Nurturing Your Genius
If you haven’t seen this talk by Elizabeth Gilbert from February’s TED Conference yet, you’ve been missing out. Liz made a splash when she gave a no-presentation-necessary, 20-minute talk on a different way to think about creative genius…and inadvertently got both a standing ovation, as well as one of the most emailed talks on the TED website. If you haven’t yet become a success and reached a “transcendent state” with one of your creations, you may think that her concept of a psychological protective construct isn’t necessary for you. However, I think that if you’re willing to give her idea a chance, you might find it not only aids in the recovery after a truly freakish success…but it may also help in your creation of such a success as well. What are your thoughts?
I really think that she has an interesting concept here. I can see and understand how this could be sort of comforting in a sense, to place your trust into some unseen entity so that all the brunt of responsibility for the creation of your piece isn’t necessarily on your shoulders.
However, I don’t really agree with it myself. For me, I feel as though this “burden” isn’t really as much of a heaviness as it is a liberation. I enjoy the public success and the failure of my pieces, mostly because I don’t strive for either when I do my art. Artwork for me is more like living, it’s something so ingrained into my essence that achieving perfection with it is as impossible as achieving perfection with myself. But despite the fact I will never be a perfect person, I continually strive to better myself, and likewise continually strive to make my work the best it can be, because it’s something more than just gaining approval from my peers. It’s coming to terms with something in myself, demonstrating something about life, something about growing and learning through everything that happens.
I like to be able to take responsibility for all the flaws of my work, because despite the fact these flaws are indeed flaws, they are mine, they have been made by my will alone, my humanity alone. They are my essence alone in this universe, my imprint, my individuality made permanent on a canvas. These flaws and mistakes are what convey this humanity in me, the hope for growth and for change.
And yes, that is a lot for people to carry. This is exactly what you are, what you feel, this is you entirely. How can you possibly achieve all of these things in your art? It’s tough.
And when suddenly the public deems that you’ve somehow reached this end, that you’ve hit the peak, the truth is, you’ve only truly hit it when you feel as though you’ve hit it. I feel like people need to really learn to be more responsible for themselves, for their art. I feel like, if people start sharing this sort of burden with something beyond themselves, they’ll start to let things slide, to think it’s okay if this isn’t quite right or if that’s not exactly what they want.
Maybe it’s balance that people need, really. Maybe becoming too much of a perfectionist is what really kills us inside. Imperfections somehow have become this truly awful thing in the world, but quite honestly nothing is without them. Imperfections are as necessary as shadows are in a painting. You can’t define the light or the figure if all you work with are the highlights. The beauty of imperfections is that it allows for growth, it’s an opportunity for knowledge and quite honestly, I don’t know how anyone ever decided that a flaw was such a terrible thing.
Maybe the idea of success too is something that’s been defined poorly. Maybe if people began to contemplate their own idea of what success is to them, they would feel less stressed about the way their art is viewed in the eyes of others. Sure enough, the public opinion is important to some degree if monetary success is the goal, but if it’s something you’re trying to achieve in yourself, then I think you’ll find things like that will slip away into something so much more grand.
In those moments were we feel truly transcendent, I like to think that it’s the person really conveying their entirety to people. I like to believe that it’s them connecting on that deep, fundamental level with everyone around. Truth is, we are living and we are a part of life, and that’s just one of the most spiritual, amazing, magnificent things you’ll ever really know. The raw beauty of a human existence, that’s what the feeling of transcendence is.
But that’s just my two cents, I guess.
-Aki