There is no great talent without an element of madness — Aristotle , according to Seneca the Younger



I listened to the Kanye West interview on the Joe Rogan podcast three times. And it still left me perplexed, and perhaps in awe. I still can't tell whether Kanye is a genius or just full of shit.

This essay explores the boundary between ingenuity and madness, and what that means for the rest of us.



Definitions Change

The definitions for both "genius" and "crazy" vary in different parts of the world. They also change over time. What is considered genius depends on what the population currently believe in, and are capable of.

A hilarious joke from the 90s may be considered tasteless and offensive now. A masterful mosaic of sounds from a new DJ may just be noise to some critics today.



Contrarian Thinking

We are always wrong to some degree, individually and collectively. What we are taught in school is the convention, but not the whole truth.

To make creative or intellectual progress, we need independent thinking to see the world differently. We need fuel to escape the cultural gravity that grounds us, to pursue our non-consensus insights.

This requires some level of ego, obsession, and belief in the vision of a future outcome.



Stupid Ideas

Great ideas usually start out sounding dumb. Andrew Chen wrote about this in Dumb Idea Paradox . Many of the big success stories sounded stupid. Red Bull is an expensive drink that tastes disgusting. Snapchat is an app for sending disappearing photos.

In the book Loonshots , Safe Bahcall gave examples of brilliant ideas that had to survive "the Three Deaths" before finally succeeding. He wrote, " In the real world, ideas are ridiculed, experiments fail, budgets are cut, and good people are fired for stupid reasons. "



Name One Genius That Ain't Crazy

In Kanye's song Feedback , he dropped a famous line "name one genius that ain't crazy". He personally identifies with Steve Jobs and Walt Disney , who seem to fit the bill. But are there good counter-examples?

One direction to look would be conventional geniuses who are quirky and unusual, but arguably not "crazy". Richard Feynman and Marie Curie are the first examples that came to mind.

Another category would highly accomplished people who are masters of their own fields, but may not be widely considered "geniuses". We will come back to this in a later section.



Feature or a Bug?

Geniuses sometimes have attributes that would normally be considered flaws that are instrumental to their successes.

On one hand, Kanye may seem unrealistically optimistic and arrogant. But that may be his indispensable driving force. His constant going-off-on-a-tangent and branching of thoughts may just be his greatest asset and source of creative energy.

And according to some biographers, Albert Einstein had difficulty with language as a kid. This made the adults around him worry at the time. But perhaps it was what allowed him to explore unconventional ways to perceive the world.



Don't Copy the Outliers

Whether or not we agree on the definitions, it seems clear that mimicking the geniuses won't get you too far. Following someone's footsteps is like taking their lottery ticket. Their playbook likely won't apply in your situation. A cargo cult approach to life is dangerous.

Most geniuses you can think of are not the role models for an average person. Take Kanye for example, his ego and wild thoughts feel fresh and original. But even if you are 90% successful in copying him, you would just come off as an arrogant jerk. You can't out-Kanye Kanye.



Good Old-Fashioned Luck

It is natural to be drawn to, worship, and mimic "successes" around us. It is a part of being human. But also recognize the important role that luck plays in outlier success.

For every crazy-successful person we see, there are so many more brilliant people who never actualized their full potential.

This leads us to a more grounded and practical approach: pursuing mastery.



Mastery

You may have a hard time naming geniuses, but I bet there are many more masters whose work you admire. Pursuing mastery, in the domains that we truly care about, is a more attainable option for the rest of us.

Masterpieces can come not just from a stroke of genius, but also from lifelong learning and iterations. We can let our genuine curiosity guide us, put in the reps, and let our talents compound over time.

This diagram by James Clear illustrates the point:

And for a more in-depth discussion on the topic of mastery, Robert Greene wrote a fantastic book .



Nurturing Great Ideas

The great ideas we have are delicate and vulnerable. They can easily crumble under external pressure or ridicule, especially in the early stages.

This is another reason to be more humble when judging others' ideas. When you come across an idea that sounds stupid, all you know is that one of you is wrong. We can't tell in advance what will work.

We each have something special in our minds, and a desire to bring that to life. A productive approach is to help other creators overcome the roadblocks and smokescreens in their journeys while checking for their potential blind spots.



Bonus Gems

Here are a few more tidbits on this topic that I enjoy.

"天才與白痴" ("The Last Message" in English) is a classic movie and song by the Hui Brothers in Hong Kong. The title literally means "genius and idiot". An iconic line in the song reads "genius and idiot, it's not so easy to tell".

The singer Sam Hui , also known as the "God of Songs", has Bruce Lee -level influence in the region, but is much less well known in the West.

And here's Kanye on his creative process. I love it. But again, part of me wonders if he's just full of shit.