alivannarose:

Maybe… The primary mark of genius is not raw mental processing power. It is not creativity, either. Nor is it just stubborn persistence.

Don’t get me wrong, those things help.

Maybe, though, genius is the ability to take a very complex problem and break it down into manageable parts. To conceive a symphony and be able to isolate the melodies for each instrument. To perceive the shape of a finished piece of software and be able to break down the process into subroutines, and then individual lines of code. To understand something well enough to explain it in step-by-step format to someone else clearly enough for them to understand it, too. To know how all the parts support the whole. To see the whole and extrapolate all the parts needed to make it work. To take a dream and turn it into a project.