I came across this YouTube of a guy making Kung Po chicken. An instructional video on how to make it "better than any Chinese restaurant." Based on the quality of that soupy mess he boiled up, I'd say he doesn't get out to many good restaurants. But his delusional assumption that
1-he makes great Kung Po
and
2-that he should be sharing his knowledge with the world
got me thinking about something MLEIV has obsessed over for years: what makes a person a genius?
We seem to give priority to the "Rock and Roll" style genius who struggles in his/her late teens, gets discovered in his/her 20's, takes the world by storm, and then flames out in a spectacular show of self-destruction (think Kurt Cobain or Janice Joplin). Mr. Kung Po here probably things he is that genius but just hasn't been discovered yet. Other people, like MLEIV, think they are complete failures because they see lucky, teenage one-shot wonders and compare themselves to that ideal.
But let's consider the other kind of genius, the Albert Einstein kind. This kind spends years building up foundational skills, works to understand themselves, their medium, and how to use that as an expression. They may never get discovered, but what they produce is a much higher quality with a better lifespan than the flame-outs. We don't value the Einstein genius nearly as much, but when we do it is an enduring love.
Take cooking (the only artistic expression I even remotely understand) for example. Any idiot can throw stuff in a pan and get lucky once or twice, but if you want to create true artistic expressions, you need to know how a wok is useful in the kitchen (again, just one example). You need to understand that it is a high-heat cooking surface that needs to have ingredients added one at a time, in small batches, so that they all get that contact with the searing hot outside of the wok. You do, in contrast to our friend Scott, have to know how to measure ingredients, prepare them beforehand, cut/clean them just right. These foundations allow you entry into the game. Only then can you start to do amazingly creative things: once you have built the foundation.
That doesn't mean you can't throw out all convention and blaze a new path, but make sure you know what you are throwing out and when you rebuild, make it better than before.
Einstein said "Any fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage - to move in the opposite direction."
Then compare that with what John Stewart Mill said "Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained."
Perhaps the "courage" that Einstein and Mill refer to is overcoming the human disposition/weakness to compare onesself (or one's work) to another (or that of another). Perhaps, this "courage" is as simple as not really giving a shit what others think (which is noted by others as eccentricity). Unfortunately, "eccentricity" is usually tagged on certain people by the clueless, because of things that have nothing to do with the person's contributions (e.g., Warhol wearing a strange type of clothing, Einstein having an odd hairstyle, etc.).
I think the problem with Mr. "My Kung Pao recipe is the Best" is that he stoops to having to refer to other recipes to make an argument that his is "The Best". He states "I make better kung pao than I've had in any Chinese restaurant." Comparison to something as subjective as taste, is just plain weak (IMO). instead of just letting the work speak for itself...which is probably a true indicator of "genius".
I like to think that Van Gogh, Da Vinci, and Shakespeare never compared their works to that of another, because they were smart enough/genius enough to realize their contributions were so unique.