Are you misunderstood?

I have been working on suggesting how groups built on conflict can work together to achieve greater creativity than groups built without conflict. In the meantime, many thoughts on creativity have come to mind. I've decided that rather than attempting to keep ideas flowing from one entry to another, as I originally intended, maybe I would add some digressions. I will be entering some somewhat arbitrary thoughts on creativity while I work on the subject I took up earlier. This is a blog, not a book, after all. 



Today I was thinking of  many creative types that I have known. Highly creative people in general enjoy being different and thinking outside the box. At the same time, they wish to be understood by their friends and family. Do these two ideas conflict? Unfortunately, I think so. Creative individuals, in the process of developing originality, also develop their own style and language. Scientific types create language out of necessity. Artistic types do it out of necessity too, but sometimes may do it intentionally as well.

There's a possible problem. The artist has developed a new language or style and set themselves apart from others, and then hope others will understand. Over time people may eventually gradually learn their new language and be excited by the fresh idea. Or they may not. In that case the creative individual to seek out like other individuals who are more likely to comprehend their language.
The Internet makes connecting with many of people of like interests incredibly easy. Unfortunately, this option may leave those who are closest to them forever alienated from their work.

On the other hand,  they could simply refine their language so that it accessible to more people. Those who are closest to them might even be included if they choose this option. This is not a problem for the scientific type. There is no reason an idea shouldn't be further clarified when possible. Einstein created a new language and later wrote a book to help laymen understand what it meant. Richard Feynman had many original ideas, but also spent much of his life trying to somehow make the ideas more understandable to ordinary students.

 Here many artists differ. Putting an idea in a form that everyone can readily grasp makes the poet think of Hallmark cards and the musician think of  musical rip-offs. In other words, easy to write, easy to sell. following this path, they may not end up starving artists, but their creative side may certainly be left hungry. Being creative and being accessible are not mutually exclusive. Robert Frost and Mark Twain speak to this. In fact being completely original and accessible to as many people as possible seems much preferred to  be pretentiously eccentric, but the subject is far from simple.

Mainly, I just wanted to point out that being original and expecting people to comprehend what you are attempting to do may conflict. If your family and friends are a little baffled, that's should be expected. It may be neither their fault, nor yours...You took the road less traveled. They took the interstate!

Creativity And The Necessity of Conflict

Continuing from my last blog, where I had convinced, myself at least, that group dynamics produce dynamic creativity, I have to also say that some creative teamwork is more difficult than teamwork in other areas might be. All teams have differences of opinion, colliding egos, personality clashes and jealousy. Therefore all teams must have a few arguments, many ego-adjustments, need for reconciliation and a few personality adjustments.

 However, on independently formed creative teams, such as those freelance artists may form, many are also profoundly involved in personal philosophy, creative outlook and sometimes deep emotional attachment to personal convictions I just watched a video form the nineties where Kurt Cobain said he didn't really like Pearl Jam's music. I think he mentioned something about them being sellouts. Well, I was a fan of both bands back in the early 90's, I will just say that both had extremely moving music.

Now, I don't really care that Eddie is probably a little bit of a show off, or that Kurt was very shy in front of a crowd. They were both great in their own way. Could they have worked as a team? I think so. And, given a lot of time to adjust, I think that might have produced something wildly original. Would they ever have worked as a team? I doubt it! But then they didn't have to; They were famous! And famous people have the unusual luxury of doing whatever they want to for as long as they want and changing their mind later, if they want to.

But why do I think they would have produced something wildly original? Because personal clashes would have forced them to. If they had been locked in a room together and  had no other choice than to hack out an album before they were released from the room, they would have been forced to listen to and learn from one another and grow creatively.  Because they were young and arrogant at the time, it might have taken years, but eventually they would have grown up. 

Okay, there is the very real possibility that they both would have agreed to make a really crappy album, just so they didn't have to be in a room with one another. In fact, that's likely. It's obviously a hypothetical situation. But the point is that some of the best teams can be formed from unlikely combinations (Take Roth and the Van Halens.) It is the conflict and the necessity to reconcile the conflict that produces something uniquely original. It is even the pushing and pulling of egos and individual competition that boosts the performance of all members. 
 

