Every serious writer, whether they will admit it or not, aspires towards the kind of work that might qualify as genius.
Even if they never quite hit the mark, that sincere aspiration will drive them to create better and better work.
So how to define genius?
It's a little more difficult than you might think.
Part of the difficulty is that true genius is extremely rare, and those blessed with it occupy a rarefied atmosphere in which only they (and others like them) can breathe for long enough to have a good look around.
As Schopenhauer said: talent hits a target that no one else can hit; genius hits a target that no one else can see.
Although it's not definitive, I do think that the head quote for this post provides a useful sketch of the attributes of genius.
It’s also a great definition of what good literary work should be.
Some strange and inspired combination of beauty, originality, and that most elusive of attributes: the power to move the human soul, and by moving it also change it into something more precious and complete.
So how do you go about writing like that?
Part of the work is the actual work. Years and years of dedicating yourself to the craft, failing more often than you succeed, setting down many millions of words and editing out millions more.
It is also crucial to perform some kind of literary apprenticeship. You can indenture yourself to some present-day teacher, if you can find one skilled enough, but as I wrote in a previous post it is far better to apprentice yourself to a genuine master, living or (more likely) dead.
But the major thing is to live. And that means to really live, courageously and generously and authentically. To love passionately and constantly, to be generous past the point of recklessness with your own heart and careful of the hearts of others.
And to accept with such grace as you can muster the inevitable dividend of living and loving like that: suffering.
Because it suffering that will get you there. Suffering that will purify your spirit to the point where it becomes luminous, and shine that luminous intensity into your works, to move them to the point where they will begin to move.
P. Julian
26 August 2018
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