“Genius,” writes Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker, “in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity—doing something truly creative, we’re inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth.” But there is another kind of genius that has more to do with searching than finding, that is realised through painstaking trial and error, that can take decades to reach fruition. Gladwell illustrates this by using Paul Cézanne and Ben Fountain as examples, showing how luck and love are indispensable for this second kind of genius.
So even if you weren’t quite the prodigy, keep at it. Ok?
(Link via email from Rahul.)