An Interview with Dionysios Maroudas on Lifework (Part Two)

Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen

Publication (Outlet/Website): In-Sight: Independent Interview-Based Journal

Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2020/06/22

Abstract

Dionysios Maroudas was born in 1986. He lives in Athens. He has a passion for mathematics, photography, reading, and human behaviour. He is a member of the ISI-Society, Mensa, Grand IQ Society (Grand Member), and THIS (Distinguished Member). He discusses: family nurturance; early social life; family history; redoing things in youth; academic progress in elementary and high school; early intellectual interests; developments in early life reflecting later interest in the high-IQ world; academic qualifications; financial and professional success; and finding a lifework. He discusses: odd jobs in youth; building character and work ethic; most significant portions of life; the tipping point to formally decide to enter into higher education and acquire a postsecondary qualification; the earned credentials to date; thankful or grateful for in life in spite of the regrets; a Lifework; some inspirations; human beings will simply never know in full; the progress of individual societies; and hoping to pursue intellectually into the future.

Keywords: Dionysios Maroudas, intimate love, Lifework, odd job.

An Interview with Dionysios Maroudas on Lifework (Part Two)[1]^,[2]*

*Please see the footnotes, bibliography, and citation style listing after the interview.*

1. Scott Douglas Jacobsen: When we’re gathering steam in life and beginning to build one, there will be odd jobs and work that one may not appreciate in the moment, but will later realize as, in some manner, positive for the growth of change of trajectory needed at the time. What were some of the odd jobs in youth for you?

Dionysios Maroudas: When I finished school, I had to find a part-time job to cover my expenses. I started privately teaching maths to secondary and high school students. I knew it was a temporary job, and I had difficulties in earning parents and student’s trust, besause of my age. Another odd job I went through with, was in an organic food processing and packaging company. It was a small family company, without money, with many production machines bought on auctions, only two employees and one employer with huge ambitions.

2. Jacobsen: How were these jobs important for building character and work ethic?

Maroudas: Private lessons was my first job. I received it as a challenge to find what a school teacher had done wrong, so that a student would need extracurricular help. Many times I tried to help younger teenagers change their perspective, and I dedicated personal time finding ways to achieve it. I found out, that there are plenty fruitful learning methods linked with rewarding, and I used them.

After years I met a student of mine and he rewarded me back, with one great compliment “thank you for the abilities you showed me I possesed, but I never knew”. It was the first time, someone showed me his warm appreciation for something I had succeeded through my work.

This job helped me thinking out of the box. I noticed that you can chase your goals in many ways when you work with people. Improving my co-workers or underlings to make it as a team, demanded less effort by me in the end and a better secured result for my team.

To sum up, my odd jobs taught me to be a team-player, to invest on people improvement, to be adaptable and well-organized.

3. Jacobsen: Some of the most significant portions of life come from the sense and sensibilities around social life and closest relations found in intimate love. How has life been in these domains for you? Only have to share that which seems comfortable to share in public.

Maroudas: One of the most important portions in my youth was my friends. Friendship is the first volitional relationship someone may develop in life. I was lucky, as I always have had good and loyal friends, since I was a kid. Expectations, love and patience is the key for a long-time friendship.

On the other hand, is the intimate love. I was never what we call a Greek-lover. [Laughing] I mean, the macho lover for the summer time who lives for a few intense moments and then changes his partner. I am romantic and loyal. I respect people around me, as well as my time, so when I fell in love, I tried to figure if I can co-exist with the person next to me, before I even start. I guess, this behavior may stem from my parents divorce.

I found all I asked in my wife and I feel proud of it. Finding your partner in life is like choosing the way you wish to live and the way your child would wish to raise, so I feel more than happy for my choice and my baby’s mother.

4. Jacobsen: When you pursued more of a formal education, what was the tipping point to formally decide to enter into higher education and acquire a postsecondary qualification?

Maroudas: In Greece, postsecondary education is free. You may enter public universities depending on your grades you receive on national exams after high school and for a specific number of positions per department. This has raised a culture for Greek parents, that their children have to obtain a bachelor’s degree or even a postgraduate if they want to be competitive in the job market.

Thus, I had decided to study maths or marketing long before I finished high school. Unfortunately, if you want to enter the department of mathematics in Greece, you are also examined on courses non-relevant with the subject like history and writing composition which cut me away from the chance to enter it, so I entered my very next choice which was department of marketing. Marketing is what a small shop, a company, and even a whole market department needs to function and make profit. That’s what made it so challenging for me and I decided to study it.

5. Jacobsen: What have been the earned credentials to date? Why pursue those particular interests as intellectual interests? What doors have those particular interests opened for you?

Maroudas: I don’t believe I owe an enviable bio, or a CV that would make someone excited. My credentials depend mostly on my results and productivity. In every job I have joined, I have helped it progress and I have made statistically significant improvements in most of them. Telling people that I belong to numerous high-IQ societies, I would probably scare them or even awake in them unpleasant feelings. People are scared of what they don’t know and what would make them feel being in comparison. One of my interests is that I try to solve prime numbers problems (Goldbach’s conjecture, Riemann’s hypothesis, etc.) and reading about medicine and psychology. These interests have helped me meet people with similar curiosity to mine.

