One of my idols has to be John Mayer. He is one of the most technically accomplished musicians in mainstream contemporary pop and is possibly my favourite artist of all time. I saw him perform at the Wembley Arena earlier this year and I honestly think live music has been ruined for me forever.
On his live album, Where the Light is, he talks during his version of Jimi Hendrix's Bold as Love about what you have to do if you want to be a genius. An interesting point he raises is: if you want to be a genius, you have to be mad. To some extent I suppose this could be true, revolutionaries from Darwin to Jesus were considered mad by their peers during their life times and they were definitely geniuses. However I also consider John Mayer to be a genius, obviously not in the same vain as Jesus or Darwin but a genius nonetheless.
But John Mayer isn't mad, he's just a douche.
Don't get me wrong, I still admire him immensely and I don't dislike his personality that comes across in the media. I have many close friends with their fair share of doucheiness and I like them just fine. This, however, suggests that if you want to be considered a genius in your own time you need an element of douche. I mean this in the sense that you need the tenacity to say what you want and do what you want to without caring about what people might think. Another good example is Richard Dawkins, his books sell millions of copies and he's a dick.
So this means to be a genius you need to have a measure of self confidence, a pinch of intelligence and a heaped teaspoon of wanker.
I don't think I have that in me.
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