The Genius, The Madman And Us
Types of jobs, types of people and types of lives we can live
Average?
Antoni Gaudí graduated as an architect in 1878. As he was handing him his degree, the director of the architecture school said, ‘We have given this academic title either to a madman or a genius.’ I think time has proven the celebrated architect to have been the latter. Indeed, I still haven’t seen anything as wonderfully distinct as his work. Now, I just read that his grades were average and that he even failed a few courses. Gaudí, average? You might not like his work. You might even hate it. Still, you could hardly call it average, could you?
Thin Lines
It made me think of the line that often separates great interpreters from great geniuses. Granted, many fantastic creative minds are also exceptional interpreters of their own or other people’s work. Conversely, many unoriginal creatives are also rather poor interpreters. However, some are remarkable in one field while being only viable in the other. It is only natural. We are like that: some of us excel at certain jobs while fairing rather ordinarily at others. One type of person isn’t better either, we’re simply more or less suited for different endeavours.