A Leap of Faith

I had an interesting discussion with a friend today on the extremes of artistic endeavour on the one end and absolute conviction on the other side.  One may be perceived as selfish while the other is selfless but at the same time there is also an up and down side to either pursuit.  Specifically, if an artist pursues their passion to the exclusion of all else, their lives as well as others, is that admirable?  If someone has a deep seated conviction on righting the wrongs of the world, is that admirable in and of itself? 

To my mind in a normal, common sense world, there must be balance in all things.  Is it necessary for a genius to follow their muse to the exclusion of everyone and everything but their art?  If we take some examples we seem to see a sort of selfishness in their pursuit, people like Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Strauss.  Yet we also find people like the Curies, pursuing science even to the point of death.  For some who end up pursuing a cause, is it because of their strong belief in the righteousness, rightness of their cause or have they come to it by default?  For example, Terry Fox, running for a cure for cancer; Dr. Morgentaler taking up the cause of the right to abortion or Abraham obeying God to the brink of killing Isaac.

The purpose of the analysis was to define whether extremes brought one closest to the brink of romantic genius.

Perhaps a good example is to look at the work of the three Bronte sisters.  Anne went out into the world for the longest period of time and critics generally agree that her work shows the least signs of genius.  Emily, on the other hand, was very much a recluse and both her novel and poetry are considered genius.  In the middle we have Charlotte, who produced the largest volume of work most of which was done in relative seclusion.  After her marriage she did not produce anything of note.  Can one say that Emily was the most selfish of the three in the fact that she was incapable of facing the outside world, was incapable of finding work and instead retreated into her fantasy world thereby creating one of the greatest novels of all time?

We struggled with the question of extremes and where it could take one, from a romantic perspective.  Abstract thinking at its best.