Creative Inspiration and Current Challenges

Poet Ruth Stone describes her creative inspiration
This June 8, Ruth Stone will turn 94. Author of 13 books of poetry and recognized by just about every literary prize there is, Ruth recently described on YouTube how she actually lost most of the poems that have ever come to her:
“I never felt that I wrote them anyways. I would feel them coming from way off, and then they would come toward me, and if I didn’t catch them they went through me and went on, so I just figured they were part of the universe, and not me.”
In her TED Talk, Author Elizabeth Gilbert (“Eat, Pray, Love”) described creativity as more like a genie than genius, as something that possesses you from the outside and takes hold of you rather than something that you can possibly generate yourself or take credit for.
That the best ideas come in flurries of inspiration and seem like accidents may be a function of how our complex and wonderful brains work. While we are aware of our one focal point of attention at any given moment, billions of parallel connections are still churning. What are they thinking about?
Whether the source of creative ideas is a muse or something equally mysterious that emerges in the neural networks of our brain, what can we do to call our creativity into action and apply it to the very present needs and challenges around us?







10: Will Smith. The biggest star of the box office of the past decade, Will’s movies grossed over $5 billion total and well over $100 million each for his last 8 movies: Men in Black II, Bad Boys II, I Robot, Shark Tale, Hitch, The Pursuit of Happyness, I Am Legend, and Hancock. What is the secret to his success? Will cares about people, and because he cares so much, all he wants to do is to create something special, something that that makes people feel good. The values that permeate Will Smith’s life and work started at home, where he acquired both a desire to do good and strong sense of discipline. He does not tolerate anything less than 100% from himself. Barack Obama told him that if ever there would be a movie about Barack, he would want Will Smith to play him. Will admitted to saying that he could be president himself if he chose to, but added the caveat to Barbara Walters that he would never, ever choose to. Making movies and making people feel good is way too much fun.