Hi John, this made me laugh as I was the bass player in an indie band at 6th form college (junior & senior in the US?) but could not really play the bass. Most bands had a similar arrangement, with only one or two competent musicians, although I'm not sure competence was ever really the point, though.
Love this discussion. It reminds me of Willa Cather's obsession with genius in her novels and stories, where characters like Thea Kronborg are drawn from real-life prototypes, such as Olive Fremstad. These tropes have lent themselves to a kind of Cather mythology -- the genius sprung fully formed from the plains -- and some outright canards, such as the notion of Cather's lifelong companion, Edith Lewis, as a kind of admiring drudge. Benjamin Taylor even repeats one of these canards in his new biography (which has won some praise, but which Cather scholars find maddeningly careless with facts), claiming that Lewis is buried at Cather's feet in Jaffrey, New Hampshire (in fact, they are buried side by side). Melissa Homestead has shown in her book "The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis" that Lewis was an active editor of Cather's manuscripts, not merely the domestic partner who washed the dishes while Cather was off dreaming up her next masterpiece. I like this example as a companion to your notion of genius as relative (lots of different kinds) but also as collaborative (teaching requires a willing learner).
The ability to work perfectly in sync with others for the greater good is very to similar to what Atul Gawande describes as the new model for modern medicine vs the old days, what he calls “cowboys versus pit crews.” In an era of mass information overload and hyperspecialization, the lone swashbuckling (often rule breaking) “genius” no longer serves patients or society
Love that analogy. One of the things that transformed how I taught writing was to make it more explicitly oriented around the goal of learning together. In my syllabus I would say that the course was a "shared inquiry into the subject at hand" meaning collectively we'd interrogate the experience of the class and share our different perspectives in a way that allowed for additional reflection. I wanted students to see they had a role beyond just doing their assignments and getting a grade. We had a collective responsibility to that inquiry.
The essay is also about writing, and near the end of the essay, Wood writes this sentence, which makes the point clear:
"For me, this playing is like an ideal sentence, a sentence I have always wanted to write and never quite had the confidence to do: a long, passionate onrush, formally controlled and joyously messy, propulsive but digressively self-interrupted, attired but dishevelled, careful and lawless, right and wrong."
I define genius as someone whose brain wiring (we all are very good with a few things) meets passion and an immense amount of deliberate/deep practice and all the above meeting the luck (having a parent and/or teacher helping the person to pursue the activity and encourage when the person is struggling as so-called genius struggle too and also getting opportunities to showcase your skill/talent) for the world to see the result/performance we see from a “genius” and my above definition is mostly influenced by my experience dealing with a few at my work and the below two books:
The world owes Leopold Mozart a great debt for having “dreamed a dream” for his now immortal progeny at the cost of having his own considerable accomplishments eclipsed, but in this, the tercentenary of the birth of this talented musician, protean scholar, and dedicated educator, everything’s coming up Leopold.
The question I cannot answer is: can a lack of brain wiring be entirely overcome by just an immense amount of practice? I think it can be to a large extent, but how a person handles unexpected/unknown situations will tell you whether the genius has a brain wiring, to begin with or it was the sheer practice scenario.
I've been thinking a lot about how much work goes into removing people's personal agency and autonomy and I think genius worship plays into that. There is a movement of people (mainly in tech, but elsewhere as well) who consider themselves Rationalists and what I have gathered so far is that they believe there is one right answer to every question and only through their very narrow form of rational inquiry can we get to it. AI evangelists believe that they can simplify the human brain enough for a computer to emulate it completely. They don't need to understand teaching, learning, or anything else as long as their programs meet their limited expectations. The Rationalist approach seeks the one best way to transfer knowledge and wishes to standardize that across education (even if the best approach is effective for 80% of students and 20% are left out).
I agree 100% with the insight about hobbies, and as an amateur guitar player, it is incredibly motivating to see the improvement I've made in just the past year. My final, more cynical point is, you can't maintain low-wage jobs if you recognize that people develop skills and expertise in what they're doing. You must raise up certain people as geniuses to justify their deservingness and therefore push others down as unworthy.
Yes, genius is brain wiring, as referred to in another comment, and passion, but it does not manifest itself in a vacuum. Somewhere, somehow, sometime, someone in their life saw them, their passion and skill and acknowledged it, and believed in them. Mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandparent, or a kindly neighbor down the street, all of them, or only one of them, it does not matter. Every genius began their journey with one person believing in them unconditionally.
I grew up believing I was supposed to be a genius and that I failed due to a lack of diligence, which seems somehow to negate both the distinctions you make.
I'm unclear on how I acquired the idea that I was supposed to be a genius, or make myself into one, except perhaps that my father, a professor of Classics and humanities who died in 1981, is described to this day as "the best teacher I ever had" by students at every institution where he taught, even those whose sole education from him consisted of conversations over bridge in the student union. My mother got a PhD in English and then went on to medical school, while raising me as a single mother. She got through on sheer persistence, I think, though by all accounts I have heard she is also an excellent doctor.
