And...what about the genius?

And what about the genius? How can natural selection explain a Shakespeare, a Mozart, an Einstein, an Abdul Jabbar? How would Jane Austen, Vincent van Gogh, or Thelonious Monk have earned their keep on the Pleistocene savanna?

All of us are creative. Every time we stick a handy object under the leg o a wobbly table or think up a new way to bride a child into his pajamas, we have used our faculties to create a novel outcome. But creative geniuses are distinguished not just by their extraordinary works but by their extraordinary way of working; they are not supposed to think like you and me. They burst on the scene as prodiges, enfants terribles, young turks. They listen to their muse and defy the conventional wisdom. They work when the inspiration hits, and leap with insight while the rest of us plot in baby steps along well-worn paths. They put a problem aside and let it incubate in the unconscious; then, without warning, a bulb lights up and a fully formed solution presents itself. Aha! The genius leaves us with masterpieces, a legacy of the unrepressed creativity of the unconscious..........

The image came out of the Romantic movement two hundred years ago and is now firmly entrenched. Creativity consultants take millions of dollars from corporations for Dilbertesque workshops on brainstorming, lateral thinking, and flow from the right side of the brain, guaranteed to turn every managr into an Edison. Elaborate theories have been built to explain the uncanny problem solving power of the dreamy unconscious. Like Alfred Russel Wallace, some have concluded that there can be no natural explanation. Mozart's manuscripts were said to have no corrections. The pieces must have come from the mind of God, who had dhosen to express his voice through Mozart.

Unfortunately, creative people are at their most creative when writing their autobiographies. Historians have scrutinized their dairies, notebooks, manuscripts and correspondence looking for signs of the temperamental seer periodically stuck by bolts from the unconscious. Alas, they have found that the creative genius is more Salieri than Amadeus

Geniuses are wonks, The typical genius pays dues for at least ten years before contributing anything of lasting value. During the apprenticeship geniuses immerse themselves in their genre. They absorb tens of thousands of problems and solutions, so no challenge is completely new and and they can draw on the vast repertoire of motifs and strategies. They keep an eye on the competition and a finger to the wind, and are either discriminating or lucky in their choice of problems. They are mindful of the esteem of others and of their place in history. They work day and night, and leave us with many works of subgenius. Their interludes away from a problem are helpful not because it ferments in the unconscious but because they are exhausted and need to rest. They do not repress a problem byut engage in "creative worrying," and the epiphany is not masterstroke but a tweaking of an earlier attempt. They revise endlessly, gradually closing in on their ideal. ~ Page 360-361