Ted Talks Summary No. 7

Elizabeth Gilbert
          Nurturing creativity


Elizabeth Gilbert talks about the pressure creative artists have when it comes to their work and that having a "genius" can be better than being a "genius"

Writer, author of the novel "Eat Pray Love"

In this particular talk, Elizabeth Gilbert tells us how as people from the creative arts; writers, artists etc.  We struggle with the problem of finding creative inspiration. In the early times in greece and france, people who came by inspiration easily and created great works of art were referred to as a "genius". Although in rome, these amazing artists were have said to have, a "genius". And by genius I mean, a little entity or spirit that lives within art studios and concert halls, that was said to be the source of inspiration. Until the renaissance arrived, with the the idea that these amazing artists are have said to be the source of their own inspiration and that they had the power all along! Although, this may have been a mistake, because you put all this pressure on the artist, that did not exist  prior to this new theory. Artists could feel more at ease knowing that it isn't all up to them. Although now these artists feel the pressure of their work overpowering them, if they write a masterpeice no inspiration they think of will ever ammount to what that masterpeice was, Many artists took their lives and some went crazy. So the goal of this was to nurture your creativity and let it flow through you and beleive that that "genius" might actually exist.

like my previous post, I wanted to find somethig to help me in my life. I am (hopefully) becoming a designer after school, the hard part is I dont know what I am going to be designing. So I wanted to get a generalized term of how to deal with creativity, and what challenges I might face in the future when I rely on myself for inspiration to fuel creative thoughts.

And I ended up not quite getting a life changing theory, but more of a couple of pointers. It was helpful and a lot if the stuff about talking to famous poets and muscisians form of inspiration was very touching, and I found that I could relate to a lot of it. So I think I may try it out but im not sure of how much I agree with it, but I do know that it does feel like it takes A LOT of worry of yourself.

I particuallarily liked the part where she was talking about the famous poet and how she would just suddenly whereever she was, catch almost a "breeze" of inspiration and she would try and race it to a peice of paper before it got away and found another poet. Its the childish things that keep our imaginations alive.