Your elusive creative genius | Elizabeth Gilbert

the whole life. I'm not good enough and he can't do it." And instead of panicking, he just stops. He stops that whole thought process and does something completely new. He looks up at the sky and shouts, "Excuse me." Can't you see he's "Am I giving it to the car?" (Laughs) "Does it look like I could write a song right now? If you really want to exist, come back at a more convenient time when I can take care of you. Otherwise, go bother someone else today. Go bother Leonard Cohen. " And his entire work process changed from that moment on.

Not the activity, the activity was still in most cases as obscure as ever. But the process, and the anxiety that accompanied it, was released when he let go of the temper of himself that was only causing problems, and freed it to go where he had come from, and realized that this didn't have to be something internal. and problematic. It could be this special, wonderful, fantastic collaboration, a kind of conversation. between Tom and the stranger, which was not quite Tom. So when I heard this story, he started to affect and change the way I acted, and he saved me when he was writing "Feed, Pray, Love." and I fell into one of those, as I say, pits of despair that we all fall into when we work on something that doesn't work for us and you start to think that it's going to be a failure, this will be one of.

The worst books ever written. Not just bad, but the worst. And I started to think that I should abandon this project. But then I remembered Tom talking to the sky and I tried that too. And I simply looked up from the manuscript and directed you to an empty corner of the room. And I said out loud, "Listen, you, you and I, we both know that if this book isn't great it's not entirely my fault, right? Because you'll see I'm giving it my all." I don't have anything else, so if you want me to get better, then you have to show up and do

your

part.

But if you don't, know that I will continue writing because this is my job. Please note that today I came here to do my part of the job." (Laughter) Because... (Applause) In the end it happens like this, it's okay: many centuries ago, in the deserts of North Africa, people gathered to listen to sacred music and dances under the moonlight that lasted for hours, until dawn. And they were always great because the dancers were professional and they were incredible, right? But once in a while, rarely, something happened and one of them? These dancers became extraordinary. And I know you must know what I'm talking about, because I know that all of you have seen this type of dance at some point in

your

life.

It was as if time had stopped and the dancer would pass through some door. and he wouldn't do anything different than he had done for the last 1000 nights, but everything would be fixed. And suddenly, he wouldn't seem human anymore. He would shine from within and from beneath, and everything would shine through him, And when that happened, then people knew what it was, they called it by its name. They put their hands together and began to sing: "Allah, Allah, Allah, God, God, God." That's God, you know? A brief historical curiosity: when the Moors conquered southern Spain, they took this custom with them and the pronunciation changed over the centuries from "Allah, Allah, Allah" to "Ole, ole, ole", which we still hear in battle today with bulls and flamenco dances.

In Spain, when a dancer did something impossible and magical, "Allah, ole, ole, Allah, wonderful, bravo", incomprehensible, that is... a part of God. Which is great, since we need it. But the complicated matter came the next morning, because the dancer himself wakes up and realizes that it is Tuesday at 11 in the morning, and that he is not with God. That he is just an aging, weak-kneed mortal, and that he may never reach that height again. And perhaps no one will sing God's name again until he turns around, and what will he do now for the rest of his life?

This is hard. This is one of the hardest commitments to make in the

creative

life. But maybe it shouldn't be so scary if you didn't believe that the most extraordinary things about your being come from you in the first place. But maybe you just believed they were lent to you from an unimaginable source for a moment in your life to pass on to the next person when you were done. And, you know, if we think about it that way, everything starts to change. That's how I started thinking, and that's exactly how I've been thinking for the past few months while working on my soon-to-be-published book, until the dangerous and scary unplanned thing got in the way of my monstrous success.

And what I have to tell myself when I worry is not to panic. Don't be discouraged. Just do your job. Keep showing up on your end, whatever it is. If your job is to dance, then dance. If the divine, the

genius

is determined on your case, if she decides that something wonderful will happen thanks to your efforts, then "Ole!" And if not, she keeps dancing anyway. and "Olé!" for you, still. I believe this and feel that we should teach this to others. "Hey!" You, still, only have pure human love and perseverance to show up. Thank you. (Applause) Thank you. (Applause) June Cohen: Oh! (Applause)