The understanding of creativity as a mysterious external force with which you carry on "a peculiar, wondrous, bizarre collaboration and conversation" (to quote Elizabeth Gilbert’s vivid characterization of the inner relationship) redefines the customary view of things in our contemporary culture and endows the artist with new gifts and responsibilities.This insight is fundamental to the whole outlook I’m presenting here. It’s also paired with a corollary proposition: that a conscious, working knowledge of the intertwined histories of the daimon and the genius in religion, psychology, and philosophy is indispensible.

By Matt Cardin.  We all know the old saw, usually attributed to Thomas Edison, that "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." The problem with this ubiquitous speck of folk wisdom is not just that it provides a catchall cliché for scoffing at those who dare to suggest that inspiration plays a crucial role in creative work, but that it plainly and grossly misrepresents the relationship in creative work between inspiration and effort. So let it be said once and for all: inspiration and effort are not contradictory but complementary. Their relationship is mutually enhancing.