Issue 1.1
Contents
Does Creativity Have An Expiration Date? Creative Passion or Just Doing What You Really Want Want Creative Thinking: Imagine You Are Seven Again Lena Dunham on Creating From “The Parts of Me I Find The Most Shameful” Facing Our Demons And Creating Henry Miller on Escaping Into Painting and Rules of Creativity Maybe Gifted Underachievers Are More Creative Junot Diaz on Creative Thinking: The Critical Self and Play
Developing Creativity Magazine is a collection of selected articles on creative expression including material on personal growth, creativity research studies, and quotes by psychologists, writers and artists. Articles come from my Talent Talent Development Resources series of sites, including my column The Creative Mind. For more information, see the last page. Click on the article titles at the left, or just browse through the magazine. Thanks for reading.
Does Creativity Have An Expiration Date?
The late Jane Russell famously starred in “The Outlaw” in 1943. In 2006, at 84, she was singing Cole Porter songs in a review she helped create called “The Swinging Forties.” Other examples of mature creators include: At 96 Martha Graham premiered her choreographed work The Maple Leaf Rag. Sidney Sheldon wrote his last novel at about age 87. Edward Albee won a Tony award for a new play in 2002, at age 75. At 97, architect Oscar Niemeyer was developing one of his most ambitious projects.
On the other end of the age range, the photo shows painters Zoe Yin (left) and Victoria Yin, Yin, age 11 and 14. They have shown their work at expos, galleries, and art shows internationally, internationally, “selling paintings for tens of thousands of dollars,” according to a Creativity Post article: At What Age Will Your Creativity Peak? The article mentions that psychologist Dean Keith Simonton “proposes in his book Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity that the age of the creative peak is determined by the discipline in which the artist is engaged. "Poets peak much earlier than novelists, novelists, whose craft matures over time.” The article notes that David Galenson “studied the careers of forty-seven of painters, writers, directors, and sculptors and published his findings in his book Old Masters and Young Geniuses:: The Two Life Cycles of Artistic Creativity. Geniuses Galenson concluded: “There have been two very different types of artist in the modern era. These two types are distinguished not by their importance [but] by the methods by which they arrive at their major contributions… I call one of these methods aesthetically motivated motivated experimentation, and the other conceptual execution.”
The article explains, “Artists “Artists motivated by experimentation have imprecise goals and are driven by visual perceptions. These experimental artists tend to paint the same thing many times, rarely make preparatory sketches, and ‘aim to discover the image in the course of making it.’ "Their work is gradual and they learn as they paint, improving over time as an artist. The experimental artist is often at their creative peak much older. Cézanne did not paint what is considered one of his most important works, Les Grandes Baigneuses until he was well into his sixties and at the end of his days.” “The peak for conceptual artists artists is much younger younger.. Picasso painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon d’Avignon after dozens of preparatory sketches, finally starting to paint when he was merely twenty-five. twenty-five. For the Yin sisters, it may be too early to tell whether they are experimental, conceptual, or neither.” But we don’t have to be creative prodigies or renowned artists in order to continue achieving creatively throughout life.
Top photo of Zoe and Victoria Yin, from the Chinese (English language) news story: Prodigy siblings hold exhibition in Beijing – which shows more of their work. Read more examples of creators in my articles Maturity and Creativity,, and Creativity and maturity, Creativity maturity, and a number of quotes on my site page Maturity Maturity..
