“The unifying similarity among geniuses and innovators is not cognitive or affective but motivational. What is common among them is the unwillingness or inability to strive for goals everyone else accepts.” -Mihaly Csikszentmilhalyi, famed Hungarian-American psychologist

Csikszentmilhalyi is saying that being a ‘top player’ in the eyes of the world is not a prerequisite to undertaking a good, hard quest. Just staying committed to a countercultural vision can get you a long way. This is good news, because as 1 Corinthians 1:26 reminds us, “Brothers and sisters, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.”

-Dave Blanchard in Praxis letter journal.praxislabs.org/2023-prax…