The Latin root “genius” and making your work into a gift

Lewis Hyde writes in his 1979 book The Gift about the roots of our modern word “genius”: the Latin genius, or what the ancient Greeks call your daemon.

Today we use these words for a select type that we elevate above ourselves: “he’s a genius.” In the ancient world, everyone had a genius.

“According to Apuleius, if a man cultivated his genius through such sacrifice it would become a lar, a protective household god, when he died. But if a man ignored his genius, it became a larva or a lemurwhen he died, a troublesome, restless spook that preys on the living. The genius or daemon comes to us at birth. It carries with it the fullness of our undeveloped powers."

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