Creative Passion or Just Doing What You Really Want
Passion can be a deep motivator for creative people, but being too concerned with “finding our passion” can can be self-limiting. “The presence of talent is not sufficient. Many people have more than one talent, and wonder what to do with them.” Jane Piirto, Piirto, Ph.D. adds in her book “Talented Children and Adults” that “A useful explanatio explanation n comes from Socrates, who described the inspiration inspiration of the Muse… Carl Jung (1965) described the passion passion that engrosses; depth psychologist psychologist James Hillman described the presence of the daimon daimon in creative creative lives.” She considers this passion passion and inspiration “the thorn, because it bothers, it pricks, it causes obsession until it has
its way, until the person with the talent begins to work on developing that talent.” From my post Creative Passion Passion and Gifted Adults: Prodded by Our Angelic and Demonic Muse. Muse. Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love and other books) believes “If you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression, you should take on this work like a holy calling.” She adds, “I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing.” From my post Creative Passion: Teeming Neurons or Muse? Making the world small enough to engage with Susan Orlean in her book “The Orchid Thief” writes about an interesting aspect of passion: “I was starting to believe that the reason it matters to care passionately about something is that that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. size. It makes the world seem not huge and empty but full of possibility.” Of course, it takes more than simply feeling passionate about something. The elements of experience, focus and persistence are also crucial. But many people may find the advice to “Find your passion” to be useless or even fearful. Author Daniel Pink has said, “I “I find that question very daunting: What’s your passion? I find that almost paralyzing, in a way. I find it less paralyzing to say, What are you interested in doing next?”
See the video in which he makes these comments in my post It takes more than feeling passionate. passionate. In his his ebook “FLIP: 16 Counter Intuitive Ideas About Motivation, Motivation, Innovation, Innovation, and Leadership” [available [available for free by signing up to his list, on his site site]] he notes notes when a friend or family member, member, a mentor, mentor, advisor adv isor,, or consultant consulta nt asks: asks : “What’s your passion?” his reaction is, “I detest that question. When someone poses it to me, my innards tighten. My vocabulary becomes a palette of aahs and ums. My chest wells with the urge to flee.” He thinks many people share that reaction, and that “maybe we can take a break from this daunting and distracting question and ask a far more productive one: What do you do?” He “learned the wisdom of this alternative from Gretchen Rubin,” Rubin,” he explains: “After graduating from law school in the early 1990s, Rubin served as a law clerk for the US Supreme Court…perhaps the sweetest plum in the American legal orchard. It practically practically guarantees a career of high-level positions in law firms and government.” But during her job, Rubin says, “When I had free time, I never wanted to talk about cases or read law journals, the way my fellow clerks clerks did. Instead, I spent hours reading, taking notes and writing my observations about the worldly passions—power, money, fame and sex.” [See more quotes by Rubin in my my post Happy If We Think We Are.] Are .] Daniel Pink continues in his book about about his similar journey: “Beginning about two decades decades ago, I worked in some very
demanding, intensely stressful jobs in American politics and government. “But throughout—on the side, side, usually for no money—I money—I wrote magazine articles about business and work, and formulated ideas for books. At one one level, it was foolish. I lost sleep, sacrificed leisure, and probably distracted myself from my paid employment. employment. “But after many years, years, it finally hit me: This—not politics—is politics—is what I did. And now, as a result, that’s what I do. Am I passionate about it? Sure, I guess. Maybe. Some days. "But passion isn’t something I much ponder. I’m too busy doing what I do.” In 2011, Harvard Business Review and Thinkers 50 named Daniel Pink one of the top 50 business thinkers in the world. He is a graduate of Northwestern University and Yale Law School. Books by Daniel H. Pink: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Us. A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Future. Photo at top from article 8 Ways to Turn Your Passion into Profits,, by Ali Brown. Profits Another related post: Passion Fuels Creative Expression. Expression.
Creative Thinking: Imagine You You Are Seven Sev en Again
The acclaimed fable The Little Prince by Antoine de SaintExupery declares children are much wiser and more creative than many adults. Can we regain that creative vitality? In a post on her Scientific American blog Literally Psyched, Psyched, Maria Konnikova writes that de Saint-Exupery makes a “larger point about creativity creativity and thought [that] [that] is difficult to to overstate: as we age, how we see the world changes. “It is the rare rare person who is able to hold on to to the sense of wonderment, of presence, of sheer enjoyment of life and its possibilities that is so apparent in our younger selves.” She quotes poet Charles Baudelaire: “Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will, childhood equipped now with [an adult's] physical means to express itself, itself, and with the analytical mind that enables it to bring order into the sum of o f experience, involuntarily amassed.”
