Creative Genius

That phrase often used to describe a phenomenal composer, author, artist, or any other personage who creates things of great admiration and honor during our human existence, is a rather ironic use of rhetoric in my opinion. It doesn't seem to have any negative connotation to it; the word genius is included. People such as Leonardo da Vinci, Mozart, Beethoven, Michelangelo, and Albert Einstein have often had that descriptor tagged to their identities, so how could there possibly be anything negative to the phrase "creative genius." Well, I'm here to tell you that there can be, and there is.

The creative power of the human mind is incredible. There is an estimated 10-100 billion neurons in our brain constantly firing electrical impulses down their axons to the dendrites (the finger-like appendages at the end of each neuron) that then either send those impulses, or release neurotransmitters as messengers, to the other dendrites of the other neuron or neurons sharing that synapse. There are an estimated 100 trillion synapses in the human brain. If you think about it, they say that your brain is roughly the size of your two fists put together. Do this with me now: make a fist with both of your hands, and place them against each other, knuckles touching. Within that approximate size, 10-100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synapses exist; your whole body is operated from within that power source. Including your creativity.

From the time I was a little girl, I knew I had strong mind and an even stronger imagination. I could think up princesses and castles in far-away lands with beautiful skies that never turned gray, and an endless supply of chocolates. At the same time these wonderful childhood images could turn sour very quickly. I had frequent nightmares as a kid; many of them happening over, and over, and over again. To this day I can still remember some of the worst ones. It is this fact that convinces me that creativity can be a little more than unpleasant at times. Moments of inspiration can occur whenever they please. And most of the time you don't get to choose when this inspiration strikes. For me, that moment occurred around 3:14 AM.

I'm not exactly sure how long I was dreaming for, or when my dream started, but I woke up at 3:14 this morning in a panic. Tears in my eyes threatening to spill down stood on the brink of my lids as I stayed very still and re-ran my whole nightmare back through my mind. It was awful. My sympathetic nervous system was still running strong even once the nightmare was over, and I could not shake the feeling that something was wrong. My neurons were going crazy, the synapses were filled with messages and neurotransmitters. With the way my imagination was running wild with me, I'm sure I would have believed that the Earth was going to open up and swallow me and my small twin bed from this dinky bedroom in this dinky apartment. My "creative genius" was at work, and not for a good cause.

Now, don't get me wrong, I find the brain fascinating and I appreciate art, music, writing, and other creations of the human mind as much as, if not more than, the next person. But to be perfectly honest, I do not appreciate these night-time interruptions to my beauty sleep.