Yesterday we watched a Ted Talk by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of “Eat, Pray, Love”. You can watch this below, but don’t waste time.
Before my rant, I want to make a few disclaimers
- I have never read the book. I HAVE read spark notes of all the chapters because I am lazy and it is easier
- I have seen the movie and I was probably never going to like it because I hate Julia Roberts
- I realize that the book ends with the point of inner happiness/self exploration , that’s not why I hated it
- I agree with her general ted talk theme of “create no matter what happens”, “everyone can be creative”, and I appreciated the fairy/pagan references to feeling the universe
- My opinion does not matter. But the only people who are reading this are my professor and TA so I am taking artistic license
- The fact she wrote anything is impressive, because writing a book is hard.
ok now that’s said and done, Dear Gilbert:
- STOP COMPLAINING. You diluted your point by making it all about you. “People ask me if I will feel meaningless since that was my hit” “I am so famous and it is so hard” “I was on Oprah so I matter” “Artists kill themselves because of the pressure” “I probably want to as well, but I won’t because I matter and am a genius!!!!” “Read my second book that I am writing which I mention thrice in this talk because BUY MY BOOK AND KEEP ME RELEVANT” This of course, all fits, because the book’s protagonist was a selfish bitch who just left her marriage at the beginning because she was bored. That’s why I hated the book; self-exploration is fine, but she placed too much emphasis on growth through observation rather than the personal responsibility. Your life is not all about you. I am not saying the search for happiness is not important or honorable- even though it’s really pathetic that humans sometimes feel the need to visit other cultures to figure out who they are (I am not above it but I hate myself for it). But the character was self-absorbed at the beginning and the end so there was really no growth at all.
- Where do you get off being on a Ted Talk anyway? Nicholas Sparks has at least 2 books as movies and he is more famous but still about your level as a writer. On that note, why did you talk about yourself the whole time, making sure to make references to other cultures to seem smart or look enlightened/worldly rather than be a valuable addition to your point?
- Even the way you talk bothered me. You paused for laughs but it just came off as pathetic. You failed at humility and showed no respect for creativity. But in a way, it’s beautiful. Because when you inevitably become irrelevant, I am going to check on you in 10 years and I bet my shorts that you are claiming “retirement to spend time with my family” because you couldn’t follow your own point of art “no matter what happens”. Or you’ll commit suicide in the hope that it will allow you to “join the ranks of actual writers and find relevance through death”.
- The pressure to be famous did not kill those people, money, and general mental disorders did. Creativity is an impossibly hard profession, it is very often disheartening and the failure can easily get to people. It is important to know you matter as an individual despite having to follow in the footsteps of famous epic predecessors. Which is what you were trying to touch on, but you blew it. You should have said “even if you are poor, or having a horrible time, or not making it, what you do matters.” But you got distracted justifying your own existence rather than the general creative life.
- You are probably the kind of person who will write this off, because selfish and insecure people can talk themselves through anything;But I am excited to find out who you really are when everything you are afraid of comes true.
ok I am done…after the photo below.
Painfully Average 