All of the reading, writing, speaking, and
thinking in the world will be of little use to you unless all of it
is artfully and creatively executed.
Can the process of creating be reduced to a
predictable formula?
I think not - because if it could, the very
term “creating” would assume an odd and counter-intuitive
definition, one akin to rules, convention, routine, and system.
And yet… I take it back… in part.
The process of creativity is as mysterious as
life itself… it is the gift of the Muse… the Fire sent down from
Olympus. But this does not mean that certain auxiliary methods,
serving as mid-wife to creativity, might not prove efficacious for
us.
Creativity is not the random explosion in the
print-shop that will produce Shakespeare’s sonnets. Creativity, a
wild and free spirit, even so, is born of pedestrian
means.
Listen, once more, to a man whose very name is synonymous
with brilliance and creativity…
Most people don't believe Einstein. They think
creativity is an unexpected lightning bolt from the third heaven;
like winning the lottery; an "aimless imagination" - just what
Einstein said it is not!
People like to call Einstein a “genius.” And he
was, I suppose. Funny thing - he really didn’t see himself that way.
And the teachers of his boyhood didn’t see him that way,
either.
Once, at a parent-teacher conference,
Einstein’s parents were officially informed that they should not
hope for too much from their lackluster son. Wouldn’t a career
as a day-laborer be better? just trying to help you be realistic,
it’s for the best, you know. These teachers had seen the dull
and sleepy little boy in action and felt that their evaluation was
more than generous.
The Andy Griffith Show: "Opie
Flunks Arithmetic" (1965)
Aunt Bee: [The
grocer told her that] Einstein was a
dropout!
Barney: Well, that was some time back, Aunt Bee - it was a
little easier to get by then. And besides, who knows how far he
might have gone if he hadn't been a dropout!
Einstein would always remember those
early assessments by others. And he didn’t necessarily disagree.
Because he learned that “genius,” as defined by Edison - another
brainy guy, one with 1000 patents to his credit - “is one
percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.”
True genius seldom speaks of genius or, as
Einstein used the phrase, “aimless imagination”; but, rather, of the
long arduous years of solitary effort and contemplation; of building
an idea, brick by brick, with each small advance hard won. True
creativity is a child of many failures, many abortive attempts, to
reach the Light.
But, in those failures, over long years of
stolid diligence, an occasional success will pierce the darkness,
one more brick in the wall. And, after a long time of this
victory-by-inches process, suddenly, one day, the larger picture
will gloriously present itself… all the result of “staying with
problems longer.”
When they gush and
praise you, and tell each other what a genius you are, what a great
writer you are, what a great speaker you are, only you will know
that it took 20 years to become an overnight
sensation!