Creative talent with nowhere to go is a curse.
A TED talk by the writer Elizabeth Gilbert has been making the rounds lately. In it, she shares what she calls her border collie theory. “Having a creative mind is like having a border collie. You have to give it a job. Give it a ball to chase or a flock of sheep to herd. If you don’t give it something to do, it’ll find a job of its own, and that job will probably be tearing up your couch. Creativity works the same way. If you don’t use it, it can turn on you, taking the form of self-destruction, anxiety, and overthinking.”
That struck me as remarkably apt. Before the Lunar New Year, I gave an interview, and one question stayed with me. “People with an artistic bent are often said to have a melancholy streak. What do you make of that?”
Part of my answer went like this. “When someone sees the flaws in the world as it is and longs deeply for the world as it could be, that longing, if it goes unfulfilled, can harden into an abiding sense of loss. Or you might call it a sorrow tinged with love. I think that’s at the heart of melancholy. The arts are full of sensitive idealists, so it’s hardly surprising that melancholy is so common among them.”
Gilbert’s metaphor gave me a new way to think about it. Creativity is a kind of vital energy that needs somewhere to go. It’s vigorous, clever, and tireless. And precisely because it is all those things, when there’s no ball to chase and no flock to herd, it can turn its full force inward.
That may be why so many people who make things feel a kind of anger they can’t quite explain when they’re between projects. Their abilities are sitting idle. Think of a border collie cooped up in an apartment. It grows restless, tears things apart, and may even hurt itself.
“Don’t wait for the perfect moment. Just start writing.” That advice feels more valuable than ever. So many people are waiting to come up with a line that will stop everyone in their tracks, or for that one moment of brilliance. We live in an age when new writing floods our lives every day, when an essay we read yesterday can slip our minds by today. The longer we hesitate, the more chances we let pass.
At its worst, you keep turning all that creative energy inward. You can feel something inside you churning, taking shape, screaming, and still you give it no outlet. In time, all that energy can become frighteningly precise in the way it tears you down.
Sometimes all it takes is to give that energy something outside yourself to work on, however small. Once it starts flowing outward, the curse can become a gift you can actually put to use again.
Talent, at its core, is a force that can’t stop itself. It will either herd the sheep or wear your soul out. If you make things, hang on to that little spark. Make something while it’s still there, before it goes out or turns against you. Whatever comes of it, make it first.
After all, a border collie just needs a ball to chase. Any ball will do, even a dirty, beat-up one.
