Being a Writer

In the July issue of "O Magazine" Pam Houston has a conversation with the great Nobel novelist, Toni Morrison, one of my favorite authors. Here Morrison describes her relationship with writing.

"Writing...holds me in the world in healthy relationship, with language, with people, bits of everything filter down, and I can stay here. Everything I see or do, the weather and water, buildings...everything actual is an advantage when I am writing...When I am not writing...then I see chaos, confusion, disorder."

Does writing help to order our world? If this is so, does my concern with regards to the de-emphasis of sentence structure matter? Or, is it perhaps a different kind of order that will prove advantageous for future generations? I have my doubts.

Perhaps my concern for sentence structure, or the eroding lack of structure in so many areas, is centered in my belief that such assists in developing our ideas and goals. Writing seems to order our world, individually and collectively. Without such what do we have?

Being a Genius

Who is a genius? Some believe in genius a must who visits, others believe that it is born, and still others believe that it is a combination of both. Some think that genius is the subjective nature of opinions. But make no mistake about it, genius, is a collective label and by this notion it is not altogether personally subjective. We don't have to like a piece of art or music or wholly appreciate a technology to recognize the artist or inventor's genius, yet we collectively agree.

For example, we collectively agree that DaVinci was a genius. We collectively agree that Mozart was a genius. We collectively agree that Stephen Hawking is a genius.We collectively agree that George Washington Carver was a genius. We collectively agree that Prince is a genius. We collectively agree that Auguste Rodin was a genius. We collectively agree that Marcel Proust was a genius. We collectively agree that Thelonious Monk was a genius. We collectively agree that Sartre was a genius. We collectively agree that Alexander Pushkin was a genius. We collectively agree that Georgia O'Keeffe was a genius. We collectively agree that Toni Morrison in a genius. We collectively agree that Van Gogh was a genius. We collectively agree that Thomas Edison was a genius.

Genius is not merely subjective; it's collective thought and acceptance. It's also impact, appreciation and value. The interesting thing is that geniuses are not often labeled as such during their lifetime. But it is something that we recognize collectively in spite of particular present or future acknowledgment, individual taste or in-depth knowledge of those who appreciate them. I love the mind of Stephen Hawkings, but some of what he says just blows me over, not only because my background is not physics, but because of his particular perceptions of science and the universe.

By the way, all of the above geniuses stand alone as individuals with repeated brilliant works and discoveries, though more than a few, such as Rodin and Edison, worked so closely with others that here are discrepancies as to who actually created some of their works and inventions. But the muse remained with these, but it would be interesting to think what they thought of their own works. Van Gogh certainly did not think very highly of his works all the time, neither did Mozart or O'Keeffe and many others as their letters reveal.

What are your thoughts on genius? Who else might be included?

Being Disruptive II

John O'Leary wrote an excellent post recently on "creative disruption" where he uses The Beatles as an example. I have written here on being disruptive a few times. As brilliant as they are, disrupters are often marginalized and isolated.

While often being maligned, disrupters, in fact, are those who make the difference in business, painting, music, science, education, medicine, poetry, fashion, communities, novels, religion, community philosophy, etc.

Who are these disrupters?

Jesus Christ
Martin Luther
Joan of Arc
Toni Morrison
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Jean Paul Gautier
Emily Dickinson
Friedrich Nietzsche
Chuck Berry
Tom Peters
Oscar Wilde
Leonardo Da Vinci
Gianni Versace
Muhammad Yunnus
Bela Bartok
Copernicus
Henry Miller
Malcolm X
Jean Paul Sartre
Marie Currier
Anita Roddick
Georgia O'Keefe
Nelson Mandela
Virgina Woolf
Igor Stravinsky
Vincent Van Gogh
Anais Nin
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Galileo
Nat Turner

History is replete which such ones, yet we seek to allow disruption to be. Perhaps without the struggle it would not find a place or consistency. Perhaps resistance is at the heart of disruption a necessity.