In her twenty minute TED presentation, author of Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert proposes the idea that perhaps creative genius comes from some mystical external source rather than from within.  Instead of a person “being” a genius, perhaps each of us “has” a genius.

It’s a surprisingly old idea.  The Greeks believed that creativity came from muses, magical beings who imparted a fraction of their genius upon mere mortals.

This is a fascinating idea.  In that Naoki Urasawa interview that I posted a while back, he says that when he draws something exactly the way he planned, he feels the “God of Manga is resting in my right hand.”  It sounds like he came to the same conclusions as Gilbert.

I’ve been contemplating a number of projects that I’d like to persue and there’s been a lot of personal pressure built up.  Will it be good?  Will people resonate with my work?  Will it be successful?  Will it express everything I want it to?  Can I keep up?  What the hell am I getting in to?

Gilbert says to just show up and do your part.  Don’t worry about all those pressures, that’s for the amorphous thing to worry about.  My job is to draw pretty things so I will show up and do my part.  And hopefully, if that thing is floating by and wants it to be successful, it’ll rest in my right hand for a time.