A 2010 study by a group of psychologists at North Dakota State University, University, Konnikova notes, “decided to test experimentally the intuitive intuitive notion that, as we leave our childhood selves behind, we leave also some of that creative inspiration that is the basis of original ideas, innovative innovative thought, and prescient discovery.” The study asked college students to write a short essay on the topic: Imagine school is cancelled for today. What would you do, think, and feel? The results? Konnikova reports, “All students answered the same question. But for one group, a single sentence was added to the instruction: You are seven years old… The average average [creativity test] performance was about as expected—with one major exception. “Those participants who who were in the seven-year-old seven-year-old condition condition exhibited significantly higher levels of originality in thought. Both their verbal and figural responses left their more adultminded counterparts in the dust.” From The Big Lesson of a Little Prince: (Re)capture the Creativity of Childhood, Childhood, By Maria Konnikova. Top photo: “dennis “dennis child writer” writer” By Jan Marlyn Reesman.
This photo: “Future Picasso?” [apparently no longer online] by sallylondon – is also used in the post on my main site: Childlike creativity: Nurturing Your Creative Mindset – which includes some commentary by Sherri Fisher of Positive Positive Psychology News Daily about the same research study. Child prodigy Adora Svitak (at age seven, she typed over 250,000 words — poetry, short stories, observations about the world — in a single year) says the world needs “childish” thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity creati vity and especially optimism. From my post: Adora Svitak on developing creativity: We need ‘childish’ thinking. thinking. Books: The Little Prince Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The Little Prince for Grown-ups: Grown-ups: Using Jungian active imagination to uncover pearls of the masterpiece of SaintExupery, by Roberto Lima Netto Ph.D.
Lena Dunham Dunham on Creating From “The Parts of Me I Find The Most Shameful” Shameful”
The acclaimed HBO series series “Girls” “Girls” was nominated for an Emmy Award for outstanding comedy series.
I have appreciated the perspectives of creator and star Lena Dunham on being multitalented, and on using many of her “neurotic” qualities (which we all have, after all) for writing about the lives of a group of young women in New York. In a conversation with actor Claire Danes, Danes, Dunham talked about her creative work as actor and writer. Danes: Danes: “Do you identify yourself first as a writer-director or as an actor? Or are they interchangeable?” Dunham: Dunham: “I think I’ve sort of made it all into one giant job where all of the parts feed one another. I remember going to see Les Misérables on Broadway as a kid. I was so jealous of the girl that got to play young Cosette, but I never had a moment where I was like, Oh, that’s something I could do. I just felt like, like, Oh, that’s what certain people can can do. I also never got good parts in school plays, and it would incense me to no end, but I was like, ‘I’m not cut out for this.’ “I started writing plays, plays, and I would be all of the characters characters in my head, but I never auditioned or anything. It was only when I started making short films in college and I was looking for girls to play the me-ish parts that I thought, Well, Well, maybe I’m just going to try doing this myself before somebody else comes in and handles it. “For a long time time my acting was was just a marriage of convenience between me and these characters that I was writing.”
