The Myth of the Sole Genius and the Power of Partnerships
Good Life Project
Jonathan Fields / Acast
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 30 October 2014
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There’s this legend about the sole creator.
That person who goes into their creative cave, cloistered in solitude for days, months or even years, only to emerge with a work of genius. Exploding into the zeitgeist and changing everything.
But what if that was story was just a myth? What if the whole of idea sole genius was really a fantasy, obscuring the truth that almost nothing truly profound was created in a vacuum? That’s what we’re talking about on today’s episode
My guest today is bestselling author and essayist, Joshua Wolf Shenk. He recently published a provocative new book called The Powers of Two that explores both the myth of the sole creative and the complex and often legendary power of creative partnerships. Along the way, we also dive into Shenk’s own creative process, what it’s like to live the writer’s life and spend nearly 5 years working on a single book.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | One of the happiest places for me to be is on a writer's conference where the air is |
| 0:06.3 | filled with language of search and pain, Helen Colley, but the language itself is quite |
| 0:12.8 | beautiful and there's just this really very full quality that life is being lived in |
| 0:19.7 | a really raw way. |
| 0:24.0 | And I just feel like I can rest there. |
| 0:31.1 | So there's this ideal about the soul creator, you know, that person who goes into their |
| 0:35.4 | creative cave and it cloistered in solitude for days or months or even years, only to emerge |
| 0:41.4 | with the work of genius exploding into the zeitgeism, kind of changing everything. |
| 0:47.2 | But what if that was all just a myth? |
| 0:49.6 | I don't know what the whole idea of the soul genius was really this fantasy, obscuring |
| 0:55.3 | the truth that almost nothing truly profound was ever created in the vacuum. |
| 0:59.8 | Well that's what we're talking about on today's episode. |
| 1:03.8 | I'm Jonathan Fields, this is Good Life Project. |
| 1:11.3 | So before we move into today's conversation, you may have noticed that we've been editing |
| 1:15.4 | the show a bit differently, kind of exploring where we want to go with it and the |
| 1:19.6 | what kind of vibe we want to create as we turn all of our media energies towards the |
| 1:23.9 | audio experience. |
| 1:25.8 | And truth is, these conversations aren't recorded in the studio. |
| 1:29.1 | They happen in my living room table, often over a cup of coffee, glass of water, maybe |
| 1:33.9 | a little something to nosh. |
| 1:35.7 | Being in the heart of the city were also blessed with all sorts of ambient sounds from sirens |
| 1:41.0 | to garbage trucks and airplanes to air conditioners. |
... |
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