Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Who gets the credit for creative genius?

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the “freakishly successful” book (as she describes it) “Eat, Pray, Love” shares her enlightened insights into the source of creativity. Where does creativity come from? Why are so many artists and creative types plagued with dark thoughts and inner turmoil? To answer this question, she looked back through history and discovered something very interesting.

While we modern day thinkers give all the credit—and the criticism—to the individual, this was not so in Ancient Greece and Rome. These earlier citizens of the earth, believed that creativity—thoughts, ideas and achievements—came from a divine attendant spirit. A muse of sorts, who would bestow upon its human client gifts of creative genius. In fact, their language clearly reflected this perspective: they referred to a talented individual as “having a genius” instead of being a genius. Gilbert believes this to be a valuable philosophy we may want to adopt today, as it distances individuals from the pressure and responsibility of summoning elusive creative inspiration.

In our day, many artists have collapsed under the extreme pressure to turn on a switch and perform or produce. This, Gilbert asserts, could be changed for the better if we simply transfer the ownership of the creativity outside of the individual. An interesting way of looking at it indeed--and a great way to excuse crappy ideas.

Check out her speech for yourself, it's 18 minutes well spent!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86x-u-tz0MA

0 Responses to date

Leave a comment

Name:

Email:

URL:

 

Remember personal info?

Comments
[You may use HTML tags for style]

Captcha:

Type the characters you see in the picture above.