Dr. Soul’s Inspirational Roundup, February ‘09
— Soul Shelter’s on site Web-prescription representative, Dr. Soul, directs you to irresistibly inspiring readings and multimedia musings —
Here, says Dr. Soul, are “four items of substance well worth one’s attention, and likely to invigorate the spirit.”
1. The Academy of Achievement
Brief, meaningful addresses by some of the world’s leading thinkers, artists, and public figures. Listen or watch. Dr. Soul found the speech by lauded documentarian Ken Burns particularly impassioned.
2. “Late Bloomers,” an article by Malcolm Gladwell
Mr. Gladwell meditates eloquently and movingly on the nature of genius, spontaneous or painstakingly nurtured. How do we perceive genius, and what does that say about us? And what makes genius possible anyway?
On the road to great achievement, the late bloomer will resemble a failure: while the late bloomer is revising and despairing and changing course and slashing canvases to ribbons after months or years, what he or she produces will look like the kind of thing produced by the artist who will never bloom at all. Prodigies are easy. They advertise their genius from the get-go. Late bloomers are hard. They require forbearance and blind faith. (Let’s just be thankful that Cézanne didn’t have a guidance counsellor in high school who looked at his primitive sketches and told him to try accounting.)
3. Author Cynthia Ozick on Creative Solitude
Writers and artists take note! Listen to or read Ms. Ozick’s fabulous speech. Better yet, print while listening, then read and read again.
Writers are what they genuinely are only when they are at work in the silent and instinctual cell of ghostly solitude, and never when they are out industriously chatting on the terrace.
4. Ira Glass on Maturing Creatively
Glass, the creator of NPR’s popular This American Life, talks about the stumbling, bumbling process of perfecting craft, and the importance of perseverance, in this YouTube video.
It takes a while. It’s gonna take you a while… You will be fierce. You will be a warrior.
(Thanks to J.D. at Get Rich Slowly for the link)
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Read, listen, and be inspired. And accept Dr. Soul’s best wishes for a soul-stirring Spring.
You might also enjoy:
“Ten Soul-Affirming Messages for 2009”
