Creativity: What Is It? A Divine Blessing or Something Else?
Dear Reader,
So, this morning, I watched the TED talk of Elizabeth Gilbert. Now, you may judge me for that how come I hadn’t watched her 15-year-old video?
The video is so famous that Taylor Swift, yes the Taylor Swift watches it and cries while doing so.
Trust me, I am not making it up. She spoke about it and the message of this talk.
So, this is what she says -
Writing songs is strange because it never happens exactly the same way, but sometimes it happens in a way that feels like this weird, like haunting that you can't really explain. Like you don't know where these ideas came from and you feel like you didn't work at all to write it, to write it. And that's the best. That's like the best kind of song. And then, there are most days you show up and the idea doesn't. And that's where craft (comes)…you have to kind of know the craft of it. You have to try to, like, scrounge your brain for something to write because you're not always going to be inspired. And that's okay. There’s a really good Elizabeth Gilbert, Ted talk about that, but it's like one of my favorite things to, like, cry while watching.
So, I watched the TED talk today, after hearing about it from Taylor Swift.
When The Great Elizabeth Gilbert Went Viral
It is truly an amazing TED talk, where the famous writer of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert says that since her book has gone out in the world and been received so generously, she gets this reception from people as if she is doomed like nothing good can happen to her anymore. That kind of doomed.
It’s like a fear-based reaction.
It’s like if you have done something super amazing like winning a Booker award, you become the talk of the town, people give you tags like a genius, most intelligent writer of the 20th century, blah…blah…blah.
However, you become YOU again within a few weeks, the guy who struggles in writing the first sentence of any new assignment.
And, then people empathizing with your situation, ask - do you fear that it won’t happen ever again?
Well, it happened to Elizabeth, not just once but multiple times, for many years. And, yeah she couldn’t write anything as close to Eat, Pray, Love in terms of popularity, at least so far.
What Happened After Going Viral?
But did she stop writing…hell no? She wrote many wonderful books that she is proud of and the world is richer with her contribution as a writer.
She could do it because she realized that her mountain of success would crush her if she didn’t do anything to take herself out of it.
She searched long and wide to find models where the artist and her art were separated.
This journey of hers took her to research the philosophies of ancient Rome and Greece and their outlook towards arts and artists.
She checked if these ancient civilizations viewed artists as geniuses like we do today.
In this Ted Talk of hers, she has spoken about it in detail.
She says,
In ancient Rome & Greece, people didn’t happen to believe that creativity came from human beings. People believed that divine creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant unknowable source for distant and unknowable reasons. The Greeks famously called these divine attendant spirits of creativity “daemons”. Socrates famously believed that he had a daemon who spoke wisdom to him from afar.
The Romans had the same idea. But they called that some sort of disembodied creative spirit a genius, which is great because the Romans did not actually think a genius was a particularly clever individual. They believed that a genius was this sort of magical divine entity who was believed to literally live in the walls of an artist’s studio like Dobby in the House of the Elf, who would come and invisibly assist the artist with their work and shape the outcome of the work.
This was certainly an amazing way of seeing things. It takes the pressure away from the person.
One can write their hearts and soul out and be done with it, live like their fellow human beings instead of someone genius who is expected to move a mountain with their little finger because they have done it back in time.
This is an amazing TED talk. You guys must watch and take notes.
The Genius That Used To Come
So, she says that back in time, the brilliance of somebody’s work was not associated with his or her being but with his or her being blessed with creating the masterpiece that they created.
This way of thinking is accepted all across the world, you listen to Sufi poets, writers, and painters…you would find it more often than you think.
For example, it is believed that the epic Mahabharata was dictated by the Lord Ganesh to Rishi Ved Vyas.
You will find the same thing with Ram Charit Manas. It is believed that Lord Hanuman blessed Goswami Tulsi Das with this epic.
So, it is more common than you think. Now, you may ask if it has been the case then how come we now associate people with their brilliant work?
Gilbert answers this question by saying that the Renaissance put human beings at the centre of the universe, people were called geniuses for their work instead of having a genius. She believes that it was a huge error as it completely warps and distorts egos; it creates unmanageable expectations from artists about their performances.
She thinks the pressure of these expectations has been killing our artists for the past 500 years.
She and countless other artists believe that it is some kind of divine energy which makes you create wonderful things.
It is hard for any rational people to believe that something divine would come to you and make you the greatest artist.
I have a little different take on it which many of you may find rational.
You go for it, not the other way around!
I believe it does not happen this way. It can’t be this selective that it would only come to a handful of people.
I believe it is very organic. It is like a fruit hanging from a tree, you just need to jump and take it.
This example sums up my argument. First, you need to look for a fruit.
You need to be out in the open to find a tree with a fruit. Coming out of metaphor, I would say that you need to be the person you want to be…writer, poet, painter, a great chef…whatever it is.
First, you have to be out in the open and be the person you want to become.
Now, you need to look for the tree. You would only spot a tree with a fruit hanging from it when you are awake, alert, and feel your environment.
Out of metaphor, if you are seeing war happening and you don’t like it from the core of your being and want to strongly object to it, you do it with your writing.
This takes you close to your tree with a fruit because you aren’t doing it for yourself, fame or anything. You are writing it for your deeper sensitivities, unconscious being, and for things that you have no idea you have. There in those moments, you would go in a zone where you would get words that you would normally not get.
Your sentences would be so strong that they would move mountains of human emotions. You would become the voice of millions of people of present, past and future.
It would happen because you wrote it with your whole being, not by being a guy who is a writer.
There is one more example. People say everybody becomes a poet when they are in love.
Did you ever think why does it happen?
It happens when you fall in love with somebody and when this love of yours takes you to the clouds…it is like the super early phase when you begin to like everything, even the shape of a dustbin.
In this phase, you do the best things of your life, if you are a painter, you would paint the best work of your life.
Why?
It is because you are at the height of your sensations, every cell of your body is dancing with joy, and there is no stress, no tension, nothing, nada!
It is just you and the sheer joy of being in love, that’s what you call falling in love.
You may start writing good poetry if you want to do so. Everything created during this time would be full of love, creative, and constructive.
It also happens during the moments of super sadness because your entire being is sad and whatever comes out of it is like super hot, like lava.
The central argument is this - When the moment is right when you are ready, you will come across things, your being will respond to those things and magic will happen. But for that magic to happen you need to work every day like it is a job.
If you are a writer, you need to know the way to frame a sentence, craft a narrative, or create a world. That moment of brilliance is not just coming to you, it is there for everybody to access.
You are just one guy who knows the way to make the most of it. So go, be that guy!
Returning to Elizabeth Gilbert, the inspiration behind this post, I highly recommend exploring her extensive work further. Watching her interviews and reading her book Big Magic offers deeper insights into her creative philosophy and genius. Her contributions provide valuable nourishment for your intellectual journey. Dive into her work to enrich your understanding of creativity and gain fresh perspectives that resonate with the themes discussed today
Further Read:
How Being in Love Makes You More Productive (And Vice Versa)
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