OF INTELLIGENCE AND TALENT

The sleep of the mind gives birth to monsters.

 (Spanish proverb)

My reflections are simple truths and everyone knows them, though they do not give them due importance.

 Being engaged in daily creative work almost all my life, I have only recently realized the priority of these truths for the formation of personality. 

The terms "Soul" and "Mind" (personality) used by me have no religious connotation and are used to simplify the understanding of my ideas.

"Mind" serves the interests of the body and acts rationally, pragmatically and often "down-to-earth". "I have achieved what I wanted. We see that he did not want much"- jokes M. Zhvanetsky, involuntarily confirming the pragmatism of the "mind".

The expression "a man with a black soul" is not quite right, it would be more correct - with a "black mind".  "Soul" is eternal, it is incorporeal, so its manifestation is characterized by "high impulses", and earthly aspirations, for example, to money - this is the fate of the "mind". 

The happiness of the "soul" is in self-realization, in creation of good (the book of Ecclesiastes), and happiness in the understanding of our "mind" is in satiety, idleness, contentment and petty vanity.

This is probably why many sages and religious thinkers throughout the ages have called for controlling the mind and the desires it generates. An "unhealthy mind", like a drunk driver, can lead us into such wilderness that a person forgets about his talent and purpose.

It was his sick mind that led the extremely gifted scientist Nietzsche to a madhouse for 12 years.  The same "mind", cautious and distrustful, got the great composer Mussorgsky a lifetime of service as a petty official; it also made the greatest poets compose odes to tyrants, and numerous Soviet writers write ideologically correct, but now no one needs novels.

Our "mind" is like a weight for the soaring soul and its "high impulses". Does talent manifest itself in the fulfillment of the tasks set by our rebellious "mind" during its "somersaults"?

Yes, of course! But not thanks to it, but in spite of it.

I anticipate objections, saying that that person acquired his bright individuality by going through many vicissitudes, which were the faceting of the diamond of talent. No, I will answer, it is again our "cleverness", justifying the straying of someone else's "mind" on the principle that the crow will not peck out the crow's eye.

Think about it, was it better for M. Mussorgsky to compose operas after a whole day "in the presence"? And is it easier to keep consciousness and clear mind, necessary for any creativity, having taken drugs, vodka or putting on the yoke of asexuality (Edgar Poe, Nietzsche, etc.)?

In our case - "fighters of the fine arts front", we are often afraid to "let" the talent out in the wild, we invent him opportunistic frames or load him with small orders, calming ourselves with the thought: better a bird in the hand than a crane in the sky.

"Mind" in most cases, hinders, limits and does not believe in talent.  Sometimes the bends of trajectories set by the mind, lead to the criminal world. For example, instead of conquering Everest, a mountain climber climbs through someone else's window for a quick profit, an artist copies and creates a fake, because his "mind" does not believe in his own masterpiece.

At all times and in all nations, religion has limited the possible "slips" of a sick "mind" by instilling moral imperatives (i.e., rules expressing ought) from childhood.

Now, unfortunately, there is a process of ridicule and destruction of even these moral minimums everywhere. The triumph of materialism and reason.

Man is weak, and temptations and temptations seem insurmountable. It is our "mind" that pushes us into actions we repent of. The "mind" is too attached to material things to be a good counselor. During the creative process, just as during prayer or meditation, you need to "turn off" the mind and listen to yourself (your "soul"). Learn to trust your talent. He is so hesitantly standing at the door, not daring to enter, and we still stop him with our arguments about composition, style, form, etc.

Think about how many trends, new formats, styles might not have appeared in art, music, literature, if those brave, pure and gifted, slowed down their vision and feeling! After all, everything that we know and admire was once desperately ridiculed as unacceptable. 

But their rational "mind" whispered to those pioneers: well, where are you going, John-Ivan-Pierre-Diego with your suites or novels, symbolism or modernism, constructivism or Imagism! Who needs it!

Once again I urge you to believe in your own uniqueness and to listen to your heart more often and ignore the edifying pragmatism of your "mind".