Creativity is not a one-size-fits-all, generalized term; we each can be creative in our own way. The creative process in particular is highly unique to each individual, so let's take a look at the two prevailing binary notions that belong to today's most infamous innovators (plus, the some risks & benefits of manifesting each method)
There seems to be two distinct types of creatives out there—Group A is neurotic, stubborn, overtly controlling, perfectionistic, rigidly unyielding, and tend to have unrealistically high standards. These folk aren’t the best team players and work best solo; their point of view is so exacting that the need for deliberation or considering alternatives is often rendered totally defunct. Think Christopher Nolan; in the New Yorkin Times article, The Exacting, Expanisve Mind of Christopher Nolan,” before making a film, he’s already formed precisely in his mind the specific storyboards, sound levels, and graphics he wants. Frequently called a “perfectionist,” Nolan explains he feels “better with consistent rules.” Clearly Nolan is the type of creative who depends on structure and organization in order to thrive.Another example was noticeable in the Netflix Docuseries, 7 Days Out, which chronicled the week leading up to the infamous Chanel couture show. Upon glancing at a finished garment for only a few seconds, former Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld immediately and very strongly knew what precise changes needed to be made. In a split second he could determine whether or not a garment was ready for the runway. Moreover, he made sure to do everything that he could by himself, and always stayed in the midst of the action. Furthermore, he personally made sure his collections were successful; he had an eagle-eye tendency to spot imperfections a mile away that ultimately helped him become prolific and leave a lasting legacy.
Now take Steve Jobs; he too was quite demanding and obsessively detail-oriented. Typography in particular was an area of intense interest for Jobs; at Stanford, Jobs made sure that “every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphied.” This seems a bit intense, especially since posters are for the most part disposable and eventually disregarded, yet Jobs had a distinct vision and stuck with it through completion—an early example of his ingenious sensibilities. Also, the fact that Jobs was confident enough in the success of his own potential that he dropped out as a freshman in college indicates that he held his abilities in high regard and knew that he was an advanced inventor. He lacked interest in merely listening to slower-paced college lectures, so he decided for form his own curriculum based upon what he wanted to learn most. Another facet of his inner psyche that played a huge role in cementing his status as a 21st century renegade is that he constantly held himself in high regard; there was no self-pity nor self-loathing when it came to Jobs. To me, this is astonishing given his traumatic upbringing. Firstly, he was adopted and wasn’t told growing up that he had a biological sister. As for his birth father, Jobs only knew little tidbits of information and eventually made a rather blunt, simple statement that put the entire matter to rest. He simply “didn't like" the facts he learned about his dad. The specifics about what these facts entailed aren’t important; it’s how swiftly and callously Jobs was able to slice his own father—his own flesh and blood—entirely out of his lie without so much as a second thought. He didn't grapple with getting to know his birth parents, nor did he concern himself with further questions about his vague childhood. Instead, Steve strongly made his mark as a genius because he saw the world itself (as well as everyone living in it) in the exact same manner he viewed his soon-to-be invented technology.
There was no bias and no indecision; Jobs recognized everything and everyone for exactly what they were and nothing more. Just like the inception of every one of Steve’s creations for Apple (i.e. the watch, various iPhones, ect.) his ideas were based on cold hard facts and utility, such as what Americans needed most, instead of feelings or emotions. These were never brought into the equation because they were (at least to Steve) irrelevant to the task at hand and often clouded reality in a rather distracting regard. “That's not harsh,” Jobs stated after casually calling his birth parents nothing more than a “sperm and egg bank. It’s just the way it was,” he added.” In a sense, Job’s parents functioned for a single purpose only: to produce and birth him into the world. To him, this limited their importance to the bare essentials. In numerous interviews with Jobs, not once did he mention love, empathy, compassion, nor display any feelings for that matter. Until the end of his life, Jobs believed in and espoused his truth; he remained fully uncensored, raw, and accurate to a fault—even during the final moments of his life.
A devout fruitarian, Jobs refused both chemo and radiation for his pancreatic cancer, instead insisting on his own particular health regimen, consisting mainly of fruits, meditation, yoga, acupuncture, exercise, and absolutely no meat nor dairy despite desperate pleas from qualified health professionals.Once again, Jobs was adamant when it came to his firm belief in how he wanted to lead his life—even if it didn’t quite make sense to others. He simply wouldn’t abandon his irrational conviction that the fruitarian lifestyle was ideal and would cure his cancer, (in reality it lacked protein and lead to liver damage) How could a genius who built an empire on facts and figures, algorithms, equations and formulas flat out deny a proven statistical piece of data on protein synthesis? Additionally, upon leaning he had a child, he admittedly felt little connection to the baby girl, which reminds me that Steve’s creative mastery was built upon a foundation of coldness and lack of consideration for others’ feelings (including his newborn child). Sure, this may have given him the upper hand against his competitors or helped him reach the top using former friends as stepping stones—but the disconnect between Job’s desire to improve people’s lives via technology while disregarding their sensitivity is truly astonishing.
