Late Bloomers

I've been in a bit of a creative funk lately. Creative block, maybe? Creative hiatus? Creative laziness?

In any case, I haven't been making things like I've wanted to (this includes music, writing, art, etc), and I've been worried that I'm spinning my wheels yet again, succumbing to the mild depression that has reared its head in my life ever since high school.

Today I got a nice creative kick in the butt by having tea with one of my ex-professors-turned-friends. Just getting out of the house and talking to someone who has taught me about art and who still believes in my ability to do something significant was pretty inspiring.

So I went right out and purchased myself a mic stand, which I've been meaning to do for months, went home and recorded rough demos of two songs I wrote in August. It's amazing how much easier my life feels all of a sudden with a cheap $40 boom microphone stand.
Sometimes, you just gotta spend a few bucks and do something simple to get the ball rolling.
I now feel like I am prepared to record new ideas anytime they come to me, which is very liberating.

And just to seal my improved outlook this evening...I received the latest issue of New Yorker magazine in my mailbox today, and in the issue was an article called "Late Bloomers (Why do we equate genius with precocity?)," which I just finished reading.

Malcolm Gladwell, the article's author, presents a theory on creative people that was developed by David Galenson, an economist at the University of Chicago. Galenson had come to the conclusion, through his research, that creative people can be divided into two types:
1) prodigies, who produce their best work early in their career and tend to be "conceptual"
2) late bloomers, who are "experimental" and produce their best work only after years and maybe decades of work

Anyhoo... it was liberating to read this article, and somehow made me feel a bit less like I've been flailing around for the past ten years, somehow wasting my time.
I have a lot of work to do, creatively, but I feel hopeful, which is an important step towards moving forward.
I highly recommend the article.