For centuries, physicists have been perplexed by the apparent dual nature of light. In some scenarios, light behaves as a particle. In other cases, light behaves as a wave. It’s as if light is both a particle and a wave at the very same time.
Genius might be thought of as having this same apparent dual nature.
We can come to know it as a creative power that gives shape and color to our unique selves. In this sense, it is an essential part of us — perhaps the essential part of our separate selves.
But just as the Romans and Greeks conceived of it, genius might also be thought of as a guiding spirit beyond our separate selves, an outside force calling us to action, a divine muse pulling us toward ourselves or toward whatever the universe wants to bring into being through us.
It is not us per se.
It is the voice of the universe or the beyond echoing through us. We don’t inhabit it so much as we learn to hear, trust, and follow it.
Sometimes it calls us to something about which we are immediately excited, which feels like us. But sometimes it reveals a possibility that terrifies or confounds us, calling us into a new version of ourselves or an endeavor we did not anticipate or bargain for, stretching us to our very limit.
This is an excerpt from my upcoming book The Antihero’s Journey: From Burnout to Real Contribution in Polycrisis Times. To read other excerpts, go here.