Making harmony out of conflict may well be the force that compels the creative urge. Periods of conflict,  whether personal or cultural or logical in nature, require creative insights to resolve the conflict. When the book of old standbys come to a close and still there is no resolution to a conflict, creative sparks start flying, and a new idea is chiseled out of seemingly impenetrable stone. Michelangelo said, " Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it." Some instinct tells us this is true of personal, social, and perhaps all conflicts. And creativity is our only hope in resolving them

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So here I will make an assertion; Creativity thrives on conflict. Conflict is not a liability, but an asset. If this is true, then groups forged out of conflict have the greatest creative potential. This is important, because we are so accustomed to see personal disagreements as negative and harmful. Some believe that "agreeing to disagree" is the optimum solution to all conflicts.    It's certainly better than angry tirades or ostracism of those who disagree, but neither of these are necessary. Instead, conflict could escalate our creativity into a solution that becomes so clear  that it's hard to believe the idea was not there all along.

Okay, my point again is groups offer the greatest potential for creativity. I was going so say more about the problems with creative groups, and how they might be resolved, but the longer I make my blog entries, the more likely they will be ignored, so I will save that issue for my next entry.

Beyond Selfish-Expression

Though all people are creative, there are some of us who live for creativity. As we go through the drudgery of everyday life, we are always planning a creative getaway as soon as we get off work, or maybe when your kids are finally in bed. In fact, I think some of us are so lost in the world of ideas that we find ordinary communication challenging!  If so, it's likely friends and family may enjoy your originality, but still tire of you constantly trying to elevate conversations to something out of the ordinary. Most people just like small talk and friendly company, bonding and laughing about the little things in life!

But don't  feel alone. There is a tremendous amount of creativity hidden behind many ordinary exteriors. All people have a need and potential for creativity. Many people feel alone in their creative endeavors. Joined with another such person, we can have both a creative outlet and a social life!

Since Ancient Greece our culture has glorified the idea of one heroic man of ideas who stands against the world, and wins! This is an unfortunate myth, because most who stand against the world will lose!  And even the  heroes often die alone, vindicated or not. We need to rid ourselves of these juvenile romantic-tragedies. Creative people need to work together, the more the merrier! And we need to get along, sacrifice and compromise. It's no different from other social interaction. In fact, one of  the most important lessons I learned in college was that I could stand up to some brutal criticism of my work and walk away satisfied. I had learned that my work was not as good as I thought, but I was confident I could improve.

 I also learned to work in a group. Groups can be complicated, but if all members are open and honest with themselves and others, groups tend to improve not only the ideas being discussed, but also the creative potential of each person in the group! I don't know how this works, but it does. There is a subtle group dynamic where each individual almost becomes part of a "mega-mind." The sum is greater than the parts. But it won't work if one or a few people try to dominate. In that case, the ideas will be no greater than the biggest part(s) - the number of members in the dominating group. It always seems a terrible loss to me.

Anyway, I have finally gotten around to my point. Creativity is always better in groups! It may not feel so at first, because many creative people feel criticism of their work is criticism of them directly. I see it this way... I have this great idea, but the idea is bound up so much with my personality that I cannot communicate it fully. When people criticize the idea, it feels at first as if they are criticizing me. They're not (unless they happen to have a personal grudge). They just don't fully understand where I'm coming from. Trying to explain may or may not help. It may help them to know where I was coming from, and that may lead to a new improved idea. Or it may lead to a dead end.  In that case I just have suck it up and go on.

But I absolutely believe that a working group will outstrip the creativity of any one person. Because it is made up of  ideas from more personalities, it is likely to appeal to more people. And it beats working alone. There really is no downside, but the groups may take a lot of time before they reach their full potential. Creative differences usually add more to the dynamic than agreements do, but they can also cause discord. Thus, a really good group may dissolve, because they can't agree. The thing is they really shouldn't agree. They should be hacking away ideas until what's left is a beautiful plan.

Creativity: The Defining Trait Of Mankind?

Nature is wonderful at creating things. I'm continually mesmerized by its beauty and complexity. Some say it was not created really ; It just kind of happened.  Billions of years of random motion and existing probabilities, self-organization and evolution left us with a great work of art governed by rules of logic. But  made without self-reflection and  without plan. Others cannot fathom a that all this magnificent beauty happened by pure chance. It is even harder for them to fathom that mankind with our vast potential to outdo the universe, to rise above circumstance and truly feel what it means to be here could have possibly arisen by some unfeeling accident.  

