The article I recommend more than any other is also the article I reflect on more often than any I’ve ever read in The New Yorker.
Late Bloomers, by Malcolm Gladwell, asserts that we make a mistake with this common assumption:
Genius, in the popular conception, is inextricably tied up with precocity—doing something truly creative, we’re inclined to think, requires the freshness and exuberance and energy of youth.
There are plenty of geniuses who didn’t make any great art early in their careers.
The Cézannes of the world bloom late not as a result of some defect in character, or distraction, or lack of ambition, but because the kind of creativity that proceeds through trial and error necessarily takes a long time to come to fruition.
I urge my students, my colleagues, my friends interested in making art to accept, even embrace, the idea that they will not be a Picasso, a genius artist from day one. Better to understand that their art may require the long-term attention that Cézanne’s art did.