Genius is infinite patience.’” What she’s talking about is the underrated power of clocking vast amounts of hours in the laboratory, at the easel, in the writing chair, on the court, or wherever you do your work. In a power law world, a subset of those hours inevitably yields something great. That’s all that happens.

“What matters,” as Picasso once encouraged another artist just starting out, “is that you make a large number of them. Your drawings must go out into the world.” Only then can the vital few emerge.