TEDxSalford

Elizabeth Gilbert and Tom Waits find their creative genius … and shout at it

What do Socrates, the poet Ruth Cole, the musician Tom Waits and Elizabeth Gilbert all have in common with their creative source? Answer: They don’t believe their creative genius is locked inside their own head –  instead, the genius is a visiting divine spirit that can be chased, bargained with, cajoled and shouted at if it’s being uncooperative.

The ancient Greek and Roman theory of genius

Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the bestselling book, ‘Eat, Pray, Love,’ in her 2009 TED Talk,  unearths ancient Greek and Roman theories of genius and hands them back to us as, perhaps, a less mentally and socially oppressive theory than the one we now have.  The ancient theory of genius, as that it was entirely separate from the individual.  The Ancient Roman word ‘genius’ means a divine entity that lives by or visits the person. It gives them inspiration, and it’s the duty of the individual to take this precious gift and do the donkey work needed to bring the idea to life.

Our current theory lets our creatives down

Can we go back to thinking as the ancient Greeks and Romans did – of the creative source being outside of our heads? It’s a small paradigm shift, but it can make a big difference by creating a protective psychological construct. You’re free from the anxiety of being creative; you are the mule, not the pipeline. If you run dry, it was never something you had control over anyway – it was a gift from a divine being. If you are a huge success, then your ego stays in check, because you just did the donkey work of getting it written down. The genius isn’t yours to claim, you can take the praise for the hard work and you can thank your visiting genius for the idea.

Where so did we go wrong? In the Renaissance we started thinking of the genius as an individual. Rational humanism told us that creativity comes from within the individual. This redefinition of genius puts all the responsibility for this spark of inspiration onto the shoulders of the individual. What if you can’t produce inspiration? What if it doesn’t come on demand, what if it isn’t good enough? Suddenly there’s a lot of anxiety, and anxiety about anxiety, for something that we just cannot produce on demand.

It’s telling that people working in the creative arts have a reputation for mental illness, and for falling on the sword of their own creative Genius. Why the creative arts? Why not engineers or computer programmers? Could it be this life-long anxiety about producing enough genius on demand? Their success or failure at being repeatedly creative is thought of as inherently within their control. It’s something they’re expected to reproduce regularly, repeatedly and to deadlines.

You don’t have to be a genius, you just need to have one turn up

So what do you do if you want a visit from a genius? Well, you’re going to have to take a leap of faith; believe that it’s an entity separate from you, but you can run after it, ask it to get a move on or yell at it to wait! Elizabeth Gilbert tells brilliantly wacky stories of our great creatives going quite postal at their geniuses.   The poet, Ruth Cole, chasing her poem across fields, grabbing hold of it and pulling it towards her, or out running it to get to pen and paper before it escapes.  Tom Waits yelling to his genius that it was going to have to wait till he wasn’t driving, or else it should go talk to Leonard Cohen. And Elizabeth Gilbert herself, having a tantrum and throwing out the bargain that if that she’d turned up to work on time, so should her genius.