Sometimes it's easier to think and postulate about creativity and talent, rather than to just use it.

I read a great column in Texas Monthly a while back by Kinky Friedman. His columns are either hit or miss, in my opinion, but this particular one spoke to me for some reason. It's from the November 2003 issue, and you have to register with Texas Monthly online to read the whole thing, so I'll post my favorite parts:

My theory is that in all areas of creative human endeavor, the presence of true talent is almost always the kiss of death. It's no accident that three people who were tragically forced into bankruptcy late in their lives were Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Mark Twain. It's no fluke of fate that Schubert died shortly after giving the world the Unfinished Symphony. You probably wouldn't have finished it either if you had syphilis and twelve cents in your pocket. Or how would you like to have died at age 29 in the back seat of a Cadillac? If you're Hank Williams, that's what talent got you. But what is talent? And why would anyone in his right mind want it? As Albert Einstein often said, "I don't know."

(...)Another example of what might help define talent takes us back to Polyclitus, the famous sculptor in ancient Greece. Polyclitus, it is said, once sculpted two statues at the same time: one in his living room, in public view, and one in his bedroom, which he worked on privately and kept wrapped in a tarpaulin. When visitors came by, they would comment on the public work, saying, "The eyes aren't quite right" or "That thigh is too long," and Polyclitus would incorporate their suggestions. All the while, however, he kept the other statue a secret. Both works were completed at about the same time and were mounted in the city square in Athens. The statue that had been designed by committee was openly mocked and ridiculed. The statue he'd done by himself was immediately proclaimed a transcendental work of art. People asked Polyclitus, "How can one statue be so good and the other so bad?" And Polyclitus answered, "Because I did this one and you did that one."

Word.

(Ha. I like working in the use of the word "word" in just that way sometimes. Try it. WORD.)

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