As I’ve studied Creativity over the past ten years, I’ve learned many things that surprised me. Each day for a week, I debunked one “Creativity myth” that I believed before I started studying in earnest.
The idea that anyone can be Creative is closely related to the democratic ideal that anyone can become U.S. President.
Yes. You (any You) can be Creative if:
- You have virtuoso skills within your domain. You’ve put in 10,000 hours to get good at whatever it is you do. Anyone who has ever contributed Creatively to humanity has put in the time. Jonas Salk went through 25 years of schooling, from K-Medical School, then more academic training. Then he worked in a University lab for another decade. Salk knew viruses inside and out and was well-versed in research methodologies before discovering a vaccine for polio.
- You were not born middle-class. Studies show only 10% of highly Creative people are suburban-living, comfortably middle-class. It is much better to be born of highly-educated parents, who read a lot in their spare time and have lots of resources to invest in you. It is also better to be born of undereducated immigrant parents who want a better life for you and encourage you every day of your young adult life to try harder. Thirty-five percent of Highly Creatives belong to this last category.
- You manage your energy (or someone else does for you) to live for your ideas and projects. As a mother of three small children, Pulitzer-Prize winning author Anna Quidlen sent the kids off to school in the mornings. Then after spending an hour chatting on the phone with a friend, she sat at her computer to write for five hours. Creativity Scholar, Howard Gardner found Sigmund Freud‘s
family members organized much of their daily regime around the talented boy’s needs: He was given his own room and his own bookcases, he did not have to dine with the rest of his family but was provided with his own eating chamber; and when his sister’s piano practicing annoyed him, the piano was removed from the house.
- You enjoy working alone, with little distractions. Gaining full competence in your field can rarely be done without massive amounts of alone-time. Albert Einstein liked to work in the country. He said
I noticed how the monotony of quiet life stimulates the creative mind.
- You have community; friends or colleagues to banter and refine your ideas and also a field to present the ideas to. Your creative gifts will wilt and die without a community to review and accept ideas as appropriate. Creativity researcher, R. Keith Sawyer writes of a quirky composer whose compositions were not disseminated because no one could play them:
Harry Partch (1949) spent his career…inventing and constructing his own unique instruments to perform his compositions. Because [his compositions] don’t meet the appropriateness criterion, it’s almost impossible to perform.
- You have spent a lot of time free-thinking and playing alone, as a child. Einstein explored his native Ulm, Germany, by himself, at the age of 4.
Theoretically, anyone can be Creative like anyone in the U.S. can become President. But, in practice a whole lot is required to contribute Creatively and not everyone can do or does what it takes.
Hi Joana,
Great site, great project, interesting ideas about creativity. I am a firm believer that everyone is capable of creativity. The characteristics of highly creative people above may be ideal if you want to get to the level of creative life equivalent to the characteristics and commitment of someone entering the political life with the hopes of becoming the President. But just as someone can also be satisfied with knowing enough to be a good citizen and use their right to vote in an intelligent, informed manner, anyone can use their creative capabilities to live a satisfying, interesting, productive life without having to be a creative genius. My website (and blog, once I get it updated – realistically fitting in creative time around working and child-rearing slows things down a bit) are all about incorporating creative acts into your everyday life, and not feeling lousy if you can’t devote your entire life to your creative passions.
I’ll be looking forward to reading more about creativity on your blog.
http://www.cassylee.com
Thanks, Cassy Lee. You’re right, it is hard. But I think we have so much to learn from people who have been super-creative. It has always been difficult and some Creators have had it tougher than many of us. But quilt never helps creativity.
Good luck on updating your blog.
Cassy Lee … I love the topic and agree with your post … 50%. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi helped me get my head around this in his book “Creativity.” What you’re talking about is “big C” creativity … the kind that is judged unique, novel and valuable by the “judges.” And not everyone will or can get there … and some get there years after they’ve died.
But “little c” creativity we all have and express in a thousand different ways.
I look forward to reading more. Joyce Wycoff
http://joycewycoff.blogspot.com
Joana…Not everyone wants to be creative but may be more comfortable living in the conventional world….there is a price for being creative and not everyone is willing to pay it…often it is only those who feel it is necessary for them to follow a creative path succeed.
Sid
A good question is, why do some people don’t care to be Creative? Is it genes? Temperament? Environment? What’s the difference?
hello joana,
that’s a great article! and yes, my mind always gets very creative when it gets quiet and “empty” around me.
i believe that a creative mind wants to create … it is a bit hard to explain.
