Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the delightful Eat, Pray, Love talks at TED about Nurturing Creativity.
‘Off the page’ she is just as delightful as you imagine her to be. Even though I read the book more than two years ago and haven’t had a dose of Elizabeth Gilbert since, there is a feeling of camaraderie as I watch her speak. She’d taken me on her life changing journey in that book and I was still there with her somehow.
In this talk, Elizabeth outlines the sad fact that, although it’s something a writer might strive for, a best-seller can be a curse in disguise. She uses this dilemma to illustrate how crushing ‘we’ can be to the creative spirit if we expect it to achieve genius every single time. The fact that it is ‘creating’ is genius enough.
Enjoy.
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Elizabeth Gilbert has some interesting points here which is refreshing, because frankly I thought Eat, Pray, Love was drivel.
Well OK then! I guess that’s because you’ve done your own Eat Pray Love over the years. For those who’ve yet to do so, it was a nice peek. Can you expand on why you thought it was ‘drivel’?
How true and thanks for bringing this to my attention. Our natural tendency to always outdo ourselves comes from a belief that we are not enough as we are, when in fact we are more than enough.
I’ll leave you with that thought
Congo