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!