Not going to see this too often - David Brooks linking with the old school rapper Too$hort. But it makes sense to me, follow:

Brooks' column kills it for me. My interpretation of what Brooks is saying is to be smart, be intelligent, like the rapper in the tune The Ghetto - "be intelligent when you put them in check."

Writes Brooks: "Think about the traits that creative people possess. Creative people don’t follow the crowds; they seek out the blank spots on the map.

Creative people wander through faraway and forgotten traditions and then integrate marginal perspectives back to the mainstream. Instead of being fastest around the tracks everybody knows, creative people move adaptively through wildernesses nobody knows."

For me right now - this really made my day.