Elizabeth Gilbert on the idea of “Creative Genius”
Thursday, February 12th, 2009
A couple days ago a Twitter friend turned me on to Elizabeth Gilbert and her take on the modern idea of ‘genius’.
In case you haven’t already heard, Elizabeth Baxter has unleashed a monster new bestseller on the world called “Eat, Pray, Love.”
Without going into the sordid details, she points to the unrealistically high expectations that are placed upon the contemporary artist to over-achieve and constantly re-invent herself in a bigger, better way with each successive work. In other words, you’re only as good as what you just did; or more dangerously, you’re only as good as what you are working on at any given moment.
Gilbert traces the roots of ‘genius’ back in time to when it was regarded as a ’state of grace’ when the artist/writer/scientist, etc. was in the presence of an inspiring slipstream, a sort of magical ‘fairy juice’ flowing through time and space that happens to intersect with the thoughts of an open mind.
So the person who is in touch with their ‘creative muse’ and has the courage and tenacity to commit pen to paper, paint to canvas or whatever the case may be while in this space BLASTS through self-doubt and hesitation to CAPTURE the MOMENT in a FLASH of GENIUS.
You might call it honoring the ‘Aha!’ experience.
I am happy to see that this subject is back on the radar, to the extent that I want to blog about it!
Usually, the creative path is a series of ‘aha!’ moments with fairly rough terrain in between. Sustaining the inertia of the project is what takes the steady effort.
You have to be willing, excited even, to put in the hours of dedicated effort and then hope that you hit the mark with a perfectly coined expression, a jewel of a painting, the hottest novel of the month.
On a more modest scale you just do your very best to follow your creative muse wherever it leads, even if it’s totally outside of your cozy zone. How many of us can really say we’re willing to do that?
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