“In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.”
– Emerson
I did a double take when reading this. It is our rejected thoughts that we recognize? So how does the artist, who might have some impulse toward genius, document the thoughts that we otherwise reject? And having done so, how does he express that those thoughts, which he has meticulously recorded, were rejected in the first place?
It’s a pretty good catch, that catch 22.
Sorry Ralph, but whatever you’re growing at the pond, you need to quit smoking it.
Metaphor 
I reject the thought that I might not be the genius. Bwahahaha … kidding.
Perhaps the genius is not you. Perhaps he refers to the recognition when we are exposed to
someone else’s genius. Elaine
I think I get it. I’ve often read a line or a paragraph of a master that contains an image or an idea I’ve had but have failed to articulate for one reason or another. Often out of fear that it will reveal that I’m too self-absorbed, sometimes because I don’t feel worthy of positing the thought.