Identity

In 2009, author Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) recorded a TED talk on nurturing creativity. It amounts to a surprising piece of practical advice for my fellow artists. Unlike her, I doubt there’s much of me outside of myself, but like her, I feel an elemental force within me, almost a separate entity.

My “genius”looks like Alec Guiness. When I was a boy, his name was Gopy (pronounced “Go pee”—which suggests his moniker’s etymology) , which became more formally “Alpha” when I became an adult. Alpha resides somewhere deep behind my eyes. Unlike Ms. Gilbert, I feel quite whole and self-contained, just not entirely of one mind.