Dunham says she went to college “with this idea that I wanted to be a poet…I was a creative writing major, and I would organize a lot of really intense poetry readings and slams. There was a lot of embarrassing audio footage of me, like, reading my poems in a slam voice. “Then I started writing plays, but the fact fact that plays don’t last forever was too much for me to bear. At Oberlin, you’d put on a play, and it would have a three-day run… I’d always loved movies, but it wasn’t some sort of desperate love of celluloid. It was literally like, I want to write things, and I want people to see them more.” On acting: acting: “I play these girls who are are close to me, but they’re the parts of me that I find the most shameful, or the parts of me that I kind of want to excise. So I sort of distance myself from it. I have the comfort to feel free and un-self-conscious. un-self-conscious. I sort of go, ‘These are all the awful parts of me that I don’t get to talk about all day. Here she is.’” From Lena Dunham By Claire Danes, Danes , Interview magazine. Video: Producer, writer and director Judd Apatow and Lena Dunham from the Sundance Channel series “Iconoclasts”
In the video, Dunham affirms, “I always write about things I’m scared to confront.” Psychologist Carl Jung and many other depth psychologists and writers have developed ideas about exploring and using our personal shadow: “the negative side of the personality, personality, the sum of all those unpleasant qualities we like to hide” which also “displays a number of good qualities such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc.” From my post Filmmaker So Yong Kim on Facing Her Unlikeable Parts When Writing. Writing. Another post on the topic: Dancing With Our Shadow to Develop Creativity. Creativity. Also see related post: Using Fear and Anxiety to be More Creative.. Creative Like John Cheever and Larry David The photo at top is from the the article Lena Dunham Addresses Addresses Criticism Aimed At ‘Girls’ , NPR, May 7, 2012. The caption includes: “The New York Times, Times, in a piece about Dunham, compared her writing to both the novels of John Cheever Cheever and the comedy of Seinfeld creator Larry David.” The article notes she was “just 23 years old when her second feature film, Tiny Furniture, won the best narrative feature prize at the South by Southwest Film Festival.” Dunham commented, “I am a working woman out in the world, but I still live with my parents half the time. I’ve been taking this long, stuttering period of moving out. … I feel like I’m constantly asking them to please stay out of my work life, but also to please bring me soup. It’s this weird moment
where you just don’t have a sense of what age-appropriate behavior is because there is no age-appropriate behavior.” Video: In another section of the “Iconoclasts” program, both she and Apatow talk about their OCD.
While they may actually be experiencing the disorder, some people say “I’m OCD” when they are just unusually obsessive. Developing creativity and realizing creative ideas usually takes a degree of obsession. Creativity coach Eric Maisel, Maisel, PhD asks, “Suppose a person is caught up thinking day and night about her current painting or about the direction she wants to take her art? Thoughts about painting ‘intrude’ as she balances her checkbook or prepares her shopping list. "She can hardly wait to get to her studio and her rhythms are more like Picasso’s on painting jags than like the rhythms of
a ‘normal’ person. This artist is obsessed in an everyday sense of the word – and more than happy to be so!” so!” From my post Creative Obsession. Obsession.
Facing Our Demons And Creating
One of those cliches about creative expression is to “Write what you know.” Maybe it can be expanded to “Create from what you know and who you are.” Lena Dunham is the creator, creator, executive producer, and one of the stars of the HBO series “Girls” about four young women living in New York. She bases the acclaimed show on many of her own experiences. In a newspaper interview, interview, she was asked, “How do you manage an awareness of the pitfalls of your age while you’re still in the midst midst of it?” Dunham: “I’ve been in therapy since I was 7; that’s probably helpful. The way I process my experiences is to translate
