BrainPong

Every once in a while it’s worth expanding the reading list beyond Creativity and CA. If you can get past all the finance gobbledygook, flip through a Harvard Business Review the next time you’re browsing at Barnes & Noble. Every once in a while you’ll stumble on a very relevant gem, like this interview with famed choreographer Twyla Tharp in the April 08 issue. An excerpt:

“What I’m trying to tell people is that they shouldn’t be held back by the great stuff other people have done. Brahms is the classic example here. He was a consummate musician, and because he was so respectful of the great composers and of Beethoven in particular, he could not get out his first symphony until he was in his mid-forties. What a waste of time was that, what a waste. And all because Brahms was totally intimidated. And you know what? There’s a kind of arrogance in that intimidation. We think that it has to do with modesty. To the contrary, it has to do with Brahms going, “Goddammit, my first symphony is not going to be better than Beethoven’s Ninth.” And excuse me, probably it’s not going to be, so why don’t you just do it and get on with things? Personally, I don’t worry about originality at all. Has anyone ever done what I’ve done before? Yeah, probably. But I’m not going to worry about it; I’m going to use it and get on with it.”