Elizabeth Gilbert on Creativity
Elizabeth Gilbert most know for her hit book “Eat, Pray, Love” drops some serious wisdom on the topic of creativity .
She elucidates in her TED talk on the idea of grounding oneself in a place where we genuinely enjoy what we are doing and the outcome is inconsequential.
Recalling her time as a struggling writer, Gilbert told herself that she was going “home” when faced yet again by rejection letters from publishers.
For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home, because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say that I loved writing more than I loved my own ego,which is ultimately to say that I loved writing more than I loved myself. And that’s how I pushed through it.
For Gilbert, her love for writing exceeded her fear and disappointment enough to keep her going. So what is a “home” you might ask?
Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself. So that might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure, faith, service, it might be raising corgis, I don’t know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.
Humans are innately playful and creative. At heart, we revere play and yet we rob these rights from ourselves at adulthood making us uninspired and bored. Creativity isn’t necessarily about become a painter, a musician, or a writer by profession. It’s simply about letting yourself be immersed in the process of something and not caring about the outcome. This is when true art and beauty comes to fruition.
We often like to dream big. But when we’re too fixated on the outcome we often lose sight of what you really wanted to do which is to love the process. What makes you excited and inspired? When you get to an answer go do that and forget the outcome.
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