them into some artistic form. I don’t don’ t know another way to get through them.” From The Contenders: Lena Dunham of ‘Girls’ , June 07, 2012|By Lisa Rosen, Special to the Los Angeles Times. (Photo: Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Dunham, and Zosia Mamet from the series.) (Dunham recently got a reported $3.5million deal to write a memoir and advice book for twentysomething women.) One of the most common experiences of creative people is anxiety. Psychotherapist Psychotherapist and mystery author Dennis Palumbo notes that famed psychiatrist Rollo May “reminded us, real creativity is not possible without anxiety. In many ways, it’s the price of admission to the artist’s life.” Palumbo adds, “Which means, for those artists who have the courage to embrace their own fears, to co-exist with potentially crippling anxiety and create anyway, the rewards can be significant. Consider artists as diverse as Woody Allen and Alfred Hitchcock, Stephen King and James L. Brooks, Anne Rice and Phillip Roth, Richard Pryor and Diane Arbus. “They use who they are—all are—all of who they are—as are—as the wellspring of their creativity. Just as it is for yours.” From his post Turning Anxiety Into Creativity. Creativity. Lucy Daniels and therapy for artists
Dr. Daniels is a writer and clinical psychologist. She “dropped out of high school at 16 and spent five years in psychiatric hospitals in treatment for severe anorexia nervosa. In 1956, less than a year after her release, a novel she had written in the hospital, Caleb, My Son, was published by Lippincott and became a best seller.” That profile is from the site of her Lucy Daniels Foundation, Foundation, a “private, nonprofit organization that fosters fosters personal development, emotional freedom and a deeper understanding of creativity through education, outreach, and psychoanalytic treatment and research programs.” In 2002, Daniels published her memoir, With a Woman’s Voice: A Writer’s Struggle for Emotional Freedom. Freedom. Painter Gayle Stott Lowry [photo above] creates “Allegorical “Allegorical Oil Paintings With Focus on Light” according to her site site,, where you can see many examples. In her biography on the Tyndall Galleries site site,, she makes a statement many artists can relate to: “Creating my artwork is a very introspective process for me. It is my way of dealing with what is invisible and making it real. It is my means of seeking truth and clarity. “Although “Although my work, like like most creative creative work, could be seen as autobiographical, autobiographical, it also is reflective of this time in our
existence and the issues we all face. My best paintings encourage the viewers to confront something within themselves and consider alternative points of view.” Lowry also writes candidly on the Lucy Daniels Foundation site about her mental health challenges impacting her creative expression: “A few years ago, my pain became so unbearable that I was no longer able to contain it and maintain a facade in my personal life or in my work.” Creative work reflects your state of mind Painter Gayle Stott Lowry also talks about attending a program at the Lucy Daniels Foundation: “I attended Lucy’s Lucy’s class on Dreams and Creativity, and during a presentation I made to the class about my work, I began to see that changes in my painting were paralleling my personal life and giving me direct feedback about my emotional state. “My calm landscapes landscapes became more melancholy melancholy,, lighting changed from sunny daylit scenes to sunset, dusk, and eventually, night time.” time.” This is one of the values of creative expression expression for selfawareness and healing: our work can reflect back to us qualities of our state of mind when creating. Lowry continues, “Today one of my best vehicles of selfdiscovery is my own creative work. Now I realize the importance of giving myself the grace to follow whatever lead
comes to mind, not questioning it too much. I’ve allowed myself to explore my feelings about grief and mortality, and it has been very very healing and empowering. empowering. I believe that my work on death, loss, and resurrection r esurrection helps others find the courage to confront their own losses and find hope ho pe for transcending them.” A documentary Lowry is one of eight artists featured in “Breakthrough” – a film commissioned by the Lucy Daniels Foundation Foundation and produced in collaboration with Expressive Media Inc., Inc., a nonprofit organization founded by arts therapists and analysts Judith Rubin and and Eleanor Irwin. The movie “captures the intimate experience of eight artists who have had psychoanalytic psychoanalytic treatment. The film also also demonstrates the growth and freedom made possible by facing the pain that both psychoanalysis and creation bring into awareness.” awareness.” The image above of a painter is from the movie site. site. Related book: The Art of Art Therapy, Therapy, by Judith Rubin. Facing demons doesn’t mean killing them off “I still have have pretty much the same fears I had as a kid. I’m not sure I’d want to give them up; a lot of these insecurities fuel the movies I make.” - Steven Spielberg From my post Gifted, Talented, Creative, Anxious. Anxious.
