Commendable! You can only find one in a million people like this. Unspoiled by materialism, power, and attention. However, I think he is over-doing it to the point of making such an attitude a liability.
If the story is true - 1) that he is unemployed, and 2) that he is depending on her mother’s $74 pension, then spurning a million-dollar prize for his solution to a century-old puzzle known as the Poincare Conjecture is indeed foolish.
Imagine what a million-dollar prize would do. If Grigory "Grisha" Perelman did not want the money, then he could just donate it to charity. Wouldn’t he be able to help his mother a lot with this money instead of being a burden to her financially? If his mother knew of his decision, would she be happy with this “innate modesty” of his son?
The story presents a side of him, too, as having been affected with what people thought of him. It is said he was not re-elected in the Steklov Institute in
Now that Perelman has shown himself smarter than most, his shunning a prize and lack of interest in it all the more shows him as proud and incapable of adjusting to the flaws of others. Well, after all, research says intelligence quotient is not necessarily emotional quotient.
When we think about it, our gifts are not exclusively ours. They were given for a noble purpose, therefore, should not be taken lightly as absolutely ours to decide what fate they would fall under. We could use our gifts and what influence and good they bring to help other people and society as a whole.
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