Wired to Create, by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire, is a book that identifies some characteristics and habits of highly creative people.
Notes
Introduction
- studies of creative people have found some apparently contradictory personality traits – for example, some creative people score highly on measures of mental illness and also on measures of psychological stability, at the same time
- these findings have been interpreted as showing that creative people are more introspective and more comfortable with both the positive and negative aspects of their minds
One: Imaginative Play
- taking a playful, childlike approach to creative work can help us be more flexible and have more fun… and this can be true for other types of work too
Two: Passion
- this is about the intrinsic motivation that drives people to work on creative projects for their own sake
- some psychologists have made a distinction between “harmonious passion” (feeling that the creative activity is part of your true self) and “obsessive” (feeling anxious and compelled, with a tendency to keep comparing your creative work to others’). Obsessive passion can still lead to high performance, but it’s more emotionally difficult and can lead to avoidance of risks and challenges
Three: Daydreaming
- there’s a distinction between “positive constructive” daydreaming and worrying or the inability to focus
- it can be useful to establish a place for daydreaming, such as a shower or a habitual walk
- creative people may benefit from learning to switch between mindful and mindwandering states
Four: Solitude
- being alone and undistracted is vital for creative insight, but some people find this state uncomfortable
- with practice, we can build our ability to tolerate solitude and use it creatively
Five: Intuition
- intuition is a mysterious process, and this chapter presents one main practical approach for encouraging more intuitive insight, which is to experience both positive and negative emotions
Six: Openness to Experience
- this is the willingness to try new things and explore unfamiliar ideas
- one researcher suggests this can be separated into three components: intellectual engagement, affective engagement and aesthetic engagement
Seven: Mindfulness
- while mindfulness (such as practising paying attention to our breath) can improve our ability to focus, being in a mindful state nearly all the time may hamper our ability to come up with creative ideas through daydreaming
- the chapter cites research showing that practitioners of open-monitoring meditation (a state in which “the individual is receptive to thoughts and emotions without attending to one particular point of focus”) perform better on some tests of creative thinking than practitioners of focused-attention meditation
Eight: Sensitivity
- this chapter suggests there’s an association between sensitivity to external stimuli (such as sudden loud noises or bright lights) and creativity
Nine: Turning Adversity into Advantage
- the book emphasises that adversity isn’t necessary for creative work
- however, many successful artists use painful experiences as inspiration and are able to use this to grow after trauma
Ten: Thinking Differently
- this chapter notes some of the risks associated with being creative: if you share unconventional ideas, your work may be rejected, and occasionally you yourself will be rejected
- there’s an unconscious bias that causes people to reject or push back against unfamiliar ideas, even when those people claim to value creativity and innovation
- creativity and originality tend to be celebrated only for individuals who’ve won widespread recognition and success.
Reflections
A (possible) contradiction
While the introduction states that everyone can be creative, the book’s title (Wired to Create) suggests innate characteristics, and the book’s subtitle (“Discover the 10 things great artists, writers and innovators do differently”) suggests a strong divide between highly creative people and others. The “10 things” vary: some are attributes (sensitivity and openness to experience) and some are clearly things that people do rather than being innate (such as spending time alone).
I think that this contradiction can be resolved (at least partially) by noting that some people use their creativity more than others. And some characteristics that seem to be innate can perhaps be developed with practice.
It may be useful to consider all of these 10 traits and look at what we can actually do to make use of them, rather than trying to rate ourselves against them.