In his book “Writing “Writing from the Inside Out: Out: Transformin Transforming g Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within,” therapist Dennis Palumbo lists some of the common anxieties and other demons that creative people confront: “Writer’s “Writer’s block. Procrastination. Procrastination. Loneliness. Loneliness. Doubt. Fear of failure. Fear of rejection. Just plain … fear. What do these all mean? What does it say about you if you struggle with these feelings on a daily basis? “It means you’re a writer. writer. And that’s all it means." He adds, “I ought to know. I’ve I’ve been a successful writer for over twenty years, and I’ve spent more than my share of time grappling with most of these feelings. Now, as a psychotherapist psychotherapist specializing in creative issues, I work with new, struggling writers, as well as some of the most successful in the country… And what do they all have in common? See above.” Palumbo points out that people often think they just need to find the right roadmap to release their creativity. He writes, “The problem is, most writers…believe writers…believe that if they just read the right how-to how-to book, took enough writing seminars, got the best therapy, etc., they could get rid of their doubts and and fears, their ‘negative’ feelings and behaviors.” He notes one of his writer clients expressed it, “I want to just shove all my anxieties, that pain and fear, all that crap out the door. Then I could sit down and write.” “But write about what?, what?,”” Palumbo asks. asks. “Those very feelings feelings we yearn to dispel are the raw materials of our writing, the
stuff from which everything we write – including even our desire to write – emerges.” “I had the feeling therapy therapy was good for my my writing very early on.” Filmmaker Agnes Jaoui [From post: Therapy Would Kill My Creativity.] Creativity .] This article includes only a few examples of creative people who have found that engaging in the challenging and rewarding process of therapy, and being creative, enables them to better understand themselves and be more fully alive. For more resources, resources, see my article Traumatic Childhood, Creative Adult which includes a number number of related articles, articles, such as: “Art “Art Saved My Life” SARK on Healing and Creativity “If You’re You’re So Smart, Why Do Do You You Need Counseling?” Creative Expression and EMDR to Deal With Trauma, PTSD and Abuse. On The Couch for More Creativity - and books including: Getting Past Your Past
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation The Pocket Therapist. - and link to the page: Counselors and Therapists specializing in high ability, creative people.
Henry Miller on Escaping Into Painting and Rules of Creativity
Painter Robert Genn has noted that he and writer Henry Miller “had a correspondence and a bit of a friendship” in the sixties, and that when they met in Big Sur, “he was having a tough time. His Paris days were behind him. “Now married to Janina Janina Lepska and raising two young children, they were living in a low-cost holiday home among the trees. “On the porch and on their kitchen table were some of his watercolours. While Miller and his paintings were attached at the hip, he didn’t seem to take them seriously. ‘Slops,’ ‘Slops,’ he called them.” them.”
Genn says Miller “claimed that he was losing his edge as a writer and was now more than ever getting a kick out of painting. In this medium he didn’t have the same expectations that he had for his writing. ‘I just love it,’ he said, ‘Maybe it’s because anything goes.’ “Many literary literary figures have have found escape in the brush: Lawrence Durrell, Victor Hugo, William Thackeray, to name but a few.” From Genn’s post Die happy. happy. Creative polymathy Many creative people are multitalented, engaged and creative in more than one domain. See my post I Want To Do It All: Creative Polymathy. Polymathy.
But many people have a different attitude toward their various forms of expression, not seeing them as meaningless ‘slops’ as Miller Miller called his paintings. paintings. Though maybe that that was just his way of telling himself himself and others to not take them too seriously. Actor Viggo Mortensen, another multitalented creator has commented, “Photography, “Photography, painting or poetry – those are just extensions of me, how I perceive things, they are my way of communicating.” Miller’s defense against creative demons – and his Rules In an edition of his stimulating Twice-Weekly Letter newsletter, Genn refers to this second photo of Miller, in his studio in Big Sur. Genn notes the item hanging on the wall, just to the left of the window – is an item of the sort Genn has also had in his own studios since his teens. “I bought it in a junk store,” store,” he notes. “It made me smile. smile. It appealed to my my feelings of power and my secret desire to control things…It’s a nightstick–a truncheon–I call it my billy club. I’ve never actually hit anyone with it. “I always always suspected Miller Miller had it as a weapon to to fend off the demons that often beset creative folks. I’m happy with that idea.”
Genn adds, “Miller gave his fellow writers a set of commandments–eleven commandments–elev en of them. Here they are, only slightly abridged: 1. Work on one thing at a time until finished. 2. Start no more new books. 3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. 4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. 5. When you can’t create, you can work. 6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers. 7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it. 8. Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.” Read more in Genn’s post The thing on the wall. wall. More from Miller In his book Personal Development for Smart People, People, Steve Pavlina shares some more quotes by Miller that relate to our personal growth as well as being open to be creative: “Life has no other discipline discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.”
From my post Being brutally honest with ourselves – the basis for self growth. growth. Photos are from the Henry Miller Memorial Library. Library. Book: The Painter’s Keys A Seminar With Robert Genn. Genn. Multiple articles by Robert Genn. Genn.
