Connections: Creativity

At our kickoff episode (if you haven’t seen it, we have a link to the video on the Episodes page.), one of the books we gave away was Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert, best known for her book eat, pray, love. We both like it a lot, and it is a special favorite of Lory’s. I have no doubt that Big Magic will come up again; maybe even as a podcast episode. I wouldn’t bet against it. Today, it comes up because of an interesting connection to another book we like, creativity: A short and cheerful guide by John Cleese.

The heart of Big Magic is that ideas are out there, floating around, looking for someone to make use of them. If you don’t use the ideas that come your way, they look for someone else. 

A big idea of Cleese’s is that your unconscious mind can do a lot, including be creative. These are two seemingly different ideas that ran into each other as I was rereading creativity.

Cleese wrote, “Remember, the unconscious is totally unpredictable. Many Nobel Prize winners report that their breakthrough came completely out of the blue. After years of pondering, it just … popped into their minds. Some even feel that they don’t really deserve their prize, as the idea was “given” to them, without them feeling they’d really produced it themselves!”

Wow! I have no idea if Cleese has ever heard of Gilbert or Big Magic, but when I read that, my mind not only made a connection, but it made a connection so strong I don’t know if I could separate them now. I love connections. I hope we will be bringing you many more connections between ideas, books, writers, and who knows what else?

Have a connection that caught your attention? Tell us about it at twosides2thestory@yahoo.com