crime And those among us jackals, put their brothers on the spike Promise bliss for just a time, escape from life, sublime. - It’s all our fault we are told, by people who don’t know Just get a job and buy a house but none will ever employ A black who can’t afford to eat, a white who’s tired and slow For this is what the streets give us and Winter is the worst The frozen parks, incessant rain, back in our holes we go We try the subway, bus stations; move on, the middle class comes first. - Charity comes with a hook, the drone of pray to God We’ll give a little, not a lot, endeavour to change your life To one of fierce obedience to Jesus in the sky And if you let us take control for one small meal a day You’ll struggle on and on through life and then one day you’ll die A mansion awaits you in the clouds, if you pray and pray and pray. - But Spring brings hope, all Nature’s good, to creatures all awake Nature provides enough to eat, a nest a tree a cave But man must find their own abode and man exploits the poor So back into the tents on streets us Derros slink once more And every day it seems there’s more, one paycheck from the street This lucky country prosperous once, now greed’s a festering sore.

Gay

I struggle to understand. What? Bukowski wanted to open his mind beyond preconception? How many times do you pass a homeless man and stop feeling sad? ... What are you all patting each other on the back for exactly? That you could see the world differently but you don't? ... Sigh.