It is the beginning of a new year, a time that the cultural storyline tells us should begin with a great deal of hope and a gust of energy – and many do jump in to this next segment of time with vision and purpose. Just as often, however, many wake up in January weary, still exhausted from the previous year, and wary of forming any kind of idea resembling a resolution. Perhaps getting from one day to the next is challenge enough.<\/p>\n
But I think the truth is that, no matter the kind of year I had last year, or the kind of year I hope to have next year, the question is the same the first few days of January as it is every other day of the year. How will I live this day? Or perhaps, how will I go forward after what has come before today? And for those of us in the arts, how will I continue to live a creative and productive life each and every day, no matter the successes or flops that I have encountered, or may yet encounter?<\/p>\n
I recently came across a TED talk given by Elizabeth Gilbert<\/a>, the author of Eat, Pray, Love<\/i>, in which she addresses the issues that she faced after what she calls the unexpected, freakish success of her book.\u00a0 How, after writing\u00a0something to so much acclaim, will she go on to create in the face of heightened expectations? How will she keep her sanity with the knowledge that her greatest success most likely behind her?<\/p>\n She, of course, is speaking most directly to her own dilemma as an author continuing to write after having just had a great success, but I found her speech to speak poignantly to all of us in creative fields, or with creative aspirations, no matter the level of success that has been reached.<\/p>\n One of Gilbert\u2019s points is that the word \u201cgenius\u201d comes from the same root as the word \u201cgenie.\u201d In ancient times – and clear up until the Renaissance – a person was not declared to be a genius; rather, they were said to have<\/i> a genius. The source of the creative act was separate from the artist, a kind of spirit – or genie<\/i>. This separation is what Gilbert is after, and what she has found helpful in her creative life. Her duty, she comes to conclude, is simply to show up for the work. It is her job to be there, pen in hand, ready to receive this capricious thing should it decide to appear.\u00a0 She asks, what if we see these gifts as being on loan to us, rather than coming from us? What if we are not the sole creators of the works of art that we put out into the world? What if there is another element at work?<\/p>\n Gilbert goes back to ancient Greece and Rome to find her models for this concept, but I couldn\u2019t help but think how similar it sounded, in a certain way, to the lessons of my own childhood, in which I was taught that everything that we had, and all that ensued from our efforts, were gifts from God. No matter a person\u2019s religious or spiritual beliefs, it seems to me there is an undeniable freedom in this outlook, when we are not the source of creation itself, but rather, stewards of a creative power apart from us.<\/p>\n Most of us have not been recognized by whatever authorities we revere as a genius, and though I believe I might know a few, and I\u2019ve certainly read and played a few works of genius, my interest is less in how to continue after a wildly popular success than simply in how to live creatively day after day, in this precious life that I have been given, which has both highs and lows, both light and shadow – and I think that Elizabeth Gilbert\u2019s insight applies beautifully to both scenarios.<\/p>\n Take eighteen spare minutes to watch this<\/a>. I hope you\u2019ll enjoy her talk as much as I did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It is the beginning of a new year, a time that the cultural storyline tells us should begin with a great deal of hope and a gust of energy – and many do jump in to this next segment of … Continue reading