There's a fantastic talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray,
Love among other things) from the TED conference about changing the
modern conception of "being a genius" (which sets up a lot of
expectation for a creator) to the old greco-roman idea of "having" a
genius. It's 20 minutes long but I highly recommend it; it's by turns
funny and incredibly perceptive.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html
~Austin Mullen
---
Virginia Woolf in 10 seconds:
Life is beautiful and tragic. Let's put flowers in a vase.
On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 12:33 AM, toyin adepoju
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks Justin.
> Please forgive my late response.
> I think I've read 'Borges and I' before but i will read it again in the
> light of your observation.
> Thanks for the link. I hope your week is going well.
> toyin
>
> On 19 March 2011 11:33, Justin McKeown <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Toyin,
>> Have you ever read 'Borges and I'? It's dealing with something slightly
>> different, but their is also an odd similarity to what you are describing.
>> Have a gander:
>> http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/borg&i.htm
>> Very bests on this sunny saturday,
>> Justin
>> On 19 Mar 2011, at 08:03, emma wilby wrote:
>>
>> Hi Toyin,
>> An evocative account of - what seems to me like - the acquisition of a
>> familiar. I wonder - can you bring the sense of the presence to you (through
>> some form of intention) or does it come and go of its own accord and on its
>> own terms?
>> Emma
>> ________________________________
>> From: toyin adepoju <[log in to unmask]>
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Sent: Wed, 16 March, 2011 16:04:49
>> Subject: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] FORTHCOMING: WHO IS THIS PERSON WRITING MY
>> PHD?
>>
>>
>> WHO IS THIS PERSON WRITING MY PHD?
>>
>> Toyin Adepoju
>>
>> I ask myself this question in recognition of the sense of wonder that
>> continually emerges for me from the development of ideas in the PhD I am
>> undertaking in Comparative Criticism.
>> You see, some of the best ideas of the PhD are not written wholly by me.
>> They are developed in collaboration with someone I don’t know, someone I
>> am only beginning to be able to identify through subtle cues that define the
>> contours of the person’s personality.
>> I have chosen to describe this being in terms of a distinctive personality
>> because the entity actually demonstrates a shape representing their nature
>> and style of working.This shape is perceivable in mental terms through
>> subtle promptings about possibilities for developing ideas, through the
>> sense of an invisible personality behind me or at my shoulder as I compose
>> ideas in writing, through a sense of looking forward into a landscape of
>> knowledge I can only dimly sense with an awareness of the certainty of its
>> existence, like an animal smelling water from a far distance.
>> Perhaps a more realistic interpretation of this mysterious experience is
>> to understand these cognitive unfoldings as demonstrations of conjunctions
>> between the conscious and subconscious minds as they work together to
>> constitute a whole, even though the processes of the subconscious are not
>> often available to consciousness.
>> This interpretation may clarify the majestic motions of ideas as they
>> enter into particular orbits, mesh and undergo transformation, but can
>> they explain the sense of an invisible personality by my side or behind
>> me that flashes in and out of my awareness as I work?
>>
>>
>>
>> What is the relationship between this current sense of an
>> unseen personality and an earlier impression of an invisible figure that
>> began to follow me everywhere after about a year of daily magical
>> invocation and meditation in 1993?
>>
>> What connection could these experiences have to the two experiences in my
>> living room in Benin in 1996 in which as my mind went to my
>> earlier interest, abandoned for the previous three years, in developing
>> the cognitive potential of the Yoruba/Orisa Ifa system of knowledge and
>> divination, I instantly sensed an invisible presence at my side, a sense
>> of an intangible presence that recurred at various times as I carried out
>> this work on Ifa during my MA at the University of Kent in 2003?
>>
>> Can these experiences be related to a particularly striking experience
>> in the late 1990s in which, as I reflected on a forest that awed me by
>> the numinous presence that radiated from it, I suddenly found myself
>> elsewhere, in a different room, in non-verbal but eloquent dialogue with a
>> woman. Having ascertained who I was, that I was not dreaming, that I was
>> in a strange place in which I had been welcomed, I opened my eyes to find
>> myself back in my study?
>>
>>
>>
>> Could these experiences of mine demonstrate interactions between personal
>> and extra-personal fields of consciousness?
>>
>>
>>
>> Full essay forthcoming
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------
>> Dr. Justin McKeown
>> 16 Wynchruch Terrace
>> Belfast
>> BT6 0HP
>> UK
>> web: www.justinmckeown.com
>> tel: +44 (0) 7919 946 545
>>
>>
>
>
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