On the other end of the spectrum, there’s a second subtype of creative genius that I find far more endearing and beneficial as a whole. These geniuses are curious and sensitive; they’re the imaginative dreamers who dance to the beat of their own drum and are drawn to positivity and happiness, like Thoreau or Whitman. They aren’t selfish, have huge hearts, and secretly feel that they are, to the very core, “students of life,” who never seem to stop exploring. This is due to their “imagination network,” which neurologist Marcus Raichlie revealed is crucial in terms of creativity. The surface areas of the brain’s “frontal parietal and temporal lobes” are responsible for keeping this network engaged whilst letting our “minds wander.” So when you’re daydreaming or lost in thought, it isn’t a total loss of your time—in fact, in can actually be beneficial and lead to surprising new concepts taking shape without the addition of unneeded stress from external stimuli.Not to mention, Group B innovators can either get lost in thought or become hyper-focused on the subjects they’re most fascinated by—often forgetting entirely about the reality around them when immersed in a given project. They tend to lose track of time and get stuck catechizing in their own thoughts. For example, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin revealed in an interview for The Writer’s Guild, that he often gets stuck whilst writing. His solution? Driving around aimlessly listening to music from when he was a teenager; not only does this choice enable his mind to drift so that new ideas may easily enter his conscious mind, but it’s calming as well. Sorkin doesn’t even follow a regimen when writing a screenplay; in the seminar, he claimed that on most days, he doesn’t end up writing a sentence. But instead of forcing himself to perform (like those creatives in Group A), Sorkin lets himself off the hook, so to speak, and tries again the next day. His whole process isn’t militaristic, and allows him full freedom to follow his path with the least amount of stress, which is the style he prefers most.
According to Psychology Today, “latent inhibition,” is when one gets exposed to a neutral cue paired with some emotional, associative context (i.e. attached to a positive or negative outcome) thus leading to anticipatory measures when re-exposed to the exact same cue in the future. This intrinsic subconscious conditioning greatly affects man’s capacity for earning. Eventually, every instance one comes into contact with a similar association, what results is a loss of distinctiveness between the former and the latter, which causes a given individual to react in novel measures modeled after the initial stimulus’s effect on said participant. These reactions may or may not be accurate, and can greatly hinder the creative process. The main point I’m trying to make is that creative daydreamers have to decide on their own terms if various realms of information are relevant to them or not. It’s a screening process; with so much divergent input circling throughout the brain, it’s imperative that even the most absent-minded thinkers be able to differentiate between the world’s onslaught of irrelevant and reverent sensorial input. Furthermore, they must devote their time wisely, and not get lost on too many tangents.
Psychologist Dr. Scott Kaufman claims that our unique understanding of time—from past to future—impacts how well we human beings can reflect upon our life choices. In this regard, we’re capable of constructing meaning, forming hypothetical “new scenarios,” and envisioning life from the perspective of another’s shoes. He also notes that this entire process is linked directly to compassion, which is a central trait of those who belong to this 2nd, looser, Type-B creative-subtype. In fact, they excel when ever emotions get added to the equation of creativity; their gut and instincts are their ultimate measures of success, enabling them to excel at tasks Group A creatives would probably have more trouble with. It’s as if logic no longer trumps intuition. Plus, Group B individuals are far less concerned with others’ opinions than those of Group A; instead, they most value solitude, maintaining a peaceful state of mind, and conforming to suit their own unique standards. This doesn’t mean they aren’t flexible; they just have a healthy respect for following their own instincts over any set paradigms nor the prevailing status quo. And luckily, because Group B artists cast a wide net and accumulate a vast supply of wisdom and insight (unlike their Group A counterparts who are usually dynamic specialists in one particular field) these creatives have encountered an expansive array of life experiences that they can easily draw from to access stored within their brains’ source material in the form of vivid sense memories deep within the neocortex and hippocampus reservoirs.
