Was I the only person who had never heard of these TED talks before? They are so incredibly interesting!
After being delighted by the TED Talk of Sir Ken Robertson (who shares not only my opinions about creativity but also my last name) I was left feeling uplifted and even inspired. I thoroughly enjoyed Sir Ken's British humor, especially the joke about a man in the forrest. More importantly though, I respected his opinons on the presence, or lack thereof, creativity in school systems today. His story about the dancer responsible for the musical CATS was delightful and so relevant. "I must dance to think." Although I did enjoy his talk, I believe that there must be a balance of both creative exercise AND structure to properly nurture a young student.
Elizabeth Gilbert's TED Talk was similarly enlightening and somewhat deeper than Sir Ken's in my view. As an aspiring writer, her ideas struck a chord with my tentative creative genius not to mention my fear of failure. I thought that her idea of our creativity being separate from our person was interesting and thought-provoking. If the two are indeed separate, we can mold and change our creativity as well as our creations without the lasting affects on our minds and sometimes spirits. I feel for Gilbert. To be 40 and to have already created your life's work must be daunting, but she seems to be handling it very well. You go girl.
During the talks I was also reminded of my grandmother, whom I will refer to as my "Nonna" which is the Italian word for grandmother and the name my sister and I have called her for all of our lives. My Nonna helped to raise my sister and I and before I could even hold a pencil this woman was nurturing our creativity. I believe she is largely responsible for my writing "talent" in addition to my ability to step outside of the box in almost every endeavor I encounter. So here's a shout out to you Non, thanks for everything!
"Creative thinking may ,mean simply the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done" - Rudolph Flesch
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ReplyDeleteI like that this is in your About Me. I think, though--like me-- you could stand to offer a couple more details about you. This particular post is really well-written and interesting, and if people happen to find it and read it, I think they might want to know who the author is. Pictures! I love pictures myself. Personally, I don't really need all the videos and everything..sometimes..but not always; but your blog would call more attention to itself if it provided pictures every now and then. Speaking of the videos though- Profe mentioned this in class, I think videos could be a really cool addition to our blogs. It would sort of make them that much more of a commentary on new media. We should take advantage of everything we've grown up with on the web, and know how to access...unlike some of our older relatives and friends. But wait! hold up. I see here, on your latest post you posted a video as well. Awesome. One last thing: I really like your blog's title, Not your typical blogger. But why are you not my typical blogger? I'd like at least a sentence of why you think you're worth stopping and pausing while rolling through the many blogs out there.