Category: Teaching

Is there a connection between bipolar mental states and super creative individuals?  

*super creative as evidenced in the visual, performing (including sports), linguistic (spoken & written), auditory/music arts…as well as mathematics, the sciences, technological and business innovators.  Basically anyone whose gifts transcend the norm and help transform what is thought of as possible.

I was reflecting on Andy Irons and bipolar states of mind…  For those of you unfamiliar with AI, as he is know in the surf world…which, by the way, many (if not most) long time surfers familiar with professional surfing will immediately recognize his initials as much as his name.  That should be one major clue about how profound his impact on modern surfing was.

Anyway, here was a regular guy from Kauai, an outer island in the Hawaiian chain, who rose to the top of the professional surfing world not once but three times.  Andy Irons didn’t make it just as a pure competitor but also as a tremendously gifted and fearless performance based athlete.  His competitive successes were combined with relentlessly hard charging and creative “free” surfing which consistently raised the bar of what one was capable of accomplishing on a wave.

Check out this clip of him surfing Indonesia.

  

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