To me, the concept of a '501 Developer' as outlined in the manifesto seems kinda foolish. It shouldn't be outside of industry norms to value one's family over one's company, or to treasure time spent with friends over time spent with coworkers.
The list of pitiable/respectable items are a bit different. In particular, "Mostly only read books about coding and productivity" I do find unsatisfactory; the power of literature is massive and too often untapped, and the thought that reading 300 pages about a language or productivity is more valuable than, say, The Brothers Karamazov frightens me a little.
Dearth of passion doesn't make someone a '501 developer', nor vice-versa; I just think being passionate about one subject to the exclusion of everything else is dangerous, no matter the industry or lifestyle.
The world only had one Mozart and one Van Gogh. There never was and never will be a second Mozart or a second Van Gogh.
As such, the statement itself taken literally is extremely silly and doesn't have enough details to be interpreted figuratively.
Let's say for the sake of argument that you mean "genius that contributes works of art". One common trait of such a person, besides being incredibly talented, is persistence. This would imply in the minds of lesser individuals that such a genius is impossible to have a well-balanced life.
However, the pitfall of such a mentality is that having work-life balance does NOT mean diving the time equally between work and life and is extremely relative, being a function of the individual itself, his work, his culture and the society around him.
What this means is that the actual amount of time spent on doing something is actually less important than the quality. Say, if you're spending 5 hours with your son but being distracted by problems at work you're going to please yourself and your son less than a single hour of enjoying the present moment. This goes for anything you want to do ... top athletes and top violinists spend less time practicing than their peers, but the training is a lot more intense.
And to answer your implied conclusion ... quite the contrary, being a genius capable of creating things is correlated with a sane mind and a sane mind needs a good work-life balance.
But you don't get to be Mozart or Van Gogh by being well-balanced.
My translation: The actions and intentions of most people are aimed at not becoming Mozart or Van Gogh -- as in not dying destitute in your 30's and being buried in a pauper's grave.
Were Van Gogh a programmer today he would have been late blooming second-career type rockstar cowboy coder that burned out in a half a dozen years before killing himself. He was an amazing artist (my favorite of his time) but is exactly the cautionary tale that your 501-type would point to.
... actually, that sounds like _why but without the whole suicide thing in real life.
The list of pitiable/respectable items are a bit different. In particular, "Mostly only read books about coding and productivity" I do find unsatisfactory; the power of literature is massive and too often untapped, and the thought that reading 300 pages about a language or productivity is more valuable than, say, The Brothers Karamazov frightens me a little.
Dearth of passion doesn't make someone a '501 developer', nor vice-versa; I just think being passionate about one subject to the exclusion of everything else is dangerous, no matter the industry or lifestyle.