The Creative Mind
post a comment | posted Jun 14
I honestly have no idea where I found this. I ran across the text in an "untitled document" while closing "TextMate" which tells me that I wanted to post it but got interrupted mid-formatting. The browser was closed and I don't feel like spending any more time trying to track it down when there are ample references and credits. Basically, I need to checkout/buy some of Andreasen's work.
The Creative Mind
Andreasen, Nancy C. "The Creative Mind." Chronicle of Higher Education 52.23 (2006): B2-B2.
Creative people tend to approach the world in a fresh and original way that is not shaped by preconceptions. The obvious order and rules that are so evident to less creative people, and which give a comfortable structure to life, often are not perceived by the creative individual. ... This openness to new experience often permits creative people to observe things that others cannot, because they do not wear the blinders of conventionality when they look around them. Openness is accompanied by a tolerance for ambiguity. ... They enjoy living in a world that is filled with unanswered questions and blurry boundaries.
Creative people enjoy adventure. They like to explore. As they explore, they may push the limits of social conventions. They dislike externally imposed rules, seemingly driven by their own set of rules derived from within. This lack of commonality with the rest of the world may produce feelings of alienation or loneliness. In addition, the lack of evident and obvious standards of perception or information may produce a blurring of the boundaries of identity or self. ...
Paradoxically, the creative person's indifference to convention is combined with sensitivity. This may take two forms: sensitivity to what others are experiencing, or sensitivity to what the individual himself or herself is experiencing. ... Inevitably, this combination of pushing the edge and experiencing strong feelings can lead to a sense of injury and pain. Living on "the edge of chaos" may also be psychically dangerous, because approaching too close may even lead to "falling off" occasionally -- into mental disorganization or confusion. ...
Nevertheless, creative people also have traits that make them durable and persistent. ... Persistence is absolutely fundamental, since creative people typically experience repeated rejection because of their tendency to push the limits and to perceive things in a new way. ... Creative people also tend to be intensely curious. They like to understand how and why, to take things apart and put them back together again, to move into domains of the mind or spirit that conventional society perceives as hidden or forbidden. Creative people are also often perfectionistic and even obsessional. ...
These traits tend to be combined with a basic simplicity, defined by a singleness of vision and dedication to their work. In fact, much of the time, their work is really all that creative people care about.
-- Nancy C. Andreasen, chair in psychiatry at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and director of the MIND Institute at the University of New Mexico, in The Creating Brain: The Neuroscience of Genius, published by Dana Press
technorati tags:creativity, psychology, Andreasen, depression