elizabeth gilbert: ideas worth spreading

"we've completely internalized and accepted collectively, the notion that creativity and suffering are somehow inherently linked and that artistry in the end will always ultimately lead to anguish. and the question that i want to ask here tonight is 'are you guys all cool with that idea?' it's better to encourage our creative minds to live! so the question becomes how? maybe it doesn't have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe in the first place that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came FROM you, but maybe if you just believed that they were on loan TO you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you are finished somebody else. when you start to think about it this way, it changes everything. don't be afraid. don't be daunted. just do your job. continue to show up for your piece of it, whatever that might be. olay to you, none the less, just for having the sheer human love and stubbornness to keep showing up."

"My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”

-elizabeth gilbert-