Magnus Carlson is astonishing and he has done a lot to supercharge chess interest in my anti-intellectual home country Norway. That he is Norwegian continues to puzzle me. We just don’t have a strong chess tradition but apparently his success was in part built on our strong tradition for training elite sports people.

For all the complains in the comments about what Magnus has not done with his intellect, I would say that is a positive reminder to all of us: Even if you are not brilliant you can still make an important contribution, because the guys and girls much smarter than you are not necessarily using their intellect on the important things in life.

I once got a reminder of this. I wrote an article about some technology ai ahead struggled with and explained how to use it. Later I got a thanks from a brilliant professor much smarter than me for whom my article had been very helpful. It reminded me that I can help somebody much smarter than me.

You don’t always need to be the pioneer or the one who breaks new ground. You could simple be a person who helps those who do that achieve it. That is also a way to make your mark on the world, even if it is not that visible to everyone.