Maybe Ma ybe Gifted Underachievers Under achievers Are More Creative
Kyung Hee Kim, Kim, PhD, is Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at The College of William and Mary. She thinks “the cause of the underachievement underachievement of many gifted and talented students may be their creativity, which tends to clash with traditional school environments.
“Einstein is a classic example of a highly creative and highly gifted individual that did not do well in traditional school environments.”
“Many gifted underachievers underachievers show show potential for high levels levels of creativity and many of the characteristics reported for gifted underachievers underachievers are similar to those those of highly creative individuals.”
She notes research that highly creative students “experience difficulty in traditional school environments.” For example, one study of 400 eminent creative individuals (by Goertzel and Goertzel in 1960) found that sixty percent had serious school problems. The photo is from one of my favorite movies: The Breakfast Club (1985) written and directed by John Hughes, starring Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Anthony Michael Hall, and Ally Sheedy. The story “follows five teenagers (each a member of a different high school clique) as they spend a Saturday in detention together and come to realize that they are all deeper than their respective stereotypes.” [Wikipedia]
Of course, all of this is not just about students and younger people – see my post Adult underachievement underachievement – not living up to our high potential. potential. Kim writes that Albert Einstein “hated strictly regimented academics and excelled only with self-study or in nontraditional environments.” Einstein expressed an insight on non-conforming when he said, "Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." From my post Einstein and other non-conformists. non-conformists. [Also quoted in my book Developing Multiple Talents.] Kim explains further, “Gifted underachievers tend to be particularly sensitive sensitive to teachers who are critical, rigid, officious, and unsympathetic. "There are many teachers who have negative attitudes toward gifted students who resist conformity… conformity… Gifted students tend to be sensitive to negative social feedback, which contributes to emotional conflict and the development of chronic underachievement.” From Underachieve Underachievement ment and Creativity: Are Gifted Underachievers Underachiev ers Highly Creative? [PDF], by Kyung Hee Kim.
That “negative social feedback” may include bullying – see my posts Lily Cole and gifted kids being bullied [photo] and Traumatic Childhood, Creative Adult.. Adult In a later paper, Dr. Kim and her co-author co-author declare that research indicates “there might might be a relationship between students’ behavior problems and creativity among among underachievers. underachievers. "This relationship was recognized by Torrance (1981b, 2000) when he expressed concern that creative behaviors are punished and discouraged by parents and teachers who perceive creative behavior as inconvenient and difficult to manage. This can lead to the child’s unwillingness to be creative and eventually to underachievement and rigid nonadaptive responses in the school environment.” From The relationship between creativity and behavior problems among underachiev underachievers ers,, [PDF] by Kyung Hee Kim and Joyce Jo yce VanTassel-Bas VanTassel-Baska. ka. See more papers and other material on her site Welcome to the World of Creativity by Dr. Kim! Dr. Kim, in 2010, published her study “The Creativity Crisis,” in which she showed the United United States has been experiencing a decline in creativity since 1990, based on scores of people people from young children to adults. adults. See my post Are We Losing Creative Thinking Ability?
Self-esteem and achievement Marilyn J. Sorensen, Sorensen, PhD, author of the book Breaking the Chain of Low Self-Este Self-Esteem em,, says “People with with low self-esteem self-esteem generally find themselves themselves at one of the extremes of achievement, either as an overachiever or as an underachiever. “Some take the road of continually channeling channeling their energies into attempts to receive recognition, approval, and affirmation, and become highly successful in their careers and educational endeavors; they are driven; they are ‘overachievers. ‘overachievers.’’ Others slink back back in fear, fear, never realizing their their skills or talents.” From my post Creative But Insecure. Insecure.
Junot Diaz on Creative Thinking: The Critical Self and Play
Novelist Junot Díaz is a Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is “a writer whose finely crafted works of fiction offer powerful insight into the realities of the Caribbean diaspora, American assimilation, and lives lived between cultures.” From his Class of 2012 MacArthur MacArthur Fellow profile page. page.
