Irvin Leigh Matus, an extraordinary Shakespeare scholar who died recently, said this back in 1989. “Get a 9-to-5 job? No way. When you have a mind like mine, such a wonderful mind, well, to have it virtually imprisoned in the boring, trivial and mundane would be torture.”
Matus was homeless for a long time while pursuing his research. He wrote two critically acclaimed books on the Bard, but would not–perhaps could not–hold a regular job or I guess even an irregular job. I offer you his quote above both to point you to an interesting obit on him and as a writing prompt. What would a wonderful mind do in a regular job? How would a genius handle the everyday humility needed for living under God?
When I had a tedious, repetitive job, I found it rather conducive to writing. My mind made all kinds of unexpected connections between things as it wandered, while I did mechanical tasks.
Yeah, I don’t doubt this man is brilliant, but I also believe he is essentially arrogant. Why is he unable to hold a job or gain a professorship somewhere? Maybe he just wants to be independent.