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On Genius, Intellect, and Obsession

troynikov.io · 940 words · saved by 1 readers

Genius, as an intellectual quality, is the ability to come into contact with the transcendent; to go beyond the boundary of merely existing human thought and strike out into the vast quicksilver territory that lies beyond, to catch hold of a shimmering sliver of that place. Genius is often depicted as innate and general intellectual ability; someone is born a genius or they aren’t. I think this depiction is wrong - genius doesn’t arise of its own accord, and is in fact a consequence of a lifelong process predicated on other in-born characteristics. I once said (elsewhere) that genius is about caring about something more than a reasonable person cares about anything; actualized genius is the product of obsessive patterns of thought, coupled with raw intellectual power, carried through a lifetime. Geniuses are typically already identifiable at a young age, though not all child prodigies come into adult genius. In fact it’s a cliche that raw intellect without sustained effort is never suf

Genius, as an intellectual quality, is the ability to come into contact with the transcendent; to go beyond the boundary of merely existing human thought and strike out into the vast quicksilver territory that lies beyond, to catch hold of a shimmering sliver of that place. Genius is often depicted as innate and general intellectual ability; someone is born a genius or they aren’t. I think this depiction is wrong - genius doesn’t arise of its own accord, and is in fact a consequence of a lifelong process predicated on other in-born characteristics. I once said ( elsewhere ) that genius is abou

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