New York Times writer Sam Anderson recently interviewed him, and Diaz provides a number of helpful perspectives on creative expression, for any kind of artist. Sam Anderson: Anderson: “There’s a classic bit of creative-writing-class advice that tells us we need to learn to turn off our internal editors. "I’ve never understood how to unbraid the critical and the creative. How do you manage that?” Junot Diaz: Diaz: “You’ve “You’ve raised one of the thorniest dialectics of working, which is that you need your critical self: without it you can’t write, but in fact the critical self is what’s got both feet on the brakes of your process. “My thing is, I’m just way too harsh. harsh. It’s an enormous impediment, and that’s just the truth of it. It doesn’t make me any better, make me any worse, it certainly isn’t more valorous. I have a character defect, man.” Sam Anderson: Anderson: “So turn on your harsh paternalistic, militaristic critic — (Diaz: It’s my dad.) O.K., invite your dad in: I want to hear his review of Junot Díaz the bad writer. What is wrong with that stuff? stuff ? What are the mistakes you make?”
Junot Diaz: Diaz: “First of all, nonsense characterization. The dullest, wet-noodle characteristics and behaviors and thoughts and interests are ascribed to the characters. These 80-year-old, 80-year-old, left-in-the-sun newspaper-brittle conflicts — where the conflicts are so ridiculously subatomic that you have to summon all the key members of CERN to detect where the conflict in this piece is. "It just goes on, man. You know, I force it, and by forcing it, I lose everything that’s interesting about my work. What’s interesting about my work, for me — not for anyone else; God knows, I can’t speak for that — what’s interesting in my work is the way that when I am playing full out, when I am just feeling relaxed relaxed and I’m playing, playing, and all my faculties are firing, but only just just to play. “Not to to get a date, not because I want someone someone to hug me, not because I want anyone to read it. Just to play.” From Junot Díaz Hates Writing Short Stories, Stories, by Sam Anderson, The New York Times September 27, 2012. Photo from Junot Diaz Facebook page. page. Video: Junot Video: Junot Díaz was named named a MacArthur Fellow Fellow in 2012.
Listing of Junot of Junot Díaz books. books. Criticism can can cripple Creativity coach Eric Maisel, PhD thinks “Criticism is a real crippler…you may not be aware just how powerful a negative force criticism can be, how much damage it can do to your self-confidence, self-confidence, or how seriously it can deflect you from your path.” From post: Toxic Criticism and Developing Creativity – which refers to the book Toxic Criticism Criticism:: Break the Cycle with Friends, Family, Coworkers and Yourself, by Eric Maisel, PhD. For his book Creating Innovators: Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World, Tony Wagner interviewed “scores of highly creative creative and entrepreneurial young people to understand understand the most important important influences that enable someone to become be come an innovator in novator..” He says, “Innovation “Innovation is the skill in i n greatest demand in the workplace today today and is the one least likely to be outsourced out sourced or automated. For the innovation-minded innovation-minded parents whom I interviewed, developing their children’s children’s intrinsic motivation motivation was their most important goal. "And they did so by encouraging their children’s play, passion and purpose.” From post: Tony Wagner on Encouraging New Innovators. Innovators.
Embracing play “An artist must actively caress wonder: for fascination, like the desire to play, can be eradicated by the rigors of living.” – Eric Maisel “There is a myth, common in American culture, that work and play are entirely separate activities.” – activities.” – Laura Seargeant Seargeant Richardson, Richardson, a principal designer at frog design, who “specializes in in the emotional, social, social, participatory and future design of products and environments.” Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget once said, “Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.” From my post Creative Development: Actively Caress Wonder. Play.
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Author: Douglas Eby, M.A./Psychology [Facebook Facebook]] [Google+ [Google+]. ]. I am a writer, researcher and online online publisher on creative expression and personal change; creator of the Talent Talent Development Resources Resources series of sites, and author of the book "Developing Multiple Multiple Talen Talents ts - The personal side of creative expression." Kindle | website For more articles/posts and info, see my main site Talent Development Resources. Resources.
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