6. Jacobsen: When you look at the way things have progressed in life for you, and how things could have progressed in life for you, what do you regret? What do you remain thankful or grateful for in life in spite of the regrets?

Maroudas: Except for spending more time in studying, when I was a teen, I can’t think of anything [Laughing].

A few years ago, I and my wife were thinking moving to Canada for a better quality of life. Living in a country that is famous for its meritocracy, was the motivation I needed to make such a decision. Unfortunately, some health issues of our family member, was the additional weight on our decision steelyard that held us in our homeland. This was one of the biggest turn I took in my life.

Daily we make small decisions that form our future and we have to support them, or to correct them on time. And of course, we have to understand that there are many variables that cannot be affected by us. Being a little bit stubborn, let me no space for regrets. I am afraid, that if I changed anything in my life, I would have commited a treason to my principles or beliefs that led me to do this action in the beginning.

After all, I am grateful for my family, for our health and living in one of the most beautiful countries, even if it is in one of its hardest times.

7. Jacobsen: Many individuals in some of the highest levels of giftedness have what I call a “Lifework” as a dream and can, in fact, pursue this as a reality if they are among the few lucky people in the world with the ability even further in luck with the time, interest, and energy to pursue such things to their fullest. Do you have a Lifework? If so, why this? If not, any idea as to the reason for this not entering into the arena of cognitive or real life for you?

Maroudas: The last years I am trying to decode the Holy Grail of maths, prime numbers. Their purpose, their randomness – or better the structural rules they follow – and why not, to give a clear and simple solution to one of the greatest math mysteries. Hunting ghosts like this, demands focus and time. According to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, this is a self-actualization need. So, if I need to spend time for the top of the pyramid, I have to make it stable at the beginning. For the moment, I prefer spending my time trying to satisfy my first-4-levels necessities and enjoy my newborn child in my free time. I believe that everything can be succeeded if you have patience and persistence, so I am decided to wait for my lifework.

8. Jacobsen: Who have been inspiring figures in the history of the world for you? Also, what about the ordinary people one meet in life who do not plan any grand schemes or have anty spectacular mental talent? What have been some inspirations from them? Those people who have little, want for little, and make due for a life of just and noble cause in their own way, regardless.

Maroudas: Many bright people have inspired me with their work, cognitive abilities or revolutionary ideas. Homer, Archimedes, Pythagoras, Newton, Gauss, V.Hugo, Galois, Riemann, Curie, Tesla, Umberto Eco, Freud and many others had an inspiring lifework for humanity and our evolution.

In my eyes, every single human can be an example for another one. A good one or a poor one. No matter what abilities someone may have, being useful is mostly a matter of will. Personally, I observe attributes in ordinary people’s character and I try to adopt the ones I consider at best quality. I have received great principles from many people I’ve met, so I ‘ve learned to have respect for everyone.

9. Jacobsen: What do you think human beings will simply never know in full?

Maroudas: I believe human beings will never know in full our limits. Human beings are those who built pyramids some thousands years before, traveled to space and researched the genetic code, but still argue about the shape of Earth, nurture racism and vote governors because of their hate speech.

10. Jacobsen: If we take the ways in which the women of the world have not had full access or equal access to the levers of power, so-called, or, more accurately, the reins of individual freedom to pursue their own course or path, to make their own journey in life, how many women geniuses have we simply lost in recorded human history? How have the progress of individual societies and, in turn, the progress of humanity been regressed, halted, or slowed as a result at times?

Maroudas: Unfortunately we have lost a lot of geniuses. Ceteris paribus, I would say that the missing number of women geniuses we have lost in human history because of sexism, is equal to the number of known men geniuses minus the known women geniuses. I believe in statistical equality in this parameter. Another parameter we should also take into account is financial status and physical ability. We can have no idea on how many geniuses male and female have been lost because of them, and how many diseases, unsolved problems and social inequalities would have vanished in a truly meritocratic world.

11. Jacobsen: What are you hoping to pursue intellectually into the future, whether formally through the academic system developed over centuries or in an autodidactic manner for personal intellectual interest and pursuits?

Maroudas: As I stated, in our top of needs, an egocentric need is hidden and patiently waits to make someone the best he can be. The sector I care about is based on creating cognizance and knowledge, instead of adopting another one’s. Prime numbers have many unsolved problems, and I hope to find the ability and time to solve at least one of them.

Appendix I: Footnotes

[1] Member, ISI-Society; Member, Mensa; Grand Member, Grand IQ Society; Distinguished Member, THIS.

[2] Individual Publication Date: June 22, 2020: http://www.in-sightjournal.com/maroudas-two; Full Issue Publication Date: September 1, 2020: https://in-sightjournal.com/insight-issues/.

*High range testing (HRT) should be taken with honest skepticism grounded in the limited empirical development of the field at present, even in spite of honest and sincere efforts. If a higher general intelligence score, then the greater the variability in, and margin of error in, the general intelligence scores because of the greater rarity in the population.

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