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The Nature of Creative Development By
Jonathan S. Feinstein, Yale University They
have many social interactions and personal experiences, witness and
learn about many events, encounter and learn about a great variety of
phenomena, are exposed to and learn a great multitude of concepts,
facts, theories, experiments, methods, styles, and approaches, and are
exposed to, learn about, and study the creative works and contributions
of many people, both in their field and their culture. Individuals
are most open to having their interest sparked and forming interests
during periods of their development when they are most open to the
world and their experiences. They
often are especially open just after they enter their chosen field or a
new field, when they are actively learning about the field and
encounter many elements in it that are new to them, and they often form
creative interests during such periods. Their
responses are not rationally planned out, and often they know only a
little bit about a topic or set of elements, such as an area of
application of a theory, a style or approach, or a group of phenomena,
at the time they form an interest in the topic or elements or based on
them. There
are a variety of sources of intrinsic interest that are the basis for
the formation of creative interests. Two important sources are a sense
of richness of a potential domain of interest, and curiosity about a
topic, for example a cluster of questions or issues or models; I
describe these and other sources in the body of the book. The
two main extrinsic factors are the sense of openness and creative
potential of an interest, eg, the sense that it holds opportunities for
fruitful creative development, and the sense that an interest is
potentially important, eg, that contributions generated through
pursuing it are at least somewhat likely to be significant and
important for one’s field and society. A key
step in the process of forming a more fully defined creative interest
is forming a conception of one’s interest. An
individual may or may not form a conception of his interest at the time
he forms an initial, incipient interest; if he does, it is likely to be
rudimentary, though there are exceptions – in some cases, including
some of the examples I present, an individual has a quite clear
conception of his interest from early on. There
are different patterns of development of interests and conceptions of
interests, which I describe in the body of the book. Thus,
in many cases an individual’s interest and conception begin as
relatively simple and basic and become richer; in some cases his
initial interest and conception are narrowly focused, centering on
specific elements and experiences, then broaden out to define a
broader, richer domain; in other cases his interest begins as more
general, then he narrows his focus. Individuals
conceive of their creative interests as domains filled with creative
possibilities, filled with promise. They desire to explore them and
learn about them, and to develop them creatively. They
believe or at least hope that through exploring their interests and
striving to develop them creatively they will be able to define
creative projects and pursue them, and ultimately – perhaps only after
some time – make contributions to their field and society. Their
conceptions reflect this, conveying, as they describe them, a sense of
openness.2 Yet
they are also broad, broader than individual projects or ideas or
elements, defining domains that can be explored and developed in many
different ways, as I have described above. These
two characteristics, distinctiveness and breadth, are to some degree in
tension with one another. The
combination of the two is central to defining creative interests as a
theoretical construct, in particular defining creative interests as
intermediate level conceptual structures – I describe what I mean by
this in the next chapter. The
many examples of creative interests presented in the book, in
particular individuals’ descriptions of their conceptions of their
interests and my reconstructions of individuals’ interests, exhibit
distinctiveness and breadth, demonstrating that creative interests
possess these characteristics. Thus,
an element or experience or cluster or elements or experiences that
resonate with a register of meaning an individual has may thus draw his
attention and interest, contributing to his formation of an interest
based in these elements or experiences. I
discuss registers of meaning further and provide examples of their role
in sparking interests in chapter three. ~ ~ ~
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