See the essay, bus ticket theory of genius by Paul Graham
If I had to put the recipe for genius into one sentence, that might be it: to have a disinterested obsession with something that matters.
The paths that lead to new ideas tend to look unpromising. If they looked promising, other people would already have explored them.
They didn’t discover the hidden paths that they did because they seemed promising, but because they couldn’t help it. That’s what allowed them to follow paths that someone who was merely ambitious would have ignored.
Related: Why Greatness Cannot Be Planned
Perhaps the reason people have fewer new ideas as they get older is not simply that they’re losing their edge. It may also be because once you become established, you can no longer mess about with irresponsible side projects the way you could when you were young and no one cared what you did.
It may be that to do great work, you also have to waste a lot of time… If that rule holds here, then the way to find paths that lead to truly great work is to be willing to expend a lot of effort on things that turn out to be every bit as unpromising as they seem.
If interest is a critical ingredient in genius, we may be able, by cultivating interest, to cultivate genius.