Skills are part of a genius’ foundation. Excelling in the production of demonstrable works in a field is the measure of skill, whether those works are flute performances or academic journal articles or products that will help reduce global warming. Attempting to produce genius-level works without spending many years acquiring skills will result in failure and frustration.
[“Do you know what I have been thinking? That in the first period of one’s life, one unconsciously makes it very hard for oneself by a feeling of not being able to master the work, by an uncertainty as to whether one will ever master it, by a great ambition to make progress. One cannot banish a certain feeling of agitation, and one hurries oneself, though one doesn’t like to be hurried. This cannot be helped, and it is a time which one must go through.” – Vincent Van Gogh p.188(2)]
This pyramid represents the journey towards excellence in a field, beginning at the bottom as an Initiate then working your way towards the top towards Master. The more time you spend acquiring a skillset, the more skilled you’ll become, putting you in a smaller and smaller group of peers as you move up the pyramid. Many people have engaged with a medium to achieve a mundane level of achievement. There are a very small number of masters.
