A "Genius" Video

So here it is. I love this talk. I have felt the very things she mentions. Poems coming up like a linebacker and taking you down on your peaceful walk to a patch of grass. Or a busy day when you don't really have time to be tackled.  But I threw out the idea to Alex, and he backs up the popular idea that we are the genius. And I am wondering now if those two ideas are separate, or if they meet somewhere. 

I believe in inspiration. I believe I am sometimes just an obedient modem for a poem that actually wants, like a physical being, to be recognized. And I write it, and read it later and it's clear that something beyond "me" was happening on the page.

But I believe we can dishonor our genius. We can neglect our inspirations, or reject them outright, having no compassion over ourselves. It starts out as a person thinking of something perhaps only of slight significance. "I want to smile at the stranger." We hear it in ourselves. Someone saying that to us, and we realize for a very small second that it's true. Stranger approaches and something then inside can say yes or no to the desire, to the inclination, to the inspiration, the genius, even...

I know that for those of us who say yes, who always deign to say yes to their artful, brilliant, and good whims, they will head off in the direction of living well. Of becoming so in-tune with their genius, that they can come to understand her. Like a friend. Even having a healthy relationship... When we say yes to the genius ideas, we open the doors of creativity a bit wider, until the door is swung open completely and we are invited not only to visit but to practically move in.

And eventually, maybe Alex is right, and Elizabeth, and the ancients, too. Maybe we have a genius, but maybe we can come so close to it that we lose the lines between us, and we become the thing which is in us, we become brilliant.