Some call this creative gift as derived from “divine source,” while others conclude that the savant’s inspirational thinking can’t be attributed to any higher power, and is due to serendipity. Like an amorphous jelly-fish expanding in all directions, creative thinkers can grasp ahold of basically any topics and themes and make it their own. They weave together disparate information, merge fact and fiction, and dig deeply into all kinds of interesting content—quantitative, digitial, scientific, musical, illustrative, consumerist, rhetorical, historical, multi-dimensional, social, economic, subjective, magical, superficial, subconscious, unconscious, psychic and even cosmic. One thing’s for sure, Subtype B creatives have fluid intelligence and a high capacity for abstract reasoning.Easily over-stimulated, most creative introverts I know have to “fill the well,” routinely, as artistic author (and wife of James Cameron) Julia Cameron mentions in her series, The Artist’s Way. This can consist of anything as simple as a bubble bath or walk in a garden—what ever feeds your soul and soothes your nerves can definitely rejuvenate you to resume creating your latest masterpiece. For when you’re fully attuned to the what Jung calls our “collective unconscious,” or omnipresent creative source, I bet you’ll stumble upon an endless supply of exciting new ideas for projects, creations and any other eccentric endeavors you dream up—and these often take form upon awakening from deep sleep or when undisturbed in the purity of nature. Inspiration can arise spontaneously from one’s personal psychic intuition—you know, that gut feeling. So follow it and see where it leads, because ignoring the impulse to create can incur self-destruction as a detrimental attempt at releasing pent up creative energy.
Take Kurt Cobain; an ingenious creative mind who turned to heroin and valium because he no longer had an outlet to perform with Nirvana. “I hate it—I can’t play with them anymore,” Courtney Love revealed the frontman’s words to Rolling Stone. With little enthusiasm to perform, Cobain had no alternative to express himself. I’m definitely not claiming to know why he took his own life, I’m merely speculating that it must have been very important for him to have a healthy musical outlet at all times. In conclusion, there are all types of creatives, probably even a Group Z—so don’t worry if you don’t relate to the A or B subtypes I briefly mentioned above. The truth of the matter is that we all can find ourselves out of touch and spiritually drained by everything from the city’s bombardment, over-socialization, sensory overload, crowds, fluorescent light instead of the natural sun, traffic, smog, jarring industrial sound, nonstop chatter, and even electricity levels in general—such as “The Worldwide Hum.” All of the above affect one’s aptitude to create and propensity to freaking chill out at the end of the day or get some deep sleep. After all, if someone’s struggling to filter out basic aural intrusions like tinnitus, an overwhelming cellular “oscillating electric field” can be almost damn near impossible to ignore. (but don’t worry, my next blog post will cover this perplexing phenomenon) I guess I’ll end by saying, don’t forget to continue looking for internal resources during times of duress instead of seeking external validation. Only you can affirm whether your course of action is right for you--all other opinions (for the most part) you should render null and void.
Works Cited
On Creative Thinking Types: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/magazine/the-exacting-expansive-mind-of-christopher-nolan.htmlhttps://www.thecut.com/2013/11/karl-lagerfeld-on-lorde-being-a-control-freak.htmlhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/03/08/the-trappist-monk-whose-calligraphy-inspired-steve-jobs-and-influenced-apples-designs/?utm_term=.78119a0f1d04https://www.cultofmac.com/112141/why-font-nerds-owe-a-debt-to-steve-jobs/https://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/steve-jobs-the-godfather-of-fonts-as-we-know-them/https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/apple/who-is-steve-jobs-syrian-immigrant-father-abdul-fattah-jandali-3624958/https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/apple/who-is-steve-jobs-syrian-immigrant-father-abdul-fattah-jandali-3624958/https://www.livescience.com/16551-steve-jobs-alternative-medicine-pancreatic-cancer-treatment.htmlhttps://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/kurt-cobains-downward-spiral-the-last-days-of-nirvanas-leader-99797/
On Creative Neuroscience & Latent Inhibition:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3469138/The-creative-people-use-two-conflicting-areas-brain-time.htmlhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12379225https://theconversation.com/cracking-the-mystery-of-the-worldwide-hum-60296 https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/latent-inhibitionhttps://www.history.com/news/einsteins-relativity-theory-passes-tough-test]https://thesecondprinciple.com/creativity/creativity-essentials/types-of-creative-thinking/https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/beautiful-minds/201102/why-daydreamers-are-more-creativehttps://qz.com/1180691/ordinary-people-versus-creative-people-a-new-study-reveals-the-differences-in-the-way-creative-brains-are-wired/https://medium.com/@jamievaron/11-things-highly-creative-people-sacrifice-for-their-art-3d7c5e6609cbhttps://scottbarrykaufman.com/4-ways-to-hack-your-inner-creativity/https://99u.adobe.com/articles/61579/michael-ventura-self-observation-is-the-skill-of-the-future
Docu-Series, 7 Days Out -- episode starring Karl Lagerfeld
Seminar with Aaron Sorkin at Writer's Guild of America (Fall, 2018)
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