Lewis Hyde writes in his 1979 book The Gift about the roots of our modern word “genius”: the Latin genius, or what the ancient Greeks call your daemon.<p>Today we use these words for a select type that we elevate above ourselves: “he’s a genius.” In the ancient world, everyone had a genius.<p>“According to Apuleius, if a man cultivated his genius through such sacrifice it would become a lar, a protective household god, when he died. But if a man ignored his genius, it became a larva or a lemurwhen he died, a troublesome, restless spook that preys on the living. The genius or daemon comes to us at birth. It carries with it the fullness of our undeveloped powers."<p>#creativity #genius #gift #work #art