Claudia Kalb - Spark

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Copyright 2021 Claudia Kalb. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission from the publisher is prohibited.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Kalb, Claudia, author. | National Geographic Partners (U.S.)

Title: Spark : how genius ignites, from child prodigies to late bloomers / Claudia Kalb.

Description: Washington, DC : National Geographic Partners, LLC, [2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: A look at genius, through portraits of 13 iconic figures in fields ranging from music to medicine, to explore what leads certain people to reach their creative heights early in life, whereas others dont uncover their potential until their later years-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020043781 (print) | LCCN 2020043782 (ebook) | ISBN 9781426220937 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781426220944 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Creative ability. | Genius. | Personality. | Psychology.

Classification: LCC BF408 .K224 2021 (print) | LCC BF408 (ebook) | DDC 153.3/5--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043781

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020043782

ISBN 978-1-4262-2094-4

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Interior design: Melissa Farris

Illustrations: Allison Bruns

To my grandparents, Bella, Max, Sue, and Sam, and to those who came before them.

And to the prodigies, midlifers, and late bloomers in all of us.

W hen I was child, I spent a lot of time wondering when I would know what I wanted to be. Ive loved to write for as long as I can remember, and I spent many afternoons skimming through the pages of my parents New Yorker magazines before I could make sense of the stories. Words fluttered through my mind like confetti at a ticker-tape parade.

Still, my path to becoming a writer was circuitous, and I have long been fascinated by the journeys of others. What role do our personality traits play in the livelihoods we pursue? Are we born with talent or lured by passion? How do we discover the spark that fuels our souls? And how do we know when weve found it?

These questions, which have stoked the minds of philosophers and psychologists for centuries, inspired me to explore the trajectories of 13 iconic figures who left colossal footprints in a variety of fieldsfrom art and music to medicine, business, and politics. In my research, I became especially intrigued by the time line of discovery, which shapes the arc of this narrative. What propels some individuals to reach extraordinary creative heights in the earliest years of life while others uncover their destiny decades later?

The chapters in this book, best read sequentially, are organized not by birth order, but by the age at which genius ignites. Child prodigies Pablo Picasso, Shirley Temple, and Yo-Yo Ma, whose talents earned them acclaim in early childhood, launch the book, followed by Bill Gates, Isaac Newton, and entrepreneur Sara Blakely, whose moments of inspiration span the ages between 13 and 27. Julia Child, Maya Angelou, and Alexander Fleming constitute what I call midliferspeople whose momentous experiences transpired in their 30s and 40s. The chapters close with late bloomers Eleanor Roosevelt, Peter Mark Roget of Rogets Thesaurus fame, and the painter Anna Mary Robertson Moses, also known as Grandma Moses, all of whom initiated their most enduring work in the final decades of their lives.

I studied these individuals through a journalistic lens, conducting interviews and reporting on-site where possible, and bolstered my knowledge by delving into letters, memoirs, and biographies. At Woolsthorpe Manor, north of London, I stood in Isaac Newtons bedroom, with its limestone walls, and took in the view of his famed apple tree out the window. I went inside Alexander Flemings lab, where he discovered penicillin, and took Eleanor Roosevelts favorite walk through the woods at Val-Kill, her home in upstate New York. I listened to Yo-Yo Ma perform Bachs Cello Suites live at the Washington National Cathedral and at Tanglewood, and heard Sara Blakely speak to a group of entrepreneurs about her journey to founding Spanx, her multimillion-dollar clothing and shapewear company. Where possible, I talked to family members of the historical individuals profiled in these pages. I drew on a conversation I had with Ma for a magazine feature, and I interviewed Gates and Blakely.

From the cradles of civilization to the 21st centuryAristotle and Sappho to Jane Goodall, Alvin Ailey, and Isabel Allendegreat minds have changed the way we understand ourselves and the world we inhabit. Their momentous achievements have fostered energetic debates about the inner workings of the brain and human behavior, and about how we judge ingenuity in art, music, literature, science, medicine, and technology. What are the origins of genius? What makes a genius? What is a genius?

This is inherently complicated terrain. Entire books, many of which informed my research, have attempted to explain human virtuosity. In these pages, I interpret the term with some degree of latitude. In certain cases, an individuals contributions are so immense and enduring that no other term seems sufficient. In others, the word acts more as an adjective describing a breakthrough or piece of creative work: The innovation itself is genius and the person who came up with it deserves ample recognition because of it.

Philosophers have long pondered the origins of genius. Plato described inspiration as a gift from the gods and likened the poet and prophet to an empty vessel filled with divine infusion, says historian Darrin McMahon, author of Divine Fury: A History of Genius. Aristotelian thinkers, by contrast, attributed brilliance at least in part to biology, theorizing that an overabundance of black bileone of the four bodily humors proposed by Hippocratesendowed eminent souls with superior powers. Phrenologists attempted to find genius in bumps on the head; craniometrists collected skulls, which they probed, measured, and weighed.

Child prodigies, whose talent appears early in life, raise an eternally debated question: Is genius born or made? In the 19th century, the polymath Francis Galton proposed that the trait was passed down through family bloodlines; he mapped the lineages of an array of European leaders in disparate fieldsfrom Mozart and Haydn to Byron, Chaucer, Titus, and Napoleonto make his case. In 1869, Galton published his findings in Hereditary Genius,