I think this explains why we are doomed as a species:
[A]t this year’s TED conference, which was held here in Vancouver, British Columbia, the rock star Sting got onstage and gave a presentation that had a different feel. He talked about his rise to stardom and then about a period in middle age when he was unable to write any new songs. The muse abandoned him, he said — for days, then weeks, then months, then years.
But then he went back and started thinking about his childhood in the north of England. He’d lived on a street that led down to a shipyard where some of the world’s largest ocean-going vessels were built.
Most of us have an urge, maybe more as we age, to circle back to the past and touch the places and things of childhood. When Sting did this, his creativity was reborn. Songs exploded from his head.
David Brooks . . . Sting . . . TED Talks . . . Shoot me now, or shoot me later?
More to the point, when I circle back to the place of my childhood, I remember what a creatively stifling and miserable experience it was for much of the time, and how I didn't really get my act together, both as a creative thinker and as a human being, until I moved away from there for good. The fact that the place was pretty much leveled by the Northridge earthquake probably dimmed whatever nostalgic allure it might have held for me in my declining years, so there's that. Guess what I'm saying is, some of us move away from home for very good reasons, and they don't all revolve around money and fame.
(Via.)
---Baron V
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