The Single Commonality of All Creative Geniuses
Creative geniuses intuit the impersonal nature of thoughts, ideas and creativity. Masterfully, they don’t take credit for their work; instead they credit a “higher power” as the source of their inspiration.
William Blake called it “Poetic Genius.” Puccini said his greatest opera Madame Butterfly was “dictated to me by God.” Both Brahms and Beethoven appealed directly to the “Creator Himself.”
Like Aristotle before him, Rudyard Kipling looked to his “Personal Daemon” for inspiration. And, in recounting his experience with the creative process, Mozart said, “What has been thus produced I do not easily forget, and this is perhaps the best gift I have my Divine Maker to thank for.”
A true genius does not wrestle between the polarities of false modesty and overt narcissism. If your thoughts aren’t personal, can you take credit for them as “mine”?
Humility is the trademark of creative genius: available to all, accepted by the treasured few.
Exercise: Close your eyes and tell your mind to stop thinking for 30 seconds. Notice how your mind will continue thinking, despite your best efforts. Next, close your eyes and simply observe the thoughts that come to mind for 60 seconds. Notice the random nature of the thought flow. This exercise will help detach you from the notion that thoughts are yours, paving the way to greater humility. This new awareness can increase your alignment with higher creativity.
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Scott, this blog has some great thoughts. Thank you. I finished listening to a good book today; “A New Earth” by Eckart Tolle. He gave some good advice for living in the moment, for becoming aware. I think another commonality of genius is that they are able to live in the moment and fully appreciate the gift of the present. I am going to review the book inspectionally and then analytically. Thanks for the book rec: “How to Read a Book,” it will help me get more power out of these great books! Keep up the good work!