“Spontaneous creativity which is significant and of lasting value almost always demands hard work…”

Spontaneous creativity which is significant and of lasting value almost always demands hard work, professionals who can mentor and guide that work, and some institutional culture which can house it. While popular culture idolizes the myth of the creative genius who comes from “nowhere,” in reality, that genius had teachers and a tradition which they were initiated into and then rebelled against or made over in their own image.

Everything else is castles built on sand.

Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, “Everything you know about creativity might just be wrong”, Justice in the City (5 October 2014) [http://www.justice-in-the-city.com/?p=719]