Elizabeth Gilbert, humility and genius
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 10:34AM Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Prey, Love, inspires us about to bring back sanity into the creative process, by redefining the concept of genius. In doing so, she allows us to share the daunting anguish she felt after her enormous success for potentially not being able to live up to it, and how she freed herself from this vertigo. I can certainly relate to that feeling, even outside of creative circumstances, especially after making it successfully to the US. You would think staring at any kind of oneself's achievements would make oneself proud, but in turn it opens that new door to anxiety when it comes to projecting 'what's next?'. Elizabeth helps us looking at it from a humble perpective. We are not solely responsible for our spikes of genius, neither are we for when genius does not show up. Either way, we have to show up for work (and make sure we have enough oil with us - cf. Parable about the Ten Maidens).
Elizabeth Gilbert, TED, creativity, genius, humility, musing