Conjuring Scenius

Perpetual Learning

Throughout history, there are moments in time where we witness remarkable accomplishments from a group of individuals.

A little known example: The Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, England.

“Patrons of The Eagle and Child wrote three of the five best-selling fantasy series of all-time within an eighteen year period - The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Chronicles of Narnia. It is here, on Tuesday mornings, that C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and the other members of The Inklings of Oxford met to read, discuss, and critique each other's work.

Tolkien read drafts of The Lord of the Rings to the group, and they provided both criticism and encouragement in turn. The Inklings were so impactful on Tolkien’s writing that he dedicated the first edition of The Lord of the Rings to them, writing, “What I owe to them all is incalculable,” and singled out Lewis in particular by saying, “only by his support and friendship did I ever struggle to the end.”

The Eagle and Child played host to a Scenius, the major driving force behind much of the world’s progress.”

Packy McCormick, who was a part of the Write of Passage Fellowship, wrote an essay on how to create scenius.

If you don’t want to read the full 10,000-word essay, Packy and I did a podcast to explore this idea.

We talk about three important topics:

• What are the ingredients of a Scenius?
• Why do Michael Jordan’s Bulls qualify as a Scenius?
• How do we create a Scenius? What does it look like in the age of the internet?

Highly recommend giving this a listen!

For those of you who want to follow Packy’s work, I’d recommend checking out his newsletter called Not Boring. He makes some incredible connections between pop culture and today’s topics. He also features guest writers across different fields/interests every Thursday.