{Artistic Vanity}[18th March 1970]

[Redbook1:133-134][19700318:2245c]{Artistic Vanity}[18th March 1970]

Wednesday 18th March 1970

10.45pm

[continued]

            There is a tendency among a certain kind of creative artist to become conceited in the sense that although he recognises that he is not necessarily the best person of all people, he assumes that he is the best person that he could possibly be.  It follows from this that everything in his life, however horrible as an experience, was the best thing that could have happened to him because it contributed to the production of this best possible result.  It does not occur to him that if things had turned out differently his genius might have been greater; he can only conceive of genius greater than his own at having been inherited (unfair, and so not his fault).  He knows that his own particular genius is statistically unique, so he gives every minute detail of difference in his upbringing a totally unwarranted emphasis and importance, in an effort to explain -- or possibly to accentuate -- his own genius.

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