Creativity can blossom during Third Age

[15 January 2007 - Columbia Daily Tribune] As we begin to ripen into our Third Age, we might want to keep these words, spoken by that great American artist Georgia O’Keeffe, in mind: "I said to myself, I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me - shapes and ideas so near to me, so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down. I decided to start anew, to strip away what I had been taught." Her decision to trust herself and her instincts and personal outlook was her creative urge speaking to her. We all have this capacity to present ourselves to the world as a separate and individual human being, but it often takes the confidence and pure nerve that finally rises again in our Third Age. As we develop our own way of mature personal exploration and development, our creativity often makes itself known. It is a type of intelligence that I personally believe everyone has left in him or her from childhood but gets put aside to meet the demands the world makes as we move into our adult years. More