Elizabeth Gilbert on 'genius'

I've been telling just about everyone I know about www.ted.com because it is perhaps the greatest thing I've seen in a long time. It has actually restored my faith in mankind.

If you've never heard of TED, here's some info from their site:

Our mission: Spreading ideas.

We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other.

I love it. It's an exchange of ideas, research, studies, thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, understandings, and knowledge. It's not an open debate where people try to prove they're right; it's a place to go and listen to new ideas. Some people ask questions but they're always to try and better understand, never to undermine or criticize. It's about open education and learning something new from people at the top of their fields. If you don't agree with it or believe it, that's fine, because it'll still educate you and perhaps make you think about things differently.

Here's a talk given just last week by Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love talking about 'genius' and the creative processes and successes:



The site is www.ted.com. I encourage you to watch any and every talk you can find.

[EDIT: It would appear the TED talks don't shrink down to fit sites when embedded like YouTube videos do.]