Taste requires originality. It invokes an aspirational authenticity. Writer George Saunders calls this “achieving the iconic space,” and it’s what he’s after when he meets his creative writing students. “They arrive already wonderful. What we try to do over the next three years is help them achieve what I call their “iconic space” — the place from ... See more

The noted neurologist and author Oliver Sacks had this to say about originality, in his essay “Prodigies” from the book An Anthropologist on Mars: Creativity, as usually understood, entails not only a “what,” a talent, but a “who”—strong personal characteristics, a strong identity, personal sensibility, a personal style, which flow into the talent,

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