Creative Genius or Conventional Creativity?
Suffering, Plato, Architecture and Creative Mojo
Around the second term in the 11th grade at junior college, I went running to my English teacher, hoping to catch her before she disappeared into the bustle of the staff room at break time (because I was never in class.) I stopped her right outside an Arts classroom and breathlessly said, “I think I am becoming dyslexic. I’m forgetting how to spell.” She did nothing but chuckle. “Keep reading, keep writing. Write what you read, create mnemonics if you must.” “Speak in English, Shevaun,” she remarked, narrowing her eyes at me. I paused with a confused look on my face until it struck me — “Oh yes, I am not overdoing French, but the letters in English just do not seem to make sense anymore, Miss,” I replied almost pleading with her and the grammar Gods to cut me some slack. All she did was chip in with, “Your Shakespeare answers were brilliant, I’ve shared them with this class,” as she walked away with a smile. I was losing my grasp on my main language. I was beyond saturated from reading and debating and narrating, and executing a plethora of tasks I did back then, all while oiseau, which is bird in French, had eaten up a tiny portion of my left mid-fusiform gyrus for how it’s pronounced— almost like, wazo (the part of the brain closely linked to spelling.) In all honesty, this may seem like a minor issue to most people, but it was rotting me on the inside. I was suffering. I had places to be, debates to attend, essays to write and suddenly ‘pidgeon’ looked correct, ‘neccesary’ and ‘concieve’ started looking like they were accurate. The ineptitude was astounding, I could not bear witnessing my literary execution fail so pathetically — what would people say? I can’t spell?
To play Jordan Peterson’s advocate one could say, why is spelling even needed? Well, we didn’t quite have Grammarly or ChatGPT back then. The consensus was simple, a good idea is a clear idea. It is well construed and consistent across a large audience. It leaves the right scope for imagination, and enough room for interpretation while having a decodable central theme. Ideas are executed artistically, may these be verbal, visual, or experiential. Most times, and within the context of schools, our ideas were best showcased verbally. To make a spelling error is like wearing diamonds during the day or pearls at night — jarring, horrendous, overdone, attention-seeking, and noticed only by fine society. If you can’t remember the spelling of a word, why must I trust you to remember the history of the world?
Nonetheless, I had to revolt against this stupid shortcoming. I rewrote the words confusing me a hundred times. Learned the e before i rule, how clothes (shirts) are necessary, and necessary has one c - for collar, and two s’s - sleeves. I quit my reading escapades and picked up simpler and easier books like R.D. Chand’s ISC Class XI Chemistry instead of another piece on Stoicism. (I was hung up on Epictetus and Freud back then.) Life was crazy, apart from the spelling issues, I had other mental torments (and a school counselor) pushing me to write more, and more, and more. And then one fine day, the dyslexia disappeared and I was normal again. I had come out of this phase with close to 30 poems and 16 genius essays that would not have been possible if I was not under this kind of pressure — that sickening feeling of losing control over one’s craft, over one's own hands.
It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way, my ‘normal’ self — that default state of living in a high-octane vibe of creating, living, experiencing, on repeat, an electric, upward spiral. For the past few months I’ve been plagued with the infamous understanding of normalcy — a status quo state of mind with a few creative outbursts. Thankfully not the “artist/writer/creative block” kind, rather like a container that’s run out of pixie dust.
Naturally, I got my answer from staring at the wall — I have been happy, blissful, content, docile, lately. Perhaps, too much. Has it been fun? Yes. But I have not suffered lately.
To anyone who feels the same: perhaps you are not the creative genius you could be because you are not suffering enough.
I come not to bring you (or myself) words of comfort, because even words of comfort mean only so much — in fact, in all honesty, they do so little. They are but shapeless clouds that float by. Even a beautiful flower at some point must shrivel and wither and die in order for its beauty and existence to mean something. Memento mori. The circle of life, the finiteness of life, is what puts meaning into creation.
Everything must suffer, we must suffer in order for there to be meaning. But we must be careful not to suffer aimlessly, rather endure wisely, lest we betray ourselves for nothing. Rightly so, some of my best pieces, artistic and literary, have been borne out of the darkest moments of my life. Sure when there’s light outside you bask in its warmth and enjoy the flowers and the bees, the fruits and the trees. But you can not get out into the light unless you despise the darkness enough to leave the cave. Plato was right—it is hell to only bear witness to the shadows in the cave. Christ was right— you need to be children of the light, and somewhere in between, falls the speck of our measly existence and the juggernaut weight of the world on our shoulders. This is why we need to carry our cross, climb up the mountain, and then for some of us, fly over it.
The first rule of the creative genius club is that you must suffer — but you must be glam while doing it. You need to be sophisticated. Very demure, very mindful, very cutesy. For example, you need to have a messy room, but it can not be a disgusting, depressed messy, it needs to be an artistic messy. A 27 y/o pop famous Bandra boy, no furniture, only two fancy chairs and books sprawled everywhere kinda messy. You have to let that creative entropy penetrate your room, your life, yourself. And then you need to let it consume you entirely, like a moth drawn to a flame. Like a maniac who fails a hundred times on a project that he loves only to say he has found a hundred ways a solution won’t work. You need 6 books opened, a potential weapon, art supplies, coffee as dark as your wildest dream, and a fire that even Hurricane Sandy would not be able to put out.