Perhaps I didn't quite believe my parents were geniuses or experts, but I did gather that I was supposed to be both, leaning toward the former. As it is I believe I know more about writing, copyright and fair use, and perhaps another subject or other than the average person, but that counts as only a marginal level of expertise and none of genius. Then again, we still need people to plow along, doing the work that needs to be done, including loading the dishwasher and putting away laundry, both of which I ought to be doing right now instead of writing.
John, I liked it very much, and you provoke good questions. I will lamely fall back on an old saw from my childhood, maybe one of those witty sayings that were printed over gorgeous nature scenes and hung on office walls. "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% persperation."
Thinking about revision from your past last week, I'm curious how much revision you do of these Substack posts, or if they're largely published as first written. (I'm not trying to imply that they read as unedited, just curious.)
(It's hard not to think of the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000-hour rule from Outliers while reading this post, haha.)
Hyperbole and a Half made me laugh so hard I cried, several times. Highly recommended.
I often throw around the G word to describe a Simpsons’ bit or a particularly biting or relevant or insightful turn of phrase in a group chat. We are all capable of it, to varying degrees.
I think this is similar to the perspiration vs inspiration dichotomy - never completely separate from each other.
But a person who truly makes the cut to meet this standard - as a general statement about their work or art or talent - has something that others don’t really have, or certainly at a much higher dose that can (kind of) be articulated or identified.
Maybe try-hards can compete with those of greater genius, but I like to think that we (someone?) can see the difference.
I totally get what you mean by practicing the drums helps with writing or other creative endeavors. I, too, decided on lessons about three years ago and it was one of the best decisions I made in my adult life. For me, practicing and playing the drums is a very clear and concrete example of how tiny changes add up to big progress. That fill you couldn't nail last week soon becomes a little easier after some diligence and practice.
I've tried to apply that to my writing practice, as well.
Cheers. Let me know if you want to start a band with only two drummers and maybe a trumpet.
Hi John, this made me laugh as I was the bass player in an indie band at 6th form college (junior & senior in the US?) but could not really play the bass. Most bands had a similar arrangement, with only one or two competent musicians, although I'm not sure competence was ever really the point, though.
Huw
Love this discussion. It reminds me of Willa Cather's obsession with genius in her novels and stories, where characters like Thea Kronborg are drawn from real-life prototypes, such as Olive Fremstad. These tropes have lent themselves to a kind of Cather mythology -- the genius sprung fully formed from the plains -- and some outright canards, such as the notion of Cather's lifelong companion, Edith Lewis, as a kind of admiring drudge. Benjamin Taylor even repeats one of these canards in his new biography (which has won some praise, but which Cather scholars find maddeningly careless with facts), claiming that Lewis is buried at Cather's feet in Jaffrey, New Hampshire (in fact, they are buried side by side). Melissa Homestead has shown in her book "The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather and Edith Lewis" that Lewis was an active editor of Cather's manuscripts, not merely the domestic partner who washed the dishes while Cather was off dreaming up her next masterpiece. I like this example as a companion to your notion of genius as relative (lots of different kinds) but also as collaborative (teaching requires a willing learner).
Homestead's book is worth a read: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-only-wonderful-things-9780190652876?q=melissa%20homestead&lang=en&cc=us#
The ability to work perfectly in sync with others for the greater good is very to similar to what Atul Gawande describes as the new model for modern medicine vs the old days, what he calls “cowboys versus pit crews.” In an era of mass information overload and hyperspecialization, the lone swashbuckling (often rule breaking) “genius” no longer serves patients or society
Love that analogy. One of the things that transformed how I taught writing was to make it more explicitly oriented around the goal of learning together. In my syllabus I would say that the course was a "shared inquiry into the subject at hand" meaning collectively we'd interrogate the experience of the class and share our different perspectives in a way that allowed for additional reflection. I wanted students to see they had a role beyond just doing their assignments and getting a grade. We had a collective responsibility to that inquiry.
Great piece, John. I especially like and appreciate your emphasis on Joe Slaby here.
I was reminded of an essay by James Wood, "The Fun Stuff," which is all about drumming, with a focus on the work of Keith Moon:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/11/29/the-fun-stuff
The essay is also about writing, and near the end of the essay, Wood writes this sentence, which makes the point clear:
"For me, this playing is like an ideal sentence, a sentence I have always wanted to write and never quite had the confidence to do: a long, passionate onrush, formally controlled and joyously messy, propulsive but digressively self-interrupted, attired but dishevelled, careful and lawless, right and wrong."
