Photo by Sophia.
I’ve been having an insightful shuffle through Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People. Mihaly is a seminal professor of Psychology and Management, and is the Founding Co-Director of the Quality of Life Research Center at Claremont. He writes:
“I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. If I had to express in one word what makes their personalities different from others, it’s complexity. They show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated. They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an individual, each of them is a multitude.”
Nine out of the ten people in me strongly agree with that statement. As someone paid to be creative, I sometimes feel kaleidoscopic in my views or opinions, and that “multitude” of expressions sometimes confuses those around me. Why does that happen? My thoughts make cohesive sense to me, yet others sometimes feel that I am contradicting myself or switching positions. What is wrong with me?
Mihaly describes 9 contradictory traits that are frequently present in creative people:
01
Most creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but are often quiet and at rest. They can work long hours at great concentration.
02
Most creative people tend to be smart and naive at the same time. “It involves fluency, or the ability to generate a great quantity of ideas; flexibility, or the ability to switch from one perspective to another; and originality in picking unusual associations of ideas. These are the dimensions of thinking that most creativity tests measure, and that most creativity workshops try to enhance.”
03
Most creative people combine both playfulness and productivity, which can sometimes mean both responsibility and irresponsibility. “Despite the carefree air that many creative people affect, most of them work late into the night and persist when less driven individuals would not.” Usually this perseverance occurs at the expense of other responsibilities, or other people.
04
Most creative people alternate fluently between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality. In both art and science, movement forward involves a leap of imagination, a leap into a world that is different from our present. Interestingly, this visionary imagination works in conjunction with a hyperawareness of reality. Attention to real details allows a creative person to imagine ways to improve them.
05
Most creative people tend to be both introverted and extroverted. Many people tend toward one extreme or the other, but highly creative people are a balance of both simultaneously.
06
Most creative people are genuinely humble and display a strong sense of pride at the same time.
07
Most creative people are both rebellious and conservative. “It is impossible to be creative without having first internalized an area of culture. So it’s difficult to see how a person can be creative without being both traditional and conservative and at the same time rebellious and iconoclastic.”
08
Most creative people are very passionate about their work, but remain extremely objective about it as well. They are able to admit when something they have made is not very good.
09
Most creative people’s openness and sensitivity exposes them to a large amount of suffering and pain, but joy and life in the midst of that suffering. “Perhaps the most important quality, the one that is most consistently present in all creative individuals, is the ability to enjoy the process of creation for its own sake. Without this trait, poets would give up striving for perfection and would write commercial jingles, economists would work for banks where they would earn at least twice as much as they do at universities, and physicists would stop doing basic research and join industrial laboratories where the conditions are better and the expectations more predictable.”
Sometimes what appears to be a contradiction on the surface is actually a harmony in disguise. My problem has been primarily one of communication. I am learning to let people know what I am thinking and why, and explaining myself in a way that helps them understand why I am discussing multiple perspectives instead of just cleanly stating my own. At first it might not make sense, but give me/us long enough, and it will.
I loved this ~ I feel like someone just described my life. I’d like to learn how to communicate clearly when I have this feeling of dichotomy in me ALL the time.
I agree with 99% of this post….but writing a great commercial jingle is just as hard as writing great poetry. Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.
This has been a tremendous help to me. So good to know it’s somewhat normal to be able to see all perspectives. And the extrovert and introvert thing. YES!!! I’m never quite sure which I am. I do need time alone to regroup and center, but I also love people. And when I’m on a project that I’m passionate about, I become completely obsess. It’s my favorite state of being and I worry when it doesn’t happen for a very long time. I really hate being blocked. Sometimes though, I have so many ideas I can’t seem to stay focused long enough to complete a project. And on goes the journey.
I agree with this and like it very much. I do have a few observations, however.
I’ve discovered that PRODUCTIVE creative people (and there’s a difference) are able to be in an environment where they can devote a lot of time and energy to a sustained project. They have an isolated, quiet place that allows them to concentrate on what they are doing without interruptions. This is absolutely essential. For example, my kids have been fighting almost nonstop all day, and I find my creativity is nil at the moment. There have simply been too many screaming, awful interruptions to jump into something creative now.
Productive creative people also very often have an extremely patient significant other, or possibly a group of minders, that take care of mundane day-to-day things like paying bills, cleaning house, doing laundry, etc. A lot of the raging genius creative people I know of don’t deal well with these normal aspects of life. It’s extremely difficult to work on some thing creative when you are worried about the IRS, the mortgage, and the gas bill. Those people are also good at feeding the often massively inflated egos and nursing the fragile tempers of creative people, who insist on calling themselves “creative,” as if they were some other form of life. We are hard to deal with, let’s face it.
Perhaps most importantly, they have the ability to focus their minds exclusively on one problem so that they can make the innovative observations, the new ideas, the better ways of doing things. Without whining I will say that this has always been my biggest curse. As I have begun to realize the full impact of ADHD on my life I see countless times when I had the place and the means, but I simply could not focus my mind long enough for it to do me any good.
An apology for having coerced slaves? I’m a fucking creative who has to help with the household while accomplishing any genius design needed around here.
Have no patience for prima donnas who think their life energy above the mundane. They’re users.
Creatives who have coerced slaves are worse than nobodys, they’re creepy sloppy losers with a bent for Lovecraft. and pizza boxes lying around. Also, serious psycho meds
What constitutes a creative person? Funny thing is considering the inflated ego of the average human being nowadays, 99% of people who read this would insist it describes them. Proof> look at all your sheeps ^^^ before me. Lame
Very well understood and articulated. I know some many people that would totally “get” this! Thank you!
Thank you, finally I understand why I am the way I am. Not that I minded much, but the rest of my family are very critical of the way I say things and are always telling me I am complex, contradictory, over-sensitive, rebellious etc,. This makes me feel retarded sometimes, although I know I am considered bright!
I was attracted to the blog by the photo … and the blog was just as inviting … thank you 🙂
Brilliant piece – and accessibly written. Such a relief to know there is more recognition coming into the mainstream. Now I know I’m really not that mad. Peace.
I absolutely love this and identify with it fervently. So thank you. The only part that made me a little anxious in contrast to the rest of the blog was the end part about trying to make others understand… This feeling of needing to be understood, of being compelled to justify and explain really chips away at me and ties me into incredibly anxious knots… I, personally, would rather identify with that blog and learn to gracefully and gratefully accept who I am without the need to constantly explain/defend/justify to others. I don’t mean ‘shut off’ from others, communicate -sure, but do what you do, be open and non-judgmental with your multitude of perspectives and acceptance of the wider view/s…lead by example if you will (for want of a better phrase) in this…and allow others to do their own thinking. ‘What other people think of you is none of your business’ as someone once said… That’s where I’m at anyway. Trying!!! Lots of love, light and creativity xxx