I’ve been thinking a lot about the ideas of genius and of the tortured artist which are often called out as myths, at least as they are in popular culture. I’m never sure what to think because American hyper-positive you can do anything if you really try is strictly false, but on the other hand I find myself faced with anecdotal evidence of both natural talent and longterm effort shining through on particular occasions.

Maybe they’re both just ways for most of us to feel better having given up on our creativity. But I’m suspicious of the idea of wide swaths of the population having given up their creativity. People like to contrast ‘content’ consumers and producers and say that you’re missing out on human reality (or something) by being one of the former and failing to be one of the latter. Yet there are plenty of misguided people on both sides, whether or not it’s a distinction on which eudaimonia turns.