> If I could spend some time with a world-renowned expert in anything I don't want them to waste time teaching me the basics. I can get that anywhere. I want to know the thing that elevates them above everyone else.
In my experience, the thing that usually elevates experts above everyone else is their mastery of the basics. You can’t really let your creativity have free reign until the basics are so ingrained that they always go right, and usually intermediate practitioners’ failures can be traced to technical rather than conceptual issues.
> You can’t really let your creativity have free reign until the basics are so ingrained
Generally advice around art I have seen tended to be quite opposite. You need to train creativity as a skill itself. Plus you need to experiment and train courage to "just do it even if imperfect".
If you focus on basics only, you will quit out of boredom and never challenge yourself.
The experts know basics. But you are not supposed to be doing only basics until you achieved some kind of perfection.
In my experience, the thing that usually elevates experts above everyone else is their mastery of the basics. You can’t really let your creativity have free reign until the basics are so ingrained that they always go right, and usually intermediate practitioners’ failures can be traced to technical rather than conceptual issues.