Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The plight of our creative minds: the gifted child defined

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:

A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive.
To them... a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create --
so that without the creating of music
or poetry
or books
or buildings
or something of meaning,
their very breath is cut off...

They must create, must pour out creation.
By some strange, unknown, inward urgency
they are not really alive unless they are creating.

~Pearl S. Buck

Saturday, December 03, 2011

Crazy Stuff

So during my presentation on Thursday, my eyes were drawn to a lady in the back. She looked very familiar, to the point that I thought I knew her from somewhere, but couldn't place her. After speaking, I tried to get back to her, but she left before I could get there. We went back to the hotel and packed up so that we could leave after the last session. I met her in the lobby, doing the same thing. "You're the lady from the workshop I've been talking about," she said. I thanked her, then told her she was very familiar to me. We discussed various places we've lived, and never came to a mutual agreement on where we could have met. She got on her elevator while I stayed back with my friends. Just as the elevator door was about to close, she held the door open and said, "WAIT! Where did you go to school?" "Missouri State," I said. "Then you had my mom. She was the only Special Ed professor there, and one of the first in the States," she said. "I look just like her." Wow. And we met. At my Visual Spatial session where we discussed visual memory. From two states away. Twenty three years later. Blew my mind. It sure validated my studies!