My Friend Tammy Grove lead me to this incredible article, this is one amazing description of an artist reason for being and why they express them self's in such way, extremely interesting. I did find my self relating and even answering a lot of question that I wouldn't understand about my self, A must read for every artist or friends with one and probably if you dating/married one this one is really for you. It comes from www.psychologytoday.com
The Creative Personality
Of all human activities, creativity comes closest to providing the fulfillment we all hope to get in our lives. Call it full-blast living.
Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives. Most of the
things that are interesting, important, and human are the result of
creativity. What makes us different from apes—our language, values,
artistic expression, scientific understanding, and technology—is the result of individual ingenuity that was recognized, rewarded, and transmitted through learning.
When we're creative, we feel we are living more fully than during the
rest of life. The excitement of the artist at the easel or the
scientist in the lab comes close to the ideal fulfillment we all hope to
get from life, and so rarely do. Perhaps only sex, sports, music, and religious
ecstasy—even when these experiences remain fleeting and leave no
trace—provide a profound sense of being part of an entity greater than
ourselves. But creativity also leaves an outcome that adds to the
richness and complexity of the future.
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. Creative individuals are
remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to
make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals. 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."
Here are the 10 antithetical traits often present in creative people
that are integrated with each other in a dialectical tension.
- Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're
also often quiet and at rest. They work long hours, with great concentration,
while projecting an aura of freshness and enthusiasm. This suggests a
superior physical endowment, a genetic advantage. Yet it is surprising
how often individuals who in their seventies and eighties exude energy
and health remember childhoods plagued by illness. It seems that their
energy is internally generated, due more to their focused minds than to
the superiority of their genes.
This does not mean that creative people are hyperactive, always "on." In fact, they rest often and sleep
a lot. The important thing is that they control their energy; it's not
ruled by the calendar, the dock, an external schedule. When necessary,
they can focus it like a laser beam; when not, creative types
immediately recharge their batteries. They consider the rhythm of
activity followed by idleness or reflection very important for the
success of their work. This is not a bio-rhythm inherited with their
genes; it was learned by trial and error as a strategy for achieving
their goals.
One manifestation of energy is sexuality. Creative people are paradoxical in this respect also. They seem to have quite a strong dose of eros, or generalized libidinal energy, which some express directly into sexuality. At the same time, a certain spartan celibacy is also a part of their makeup; continence tends to accompany superior achievement. Without eros, it would be difficult to take life on with vigor; without restraint, the energy could easily dissipate.
- Creative people tend to be smart yet naive at the same time. How smart they actually are is open to question. It is probably true that what psychologists call the "g factor," meaning a core of general intelligence, is high among people who make important creative contributions.The earliest longitudinal study of superior mental abilities, initiated at Stanford University by the psychologist Lewis Terman in 1921, shows rather conclusively that children with very high IQs do well in life, but after a certain point IQ does not seem to be correlated any longer with superior performance in real life. Later studies suggest that the cutoff point is around 120; it might be difficult to do creative work with a lower IQ, but an IQ beyond 120 does not necessarily imply higher creativity.Another way of expressing this dialectic is the contrasting poles of wisdom and childishness. As Howard Gardner remarked in his study of the major creative geniuses of this century, a certain immaturity, both emotional and mental, can go hand in hand with deepest insights. Mozart comes immediately to mind.Furthermore, people who bring about an acceptable novelty in a domain seem able to use well two opposite ways of thinking: the convergent and the divergent. Convergent thinking is measured by IQ tests, and it involves solving well-defined, rational problems that have one correct answer. Divergent thinking leads to no agreed-upon solution. 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 workshops try to enhance.Yet there remains the nagging suspicion that at the highest levels of creative achievement the generation of novelty is not the main issue. People often claimed to have had only two or three good ideas in their entire career, but each idea was so generative that it kept them busy for a lifetime of testing, filling out, elaborating, and applying.Divergent thinking is not much use without the ability to tell a good idea from a bad one, and this selectivity involves convergent thinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment