One aspect that seemed omitted was the value of specialization/tunnel vision. The article says, "When one reads about famous creative geniuses one finds that, a

One aspect that seemed omitted was the value of specialization/tunnel vision. The article says, "When one reads about famous creative geniuses one finds that, although they may occasionally have to force themselves to work, they cannot will themselves to be obsessed by the subject of their work," and gives some good examples, but attributes this to "cortical arousal" which I don't think can fully explain what's going on. I don't get the sense that Newton would get stuck in his cellar to compose music, nor would Wagner run upstairs to write a formula of physics. At the risk of stroking my own ego, I would say that I am pretty high on the components described here ("ability", "productivity", and "creativity") but my breadth is extremely wide--I can get interested in just about anything--and my obsession shifts from day to day, preventing any sort of long-term foray into a specific area. To the degree that different areas of intellect are non-synergistic, it makes sense that specialization should be a requirement for great achievement: a person with great capacity for genius who spends 25% of his time in each of four areas will easily be overshadowed by someone with only 50% of that capacity for genius, but 100% focus on a particular area.