I define genius as someone whose brain wiring (we all are very good with a few things) meets passion and an immense amount of deliberate/deep practice and all the above meeting the luck (having a parent and/or teacher helping the person to pursue the activity and encourage when the person is struggling as so-called genius struggle too and also getting opportunities to showcase your skill/talent) for the world to see the result/performance we see from a “genius” and my above definition is mostly influenced by my experience dealing with a few at my work and the below two books:
https://www.amazon.com/The-Talent-Code-Daniel-Coyle-audiobook/dp/B07VH2KNT2/ref=mp_s_a_1_11?crid=7XPHJIT9SEQE&keywords=the+genius+code&qid=1707055059&sprefix=the+genious+codd%2Caps%2C66&sr=8-11
And
https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Robert-Greene-audiobook/dp/B00A6G9CGG/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=3Q37Y06IAZ9IL&keywords=mastery+by+robert+greene&qid=1707055262&sprefix=mastery+by+robert+greene%2Caps%2C63&sr=8-1
And then here is a post that sums up Mozart’s father's effort and sacrifices to make Mozart a “genius.”
https://blogs.loc.gov/music/2019/11/leopolds-turn-leopold-mozart-turns-300/
The world owes Leopold Mozart a great debt for having “dreamed a dream” for his now immortal progeny at the cost of having his own considerable accomplishments eclipsed, but in this, the tercentenary of the birth of this talented musician, protean scholar, and dedicated educator, everything’s coming up Leopold.
The question I cannot answer is: can a lack of brain wiring be entirely overcome by just an immense amount of practice? I think it can be to a large extent, but how a person handles unexpected/unknown situations will tell you whether the genius has a brain wiring, to begin with or it was the sheer practice scenario.
I've been thinking a lot about how much work goes into removing people's personal agency and autonomy and I think genius worship plays into that. There is a movement of people (mainly in tech, but elsewhere as well) who consider themselves Rationalists and what I have gathered so far is that they believe there is one right answer to every question and only through their very narrow form of rational inquiry can we get to it. AI evangelists believe that they can simplify the human brain enough for a computer to emulate it completely. They don't need to understand teaching, learning, or anything else as long as their programs meet their limited expectations. The Rationalist approach seeks the one best way to transfer knowledge and wishes to standardize that across education (even if the best approach is effective for 80% of students and 20% are left out).
I agree 100% with the insight about hobbies, and as an amateur guitar player, it is incredibly motivating to see the improvement I've made in just the past year. My final, more cynical point is, you can't maintain low-wage jobs if you recognize that people develop skills and expertise in what they're doing. You must raise up certain people as geniuses to justify their deservingness and therefore push others down as unworthy.
Yes, genius is brain wiring, as referred to in another comment, and passion, but it does not manifest itself in a vacuum. Somewhere, somehow, sometime, someone in their life saw them, their passion and skill and acknowledged it, and believed in them. Mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, grandparent, or a kindly neighbor down the street, all of them, or only one of them, it does not matter. Every genius began their journey with one person believing in them unconditionally.
I grew up believing I was supposed to be a genius and that I failed due to a lack of diligence, which seems somehow to negate both the distinctions you make.
I'm unclear on how I acquired the idea that I was supposed to be a genius, or make myself into one, except perhaps that my father, a professor of Classics and humanities who died in 1981, is described to this day as "the best teacher I ever had" by students at every institution where he taught, even those whose sole education from him consisted of conversations over bridge in the student union. My mother got a PhD in English and then went on to medical school, while raising me as a single mother. She got through on sheer persistence, I think, though by all accounts I have heard she is also an excellent doctor.
Perhaps I didn't quite believe my parents were geniuses or experts, but I did gather that I was supposed to be both, leaning toward the former. As it is I believe I know more about writing, copyright and fair use, and perhaps another subject or other than the average person, but that counts as only a marginal level of expertise and none of genius. Then again, we still need people to plow along, doing the work that needs to be done, including loading the dishwasher and putting away laundry, both of which I ought to be doing right now instead of writing.
John, I liked it very much, and you provoke good questions. I will lamely fall back on an old saw from my childhood, maybe one of those witty sayings that were printed over gorgeous nature scenes and hung on office walls. "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% persperation."
Thinking about revision from your past last week, I'm curious how much revision you do of these Substack posts, or if they're largely published as first written. (I'm not trying to imply that they read as unedited, just curious.)
(It's hard not to think of the Malcolm Gladwell 10,000-hour rule from Outliers while reading this post, haha.)
Hyperbole and a Half made me laugh so hard I cried, several times. Highly recommended.
This is the best thing I’ve read all week. Thank you.
This is a great post and some great comments here too! Thanks John
I often throw around the G word to describe a Simpsons’ bit or a particularly biting or relevant or insightful turn of phrase in a group chat. We are all capable of it, to varying degrees.
I think this is similar to the perspiration vs inspiration dichotomy - never completely separate from each other.
But a person who truly makes the cut to meet this standard - as a general statement about their work or art or talent - has something that others don’t really have, or certainly at a much higher dose that can (kind of) be articulated or identified.
Maybe try-hards can compete with those of greater genius, but I like to think that we (someone?) can see the difference.
Hey John,
I totally get what you mean by practicing the drums helps with writing or other creative endeavors. I, too, decided on lessons about three years ago and it was one of the best decisions I made in my adult life. For me, practicing and playing the drums is a very clear and concrete example of how tiny changes add up to big progress. That fill you couldn't nail last week soon becomes a little easier after some diligence and practice.
I've tried to apply that to my writing practice, as well.
Cheers. Let me know if you want to start a band with only two drummers and maybe a trumpet.