Creativity cannot be understood by looking only at the people who appear to make it happen.

Without the assessment of competent outsiders, there is no reliable way to decide whether the claims of a self-styled creative person are valid.

Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.

These are not incidental contributors to individual originality but essential components of the creative process, on a par with the individual’s own contributions.