Genius!
Are a Genius or Have a Genius?
In a TED Talk titled, “Your Elusive Creative Genius,” writer Elizabeth Gilbert shares a number of anecdotes about artists and how inspiration or “creative genuis” occurs to them. For one poet, creativity rushes to her across the fields like a train. For a songwriter, creativity interrupts him and he informs the “genius” that he’s busy and asks if he can come back later. The prevailing concept, and what Gilbert is offering, is that we see genius not as something we are but as something we have, the genius creative spirit—whether it be fantastical creature or mysterious force—is something that comes to us whenever and however it wants.
Somebody Call My Genius
I’ve been thinking about that talk as I’ve been writing (and NOT writing). Feeling stuck or hesitating or stalling or whatever the hell it is I’m doing is not entirely my fault then. My Genius is somewhere in a hammock reading the latest issue of Oxford American or walking in the park singing to butterflies and turtles rather than showing up in my office like where it’s supposed to be, leaning over me at my desk whispering brilliant metaphors and dope ass sentence construction ideas into my left ear.
All that to say, I don’t know where my genius is at, and I’m getting a little impatient because I was supposed to finish this memoir LAST summer. It would be really, really great if they could slide through one of these early morning writing sessions.
In the meantime, I’m gonna keep showing up to my desk and doing my part, sitting here doing the best I can and hanging out with cool ass people and their geniuses in Florida and Wisconsin.
