Multiple Intelligences, Creativity, and the Buddha

This is for my Creativity and the Arts seminar (as you can probably tell, because it's a whole lot smarter than the stuff I post on my own)
I'm reading this article about what is creativity and the different types of it and intelligent stuff like that.  I also am rather cold and headache-y, which makes me wish I had brought up my winter hat
it's one of these, but without the pom-poms, and I am seriously considering going back down to my dorm and getting it.  Yes, I think I will.  I hope no one steals my stuff while I'm gone.....
Yup.  No bad things have happened.  That was fun.
Damn, I have a headache.  I hope I'm not getting sick

Anywho...

Howard Gardner wrote this, and he's famous for it.  His theory of multiple intelligences is kind of a big deal in the world of developmental pyschology.
 oh, Anchorman...
In short, his big idea is that "smart" does not just mean book smart, and there a many different ways (areas) in which a person can be "smart".  There is some debate about just exactly what these types of intelligences are, but I'll give my readership the general idea:

Some of these I feel are more valid than others.  (Existetial??)  I'll give you an example of how someone can have different strengths in these areas.
Me. 
I consider myself to be pretty "smart" verbal-linguistic area - I had better be, because I'm a Writing Major.... but I am awful at bodily-kinesthetic.  For example, I went to a ZUMBA class, and even though I enjoyed it greatly, I recognized how absolutely awful I was.  I do not have any sort of bodily rhythm or coordination at all.  It took me a long time to pick up a certain move and by that time the group had already moved way beyond me.  I think I was in sync with everybody about 25% of the time.
I'm also a pretty good naturalist, but when it comes to mathematical-logical, forget it.  I can't do tricksy puzzles or figure out logical problems or riddles and whatnot. 

"Creativity results from the interaction of a system composed of three elements: a culture that contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.  All three are necessary for a creative idea, product, or discovery to take place." says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a contemporary of Gardner who is famous for his work in creativity and also in happiness. 
I think that's pretty valid, but I'm not sold on the idea that you have to be recognised to be creative.  There are plenty of geniusly people that never go mainstream and get really well known.  But they're probably famous within their nerdy-genius community so I take it back...No I don't - I take back the take-back.  You don't need to publish your work in order for it to be creative. 

"At the moment of the actual breakthrough, however, these creative individuals were isolated, alone, and struggling to come up with a new way of thinking about the discipline they were in."  says Gardner, in describing the 'typical' creative person.

This kind of reminds me of Buddha,

who had his big moment (achieving Enlightenment) when he was by himself, and he had been searching for the path to Enlightenment for years.  His discipline is religion and self-discovery and understanding the world.  Nobody else's paths to Enlightenment were doing it for him, so he had to go off on his own, so he came up with his own ideas.  He called it The Middle Way, which was in between self-indulgence,

 and self-denial,

which were some of the other paths he tried.  This was a new way of thinking - that Enlightenment could be achieved by not going to extremes.