I  will say that I belong to the second group, but I won't say more. That will only lead away from my main point. The point is that, regardless of your views, creativity is what separates man from the universe. Cars did not evolve. They we're created. Shakespeare's Lear and Van Gogh's "Starry Night" are not the end products of evolution. They are the products of mankind's creative potential. Somehow we are able to take what we know, reflect on it, play around with it and come up with something which never existed before.  We don't just obey the laws of the universe. At the moment of the first creative spark, the universe began to obey us as well.  

Some will say that we were almost inevitable and the products of our minds were too. It takes a very convoluted  and circular argument to support this, and I think that is because when it comes to the vast complexity of the mind and spirit, men who have relied on their intelligence (and creativity) to understand the simpler matters (say...  fractals, chaos,  relativity or quantum physics)  feel overwhelmed and would rather break the incredibly complex issues down into something simpler to understand. Something elementary. But the vast capabilities of the mind make this impossible.

There are several things that separate mankind from the inanimate universe. Some of the most important are thinking, feeling, experiencing (or consciousness, self-awareness) and creativity. In the Age of Reason, thinking was often considered the defining trait of mankind - and God. However, creativity is implied in all thinking, at least in any thinking that leads to something new. However, men and women of the Age of Reason often preferred to think of creativity more associated with feeling, something that could be unbridled and lead almost anywhere - including far away from logical thinking.

Then mankind created a "thinking machine!" These machines were so efficient in some types of logic that many who considered thinking the most treasured trait of mankind,  feared we might soon be outdone by our creation.  This idea is still popular today, and open-ended. We really don't understand the mind well enough to know if computers, as we know them, will ever be able to function anything like brains. As they are today, they certainly seem amazing. Some of our most intelligent minds created them, after all. Despite that, they cannot check grammar with complete accuracy, and they certainly cannot write an essay worth even a "D", even for a third grade kid. For now, they are masters of processing information, but can do nothing with that information that mankind did not enable them to. They are  complex creations in process, but their existence says more about mankind's ability to create than it does about a computer's "intelligence."

Another intensely human trait is feeling. However, this not very unique. My dog certainly feels. And I love her for it! I also think she's pretty smart.  (There's even some logic and creativity going on there when it comes to getting what she wants.) In fact, people in the Age of Reason tended to think peoples impulses, instincts and so on were not that different from higher animals. This is somewhat true, but actually  just a compliment to  animals, rather a detriment to us. But feeling, in its naked form, is not uniquely human. In its complex form, thinking and creative processes interact with feeling, and, thus, human feeling often takes on vastly complex forms - as in the arts. Human feeling can, in fact,  take on almost infinite variety when it is combined with logic and creativity.

The least understood of all human traits is self-awareness. Somehow we know we experience the universe in a way no computer can. We are truly alive! I also believe animals have this trait, which says a lot for animals. No one seems to understand this trait, at least in as far as in how it came to be, or how it works.  It is most definitely an outstanding trait! Most of us know that self-reflection is utterly necessary in art. It is also necessary science.( In science it is necessary so that the scientist may do his best to separate his experience from what is. For example, Einstein had to separate time and gravity from his experience of them  and try to come to a conclusion that would be true even if he did not experience them. Very complex issue. Many would say  impossible.)

Okay, so now for creativity. It seems that some animals show a little, but the constantly changing world around is testament to the fact that mankind is brimming with it. In the last ten thousand years, the world has exploded with new creations, new ideas, new forms of society and it just keeps happening! Though logicians would like to think it is logic that brought us here. Logic in itself can bring you to a satisfying conclusion, but  there should be no need for invention. Invention comes from some need and ability of  mankind  that can simply not be objectified. Einstein was a very logical thinker, but his intuition often came first, and his need to make people understand the universe was not unlike the need of an artist to express himself. His theories were his masterpieces that he wanted the world to see! No animal or anything else known in the universe has this need and ability in such great proportion as we do. Not even my dog!

 Therefore creativity is the most human of all traits. It is connected with everything else it means to be human. If beings from another planet visited here they very well might be amazed by nothing else than our fantastic creativity.

The purpose of going through all is to show that creativity is not just a personality trait. It is inherent part of what it means to be human.  This will be my only plea to elevate the status of creative acts. The rest of my blog will concern creativity in all its forms and will be more opinions than attempts at  rational arguments. I just felt it necessary to define the importance of creativity from the outset, so that the bias that creativity is nothing but the whimsical side of a few personalities is shown to be completely unjustified.  Just as unjustified as the idea that artists have a monopoly on creativity. Mankind, though, does nearly have a complete monopoly over it here on earth.