In One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975), criminal Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is transferred to a mental institution due to his apparently deranged behavior, which turns out to be a deliberate gambit by him to serve out his sentence in an easier place than prison.
He is passionately antiauthoritarian, constantly disruptive in response to [...]

“I don’t like the word nice; it means No Inner Core Evident.”
That is a quote from one of creativity coach Eric Maisel’s podcasts titled “On Being Too Nice” in which the focus [as the description says] is “on the problem of self-censorship and how too many people, wanting to be ‘nice,’ fail to find the [...]

Rushing and racing and running in circles
Moving so fast I’m forgetting my purpose
Blur of the traffic is sending me spinning
I’m getting nowhere
My head and my heart are colliding - chaotic
Pace of the world – I just wish I could stop it
Try to appear like I’ve got it together…
Sometimes I fear that I might disappear
In the [...]

In a new LA Times article ["PJ Harvey emerges from the musical laboratory," By Natalie Nichols, Los Angeles Times, October 26, 2007], the musician talks about staying vital and creative.
“I think of myself more as an explorer than as a maker of pop music,” PJ Harvey, 38, said while she was in town last week [...]

“In the midst of all the chaos in your mind, and all of the disorganization, and all the trouble getting started, and procrastination, your brain just thinks a little bit differently. And you can come up with things.”
That quote is by David Neeleman, former CEO of Jet Blue Airways. In 2000, he disclosed to CNN [...]

“While we’re here, let’s live fully. There are lots of things that masquerade as having the key to life — religion, culture. But ultimately we have to make decisions on our own. And we will make mistakes. And that’s OK, because we’re human. It’s a struggle to find meaning, but that struggle is the meaning.” [...]

The idea of a mental ‘blind spot’ may imply some kind of deficiency of cognitive ability, but psychologist Madeleine L. Van Hecke argues in her book Blind Spots: Why Smart People Do Dumb Things that even people who are very astute and intellectually capable can suffer lapses in reasonable behavior based on awareness.
She argues that [...]

Creative expression is based on both our inner selves and our abilities, so maybe it is not surprising if we question both our self concept and talents.
But our insecurities and doubts may not be just a matter of objective competence. For example, two actors noted for being able to create distinctive and powerful characters have [...]

“I hope I’m becoming more eccentric. More room in the brain.”
That quote by musician Tom Waits [from Eccentricity page 2] is a witty reminder of one of the values of non-conforming.
Author, artist, and psychotherapist Natalie Rogers, Ph.D. talks about the need for being eccentric “In these times where conformity is being thrust upon us by [...]

“We found that creativity is positively associated with joy and love and negatively associated with anger, fear, and anxiety….”
That is one of the conclusions of a study by Teresa M. Amabile at the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School - reported in the article : The 6 Myths Of Creativity - by Bill Breen, [...]