… i came to a point where i realized that i started to design in my mind,after all that similarity which entered my brain every day, this peacefulness – no noise of traffic, no distraction through fast changing impressions through the eyes, or ears, etc. etc. – a kind of stillness from outside, which seemed to trigger or activate my “inside”, means my brain.
when i traveled once for several months through the outback of australia, it was interesting to find out about myself, how i/my mind seems to work. in that vast emptiness of the outback – some dry bushes, the red earth under my feet and the fluffy white clouds above me, so close that one has the feeling one could reach them if one just would stretch enough
i came up with all kind of funny, interesting and amazing ideas, inspired by a shell, a cloud, the surface of a rock, a piece of bark, etc. after a day or two i bought myself a book with blank pages and started to make sketches … and while doing that, i had new ideas, variations of the original idea, then i thought about different materials i could use, etc. etc. the mind started at one point and then there were different ideas growing all around that. it was amazing to observe the whole process, too.
just lately i posted a blog post about the same theme …
CREATIVITY > John Cleese on the Origin of Creativity
http://mruxndesign.blogspot.com/2010/09/creativityjohn-cleese.html
AND FUNNY ENOUGH THAT OUR BOTH EXPERIENCES MEET AT THE SAME POINT – IN SILENCE!
you all shall be inspired and CREATIVE!
HUGS
KRIS
Great article, thought provoking. Thanks for writing it.
Thanks, Teri.
I think you’re right about creative-types wanting to be creative. Could it be that if you think you are creative– you must have (at least) some of the raw materials (i.e., curiosity, divergent thinking, an eye–or mind, for beauty) to Create?
So interesting to think about…
I could write so much about this topic and just wanted to commend you on the thesis! The word creativity, like so many has become so loaded that your definitions and attempt at structuring it afresh is important and very welcome. It is an innate truth that humans create to progress the species. But our opinion and judgement about what is deemed ‘creative’ has become filled with such conditioning it is now often subjective semantics and contextual to the point of meaningless noise. Your thesis is vitally important to remind us what creativity is all about and where we should get back to the idea of it. I will try to get more time to post thoughts and great to be connected with you – creatively!
You’re right that humans create to progress the species. If you try to count the number of changes we’ve made so we could thrive on this planet– the infinity symbol works best to quantify it all. Truly we could be homo creatus. But because we’ve come so far, not every gadget we make or cake we bake is Creative at this point in history. What is Creative in one century is no longer in another.
Thanks for commenting!
Hi very interesting post. I really like your list – it strikes me that the elements for creativity then are – application, encouragement, discipline, tolerance of solitude, opportunities for interaction and curiosity.
Sometimes, though, I wonder if the idea of ‘being’ creative is the biggest single block to creativity?
In the great book, “Art and Fear – Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking”, by David Bayles and Ted Orland –
they tell a great story, which I am sorry to say I am about to paraphrase!
Anyway, away we go! In an art school somewhere in the US (!) – a ceramics teacher divided his class in half. He told one half that at the end of the year he would mark their work based on its quality and told the others that he would mark their work on the basis of weight. In other words, for the second lot of students they could make whatever they liked – the more the better – because heavier meant better grades!
The interesting thing is, that at the end of the year the highest quality work was found in the half of the class who didn’t care about quality.
These students obviously worked hard and produced a lot and thereby increased their expertise and even – dare I say it – their creativity.
I know that the sheer volume and practice element is hugely important (‘How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, my son’) but I also imagine that the unfortunate students in the ‘quality’ part of the class spent the year angst-ridden as they struggled to create something fantastic, while the others were free to be really creative as they didn’t have to worry at all about their work being ‘good.’
I think there is no real need for anyone to ‘become’ creative – we are all already creative – it’s an intrinsic part of being human. Modern society does, however, tend to mix creativity up with ‘artiness’ – and thereby it also tends to be biased either pro or anti creativity.
The mother who makes a tiny budget stretch to feed and clothe and educate her kids is highly creative – perhaps that might explain some of the 35% of highly creative people you mention in your post – these kids don’t necessarily just grow up with encouragement, they also grow up watching examples of adults who have had to learn to think outside the box and forge a new life for themselves etc.
However, having said all that I would agree that not everybody has the application – or desire – to create works of art as we recognise art.
Maybe if we put the emphasis on creativity as opposed to artiness we might, ironically, encourage more general creativity (which would benefit society) and even more art (if the label of ‘art’ was removed).
Sorry to be long-winded!
Good luck with your work.
Trisha
You bring up several excellent points Trisha. I’ll comment on two of them.
I have found that wanting to be Creative or exceptionally artistic is a form of self-editing. Timing is the issue. Could a student unbound by worries over quality have benefited from thinking of a piece’s creative qualities at the end– like a writer edits after finishing (the first, second etc. drafts of) a book? I think yes. Could the ability to turn editing on and off as needed be key in Creativity? Again, I think yes.
You note that watching someone (a parent, for example) use ingenuity to build a life out of scraps can be tremendously inspiring to a young, future creative person. Definitely. I would like to add though, the parent (or other admired person) needs to verbalize in some way a belief/hope in the young person’s ability to do better– with better tools than the parent has (like education).
Thanks for commenting!
Have you ever seen this? You may like it –
Wonderful! Thank you.