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But who are these "naturally creative people"? I think the point the parent is making is that no matter how effortless it may seem, the very creative actually p

by macrael 16y ago

But who are these "naturally creative people"? I think the point the parent is making is that no matter how effortless it may seem, the very creative actually put in a lot of hard work to be so. That's been my experience.

Mz 16y ago
I really can't say whether or not I am "naturally creative". But I routinely come up with "creative" solutions (polite euphemism for "something no normal person would have thought of", and often not appreciated by others as it is "disruptive" behavior). I think solitude is valuable not for having ideas per se but because it removes some of the pressure to conform and allows you to be "out of step" with others (without having to fight someone every step of the way over that detail). It is these "out of step with the crowd" answers that are typically labeled "creative". When I was trying to figure out how to get myself well after being diagnosed late in life with a form of cystic fibrosis, I intentionally chose to not join any online support groups for CF or otherwise expose myself overly much to conventional views of the problem. I did this because I was already doing better than I was supposed to be and so was my oldest son (who has the same thing) and I wanted to figure out what we were doing right and improve on it. I felt that listening overly much to the mantra that "people like you don't get well" would have put me in danger of believing such brain-washing and thereby helping it to become self-fulfilling prophecy. I also felt that listening overly much to the conventional framing of the problem would pollute my thinking and deny me the opportunity to come up with a more accurate/effective view of the problem. Einstein supposedly said something like "You cannot solve a problem from the level of consciousness that helped create it." So I didn't want to be immersed in or exposed too much to the thought processes of all those folks who believed the problem to be unresolvable. I felt clear thinking on the matter was my only hope of salvation. The pay-off was huge. (And I'm an extrovert, so this was not a particularly easy path for me to follow. Had my life not literally depended upon it, I don't think I would have pursued such a path with so much persistence.)
- macrael 16y ago
  I didn't mean to call the OP's point into question, I think that solitude can be incredibly helpful for creative work. I just think that effort is incredibly important.
  - Mz 16y ago
    Oh, sorry, it wasn't meant that way at all. Just something about your phrasing got me to thinking is all. I considered posting it on it's own, instead of as a "reply", but that sounded out of context to me. Not some kind of 'rebuttal'. Just talking. Thanks.
AndrewMoffat 16y ago
I think the naturally highly creative people are the ones who get the most gains for the same amount of conscious effort. My experience of working with creative people has been that many of them work very hard, yes, but many of them do so because they want to get the most out of their natural creativity and talent. To an observer, it looks like their gains are strictly a result of their hard work, but that's because we don't see that hidden multiplier that's scaling their efforts into ability. I don't mean to imply with my last post that some people just aren't creative altogether when I said that some people have it and some people don't. I just mean people that people have it in different areas (programming, carpentry, painting, organization, conversation, etc), and if you don't have it in an area, you're probably not going to manifest it. You can try to mimic it with persistence though :)

by macrael 16y ago

Mz 16y ago

I really can't say whether or not I am "naturally creative". But I routinely come up with "creative" solutions (polite euphemism for "something no normal person would have thought of", and often not appreciated by others as it is "disruptive" behavior). I think solitude is valuable not for having ideas per se but because it removes some of the pressure to conform and allows you to be "out of step" with others (without having to fight someone every step of the way over that detail). It is these "out of step with the crowd" answers that are typically labeled "creative". When I was trying to figure out how to get myself well after being diagnosed late in life with a form of cystic fibrosis, I intentionally chose to not join any online support groups for CF or otherwise expose myself overly much to conventional views of the problem. I did this because I was already doing better than I was supposed to be and so was my oldest son (who has the same thing) and I wanted to figure out what we were doing right and improve on it. I felt that listening overly much to the mantra that "people like you don't get well" would have put me in danger of believing such brain-washing and thereby helping it to become self-fulfilling prophecy. I also felt that listening overly much to the conventional framing of the problem would pollute my thinking and deny me the opportunity to come up with a more accurate/effective view of the problem. Einstein supposedly said something like "You cannot solve a problem from the level of consciousness that helped create it." So I didn't want to be immersed in or exposed too much to the thought processes of all those folks who believed the problem to be unresolvable. I felt clear thinking on the matter was my only hope of salvation. The pay-off was huge. (And I'm an extrovert, so this was not a particularly easy path for me to follow. Had my life not literally depended upon it, I don't think I would have pursued such a path with so much persistence.)

macrael 16y ago
I didn't mean to call the OP's point into question, I think that solitude can be incredibly helpful for creative work. I just think that effort is incredibly important.
- Mz 16y ago
  Oh, sorry, it wasn't meant that way at all. Just something about your phrasing got me to thinking is all. I considered posting it on it's own, instead of as a "reply", but that sounded out of context to me. Not some kind of 'rebuttal'. Just talking. Thanks.

AndrewMoffat 16y ago

I think the naturally highly creative people are the ones who get the most gains for the same amount of conscious effort. My experience of working with creative people has been that many of them work very hard, yes, but many of them do so because they want to get the most out of their natural creativity and talent. To an observer, it looks like their gains are strictly a result of their hard work, but that's because we don't see that hidden multiplier that's scaling their efforts into ability. I don't mean to imply with my last post that some people just aren't creative altogether when I said that some people have it and some people don't. I just mean people that people have it in different areas (programming, carpentry, painting, organization, conversation, etc), and if you don't have it in an area, you're probably not going to manifest it. You can try to mimic it with persistence though :)