I could never understand how some of these young folk, my age and such, were able to create so well.
Take the F. Scott Fitzgerald, for instance, and the Great Gatsby. He wrote that when he was 28. He had already written a number of other books by that time.
Anyways, where I'm going with this is, I was reading an article a couple weeks ago that put forth the theory that there were two types of creative genius. They called one type conceptual, while the other they referred to as being analytic. I'm not too sure about the terms they used, but the definitions make sense.
Fitzgerald was a conceptual genius. This is why he was able to write so well, so young. There was no learning curve. He just knew, it was hard wired into his brain.
Dostoevsky, on the other hand, was analytic. His greatest art came after years of honing his craft. The ideas he expressed were too careful to be unconscious, they were ideas that came after time, from hours of solitary thinking and years of experience.
As for my comment on the matter, I don't have much to say, except that it makes sense and is interesting, and that I think that I respect the latter type a bit more. If only because it implies a struggle to the peak, instead of being born there.
- posted by Sigurd6/13/2005 08:12:00 AM