On his book The Genius Checklist: Nine Paradoxical Tips on How You Can Become a Creative Genius
Cover Interview of April 10, 2019
In a nutshell
The Genius Checklist addresses the most essential
questions about identifying, developing, and manifesting creative genius. Some
of these questions have been examined by thinkers for centuries. These recurrent
issues include: Is genius born or made? Is genius mad? Does genius just require
living at the right place at the right time? How much does genius depend on
pure luck? Other questions have emerged during the course of scientific
research on genius. What IQ score marks someone as a genius? Do geniuses
exhibit distinctive personality profiles? Can anybody become a genius if they
just devote 10 full years to domain-specific study and practice? Or should the
aspirant acquire a tremendous breadth of knowledge and skill? Were geniuses all
former child prodigies, or can some become late bloomers? Are firstborn
children more likely to become geniuses than their laterborn siblings? What
role is played by gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class? How does creative
achievement change across the life span? At what age are geniuses most likely
to produce their definitive masterworks? When are they over the hill? How long
do geniuses live? Do the greatest among them die young? And to what extent do
scientific and artistic geniuses offer different answers to the foregoing
questions?
Now there’s no shortage of books that treat one or more of
these questions. Yet some books are scholarly monographs that systematically
review the scientific findings without sufficient concrete illustrations for
the main points. Others are trade books that rely on ample anecdotes to get
their points across, but often with the most minimal connection with the actual
science of genius. My book negotiates an intermediate path. Although deeply grounded
in the latest scientific results, abundant examples convert the abstractions
into a rich narrative. In addition, rather than use the citation formats
favored by the scientific disciplines, everything scholarly is hidden in the
endnotes; not a single stuffy superscript to be found anywhere. Better yet, to
render the science more accessible, I’ve tried to incorporate tongue-in-cheek
humor throughout. This humor is most immediately apparent in the book’s title,
subtitle, and chapter titles (aka “tips”). In fact, if it’s not obvious from
the dust jacket, let me just say it out loud: This book is something of a
parody of the all too numerous self-help pieces that fill up the online and
brick bookstores.
One warning, though. Some books are designed for dipping.
Readers can open up the volume at any page and find something of interest; that
author’s presentation thus consists of relatively isolated tidbits. That
practice won’t work for a book like mine, where the material is organized in a
logical order. Sections build upon earlier sections, and even upon sections
that appeared in previous chapters. The upside of this integration is a more
coherent understanding of creative genius. That benefit justifies the regimen.
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
In a nutshell
The Genius Checklist addresses the most essential questions about identifying, developing, and manifesting creative genius. Some of these questions have been examined by thinkers for centuries. These recurrent issues include: Is genius born or made? Is genius mad? Does genius just require living at the right place at the right time? How much does genius depend on pure luck? Other questions have emerged during the course of scientific research on genius. What IQ score marks someone as a genius? Do geniuses exhibit distinctive personality profiles? Can anybody become a genius if they just devote 10 full years to domain-specific study and practice? Or should the aspirant acquire a tremendous breadth of knowledge and skill? Were geniuses all former child prodigies, or can some become late bloomers? Are firstborn children more likely to become geniuses than their laterborn siblings? What role is played by gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic class? How does creative achievement change across the life span? At what age are geniuses most likely to produce their definitive masterworks? When are they over the hill? How long do geniuses live? Do the greatest among them die young? And to what extent do scientific and artistic geniuses offer different answers to the foregoing questions?
Now there’s no shortage of books that treat one or more of these questions. Yet some books are scholarly monographs that systematically review the scientific findings without sufficient concrete illustrations for the main points. Others are trade books that rely on ample anecdotes to get their points across, but often with the most minimal connection with the actual science of genius. My book negotiates an intermediate path. Although deeply grounded in the latest scientific results, abundant examples convert the abstractions into a rich narrative. In addition, rather than use the citation formats favored by the scientific disciplines, everything scholarly is hidden in the endnotes; not a single stuffy superscript to be found anywhere. Better yet, to render the science more accessible, I’ve tried to incorporate tongue-in-cheek humor throughout. This humor is most immediately apparent in the book’s title, subtitle, and chapter titles (aka “tips”). In fact, if it’s not obvious from the dust jacket, let me just say it out loud: This book is something of a parody of the all too numerous self-help pieces that fill up the online and brick bookstores.
One warning, though. Some books are designed for dipping. Readers can open up the volume at any page and find something of interest; that author’s presentation thus consists of relatively isolated tidbits. That practice won’t work for a book like mine, where the material is organized in a logical order. Sections build upon earlier sections, and even upon sections that appeared in previous chapters. The upside of this integration is a more coherent understanding of creative genius. That benefit justifies the regimen.