“I just thought making movies was something done by geniuses, and I was very clear that I wasn’t one of those.” Jane Campion When “The Artist’s Way” author and creativity coach Julia Cameron has asked people to list ten traits they think artists have, their responses have included: “Artists are broke,” “Artists are crazy,” “Artists [...]
“To assume, then, that such diseases usually promote artistic talent wrongly reinforces simplistic notions of the ‘mad genius.’” Kay Redfield Jamison In an interview for NPR radio, science writer Jonah Lehrer commented, “One of the surprising things that’s emerged from the study of moods…is that putting [people] in a bad mood — making them a [...]
In an interview, Keira Knightley declared she was never interested in playing “girl” roles. “This is a ridiculous thing to say,” she admits, “but I never liked being a teenager. I never felt comfortable being in a group of giggly girls. I always felt embarrassed and frightened by it. “I couldn’t quite handle the high [...]
“At twenty-five, I was a television literary agent.. I had an office with a view, an assistant, an expense account, power lunches, clients, and business cards… From the outside, my life looked great… There was just one problem: I was absolutely miserable.” Christine Hassler The big questions of vocation, identity, relationships, how we use our [...]
“I must have been crazy to have donned so many hats.” Jennifer Westfeldt Many multitalented people feel inspired and energized to pursue multiple creative projects, often at the same time. One potential downside is physical and emotional burnout. Jennifer Westfeldt wrote, produced and acted in “Kissing Jessica Stein” and “Ira & Abby.” For her new [...]
By Cynthia Morris I have encouraged creativity for years, believing that it is essential to all of us. I know that the creative impulse is important, and now I have a greater sense of exactly how vital that is to all of us, right now. Creativity is not a feel-good, optional quality to cultivate, but [...]
“I have always spent most of my time staring out the window, noting what is there, daydreaming, or brooding.” Joyce Carol Oates One of the themes that prolific writer Jonah Lehrer develops in his upcoming book “Imagine: How Creativity Works” is that daydreaming can enhance creativity and innovation. Einstein was expelled from school (in 1894) [...]
“What would be truly surprising would be to find that sound could not suggest colour, that colours could not evoke the idea of a melody, and that sound and colour were unsuitable for the translation of ideas…” Charles Baudelaire A simple definition of synesthesia is that it is a “crosstalking” or overlapping of sensory experiences [...]
Some five hundred years ago, mood disorders were considered to be based on an imbalance in four body “humors” or fluids – yellow bile, black bile, blood, and phlegm. Too much black bile was thought to cause ‘melancholy’ and ‘madness.’ In her article “Clinical Depression Then and Now,” Patricia Waldron, M.D. noted, “Dürer’s energy and [...]
By Marie-Josée Salvas, Positive Psychology News Daily A good friend of mine could be the next Martha Stewart. In fact, let’s call her Martha. Martha loves to cook and does it beautifully. Guests that she entertains for dinner wow at the presentation, rejoice throughout the meal, and are somewhat embarrassed when it’s their turn to [...]
By Jenna Avery A chat with my Writer’s Circle participants inspired today’s post. So often we wait for the right conditions before we write or start our other creative projects. Although we’d like to imagine otherwise, waiting doesn’t get us very far. Are you waiting for the right mood to strike before you work on [...]
In her book, Mary-Elaine Jacobsen quotes some insightful comments by Annemarie Roeper (founder of the Roeper School and The Roeper Review, a professional journal on the gifted) about the intense inner pressure to create as a characteristic of high ability people: “Gifted adults may be overwhelmed by the pressure of their own creativity. The gifted [...]
How do you think about being creative versus the business aspects of a creative career, such as marketing? Do you see them as separate, even mutually exclusive? Do you think of creative expression as something more “spiritual” or “pure” than sales or business? Many creators probably don’t think much about the value of marketing to [...]
How do intelligence and creative ability interact? Do we get more creative with more intelligence? Dean Keith Simonton, PhD thinks “Intelligence is purely a cognitive construct. Creativity on the other hand, I see as being much more complex.” Like other writers on creativity, he makes a distinction between “little c creativity” and “big C creativity.” [...]
“It was just a story I wanted to tell. Writing it was an expression of my own coming out. Getting it out there was willpower, feeling this is a universal story about identity and it has to be told.” Writer and director Dee Rees is referring to her movie “Pariah” – about a lesbian teenager [...]
A summary of the book: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin says: “A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even [...]
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Site author: Douglas Eby, M.A./Psychology, is a writer and researcher on the psychology of creative expression and personal growth, especially for high ability adults. He is publisher of the Talent Development Resources series of sites.
