For those who did not know, Elizabeth
Gilbert, the author of the Bestseller novel, Eat, Pray, Love, was one of the
many great guest speakers on TED talks: she has subtle yet effective humor,
brilliant timing, and conclusive content.
Her message remains clear as she extrapolates scenarios from typical
quotidian experiences most people who wish to pursue a creative-based job know. Her slightly satirical theory from
retrospection of old Greek and roman culture mentions a ‘genius’ guarding us
who bestows spurs of glory. This divine
spirit explains how to cope with the fact that we may not be creative geniuses
or we may have sudden bursts of creativity that may never come again. She mentions creativity running through the
hills and it being luck to catch it in time to make it yours, and not somebody
else’s. Of course, all speeches-let
alone good speeches- cause controversy. One of the many comments found in
response to the video were:
“I completely disagree with this message.
Creativity is not a gift. it's not sent to us by some divine entity. It's in
each and everyone of us. We possess wonderful creativity and imagination. We
just need to work harder on bringing out more of that creativity. And to do so,
requires hours upon hours of daily practice for several years. Too many people
want quick fixes, because most of our civilization has become lazy.”
The comment above was
marked as spam. Personally, I would have
not marked this as spam for it is still related to the video and not a random
comment saying something on the lines of “HUMANITY SUCKS”, “heyyyy!!! check out
my channel @ *insert channel link here*” or “Dang.” This user was simply expressing
his or her opinions. Well of the many
scathing retorts were:
“I respectfully suggest that you missed
the point of this talk. Humans DO "possess wonderful creativity and
imagination," as you said, and we DO need to work harder on bringing it
out, and it DOES require practice. I would know this because I'm a pianist who
has to practice three hours daily or more. Practice makes you much better at
what you do. But inspiration does not always come from within ourselves, and to
take all the credit for a "work of genius" is presumptuous of a
human; destructive.”
Alright, it’s not that
scathing, but it was still typed in an offensive rage against the first
commenter. Both comments reflect the
contrasting aspects to Elizabeth Gilbert’s speech. Is creativity an otherworldly evanescent
spirit fluttering around and occasionally actually hitting us, or just
self-determination?
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