What is Your Genius?

"To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

About one month ago, Bruce Gelfand used Emerson's quote as an icebreaker prompt "So, what's your genius?"

I was in an intimate gathering of writers in workshop at the curator for Vino Locale and multi-talented jewelry-artist Lynn Fielder's home.

We ripped for about fifteen minutes straight: "this is a quantity exercise -- whoever writes the most wins."

Evelyn (smart-alecky): "You mean I'm supposed to answer that question in the next 15 minutes although I haven't figured it out in the last five years."

Bruce (nonchalant): "Yep."

Evelyn (acquiescing to curiosity): "Alright."

Try this one yourself.

(Write what Allen Ginsberg calls "first thought", first impulse, go for the raw unpolished unedited uncensored spew your guts forth wear your heart on the page just write as if no one is watching and no one needs to see it. Forget grammar, forget sentences that make sense, quickly before any "but" can sneak in.)

MY UNEDITED ROUNDABOUT & REDUNDANT (oops, never apologize or disclaimer your work) TRANSCRIBED FROM JOURNAL ANSWER BELOW:

Private heart, my genius is polka-dotted napkins that pulse. I see awake trees, tables, chairs, almond-honey soap dishes, fishes, children with two pink bows in their hair while their mother on the bus nods 'si, una muchachita' glances. I see souls not the scraggly torn black t-shirt hanging from Wyatt's arm as he picks himself and his tin cup up from University Avenue gathering his guitar. My genius is seeing time as a single point of light, merging into the black man playing harmonica at Lytton Plaza and purple, gold, green Mardi Gras beads hanging from his tin can.

My genius is seeing the invisible tendrils that connect us like the way I-10 ribbons across the bottom of the United States through Tucson, then El Paso, then Austin, Houston until we reach Nola and finally arrive at the once-flooded Ninth Ward. My genius is that I made that journey with Wyatt in ten days and learnt how to write poetry and songs on the street for our keep, and never had to leave my imagination for a single step, a single hitchhiked ride, a single trucker who stopped to listen to the tale. I have done it in my vision, and the lessons, the epiphanies, the stories are ingested, are kneaded into the bread of life. The staff of life.

I can picture the people in Texas looking forlorn as they walk down main street with their Christmas packages past the light poles decorated with silver tinsel until they pass by our placard and stop to chat:

"What's Your Dream -
We'll Tell You Ours"

And so they stop to talk heart-to-heart and they too won't notice that the edges of the grey jacket are frayed. They'll see Wyatt's peacock blue eyes, peacock blue skies.

And I have never left my home, I have never travelled after all across the country with Wyatt.

This pilgrimage in the end is a vertical one. And that vertical plunge is a free fall into grace.

My genius is I hold a mirror to your genius by glimpsing your untarnished unfrayed untorn soul.

After we'd all completed the exercise and set down our pens and keyboards, Bruce looks around the circle in the living room and asks:

"Who'd like to jump into the fray?"

Like any inside joke, the peculiar timing and phrasing of the sentence tickled me into a smile.

"The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something... To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion, all in one." - John Ruskin

p.s. Each writer approached the exercise in quite unique ways. Don't be hampered by what I wrote, or what your neighbor would write.

p.p.s. About year ago, Is Your Genius At Work? by Dick Richards was enthusiastically endorsed by several bloggers I respect. (Disclosure: I've never read the book for myself.)

I'm inclined towards Bruce's fifteen minute draw forth and acknowledge what you already know approach. Steve Pavlina says that the book yields results quickly too: "I spent about an hour working with the book’s exercises and eventually succeeded in identifying my core genius, from which all my other strengths could be derived."

Somehow all this reminds me of a Simpsons episode my friend Ruby was telling me about yesterday. Marge is having an issue with gambling. She gets to the point where she admits she has to do something about her gambling obsession and she suggests to her husband, "Maybe, you know, I should go to therapy." "Therapy's way expensive," Homer replies, "Why not quit now." However, if you're still stumped after this exercise, read the reviews of the book and make your own call.

Bonus: I recommend Bruce's workshops - he's written a lot for film and TV (formerly in LA). If you live in the Bay Area, get on his mailing list (website) for upcoming ones.

image  Temple by Jia Lu. I first discovered artist Jia Lu at Lynn Fielder's home - at this very writers workshop. I was sitting all day facing Adrift.  When I got a bit of writer's block in the afternoon, I loosened and enchanted my imagination flipping through pages of a Jia Lu art book lying on the coffee table. Passions Gallery, just discovered today, has fantastic imagery of Jia Lu's paintings.

Comments

[Dick Richards]

Evelyn,

Gotta say it - your genius definitely has something to do with "seeing the single point of light connected by invisible tendrils." I believe this is the first time ever that my name and book have been associated with Homer Simpson, Jia Lu, Emerson, Allen Ginsburg, Mardi Gras, Texas, Christmas, John Ruskin, and a temple dancer. All in a few paragraphs.

Thanks for the book mention.

P.S. I live a few minutes off the I-10!