Developing Talent

Do we need solitude or connection to create?

Douglas Eby — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:55:49 +0000

Some forms of creative expression - like acting and filmmaking - require collaborating with many other people; sometimes an artist needs isolation or works best alone.

Writer Erica Jong has commented, “Everyone has a talent. What is rare is the courage to nurture it in solitude and to follow the talent to the dark places where it leads.”

Much writing and advice on enhancing creativity focuses on the individual. But creating happens in a social context, and often depends on input and inspiration from others.

Keith Sawyer, a professor of psychology and education, says the studies detailed in his book Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration reveal that “creativity is always collaborative - even when you’re alone. It is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world: the ATM, the mountain bike, and open source operating systems, among others.”

Psychologist Anne Paris, PhD is author of the new book Standing at Water’s Edge: Moving Past Fears, Blocks, and Pitfalls to Discover the Power of Creative Immersion, and notes “There are most certainly genetic and personality differences in how much connection we need to feel comfortable and at our best. Isolated or introverted artists often have a vivid and alive fantasy life of connecting with others that plays a powerful role in their creative productivity.

“Also, these artists may be turning to other types of connections (spirituality, play, pets, and other’s artwork) to sustain their work.

“For some artists at certain times, creative immersion may feel like the safest and most comfortable way of connecting with others, so their creativity flourishes even when they are isolated.” [From interview on her site www.anneparis.com]

Dr. Paris explains in her article A New Approach to Igniting and Sustaining Creativity, “Contrary to how we’ve been taught to value independence and autonomy, this new scientific evidence is showing that we are at our best when we are connected with others.

“Applying these findings to the secret, internal world of the artist, the capacity to be creative is actually generated by the experience of connectedness with others.

“When we are feeling frightened or are lacking self-confidence and vitality, we need to look at the state of our relationships, rather than to blame ourselves for being weak and inadequate, or to think that we must somehow find strength and courage from deep within ourselves.

“We cannot create in a vacuum of isolation: we are helped along in the creative process by certain kinds of emotional support from others that help us to be at our best and to realize our full potentials.”

Eric Maisel on Toxic Criticism

Douglas Eby — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 01:29:15 +0000

In one of his podcast series, Eric Maisel notes “Criticism is a real crippler. I’m sure that you know that. But you may not be aware just how powerful a negative force criticism can be, how much damage it can do to your self-confidence, or how seriously it can deflect you from your path.

“Almost nothing does more psychological damage than criticism.

“Criticism comes at us from the past, as bad memories and as our own introjected ‘inner critic.’ It comes at us every day, at work and at home. It even colors our sense of the future.

“Some of it is minor and only ruffles our feathers a little bit. But a surprising amount of it is toxic, as bad for our system as any poison.”

Continued in his article Introducing Toxic Criticism.

This sort of “poison” can also come from our own minds. Healthy criticism can help refine our talents and creative projects in the pursuit of excellence. But when it is based on excessive perfectionism or an unrealistic self concept, criticism of ourselves can be destructive and self-limiting, eroding our creative assurance and vitality.

Highly creative and talented people are often susceptible to perfectionism and unreasonably high standards and expectations that can lead to this exaggerated criticism.

From my article Being Creative and Self-critical.

Image: Anton Ego, the food critic in the movie “Ratatouille.”

Educated out of our creativity

Douglas Eby — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 05:08:16 +0000

Our self concept, recognition of our talents, appreciation for divergent thinking and pursuit of creativity can be guided and nurtured, or corroded and even corrupted, by our school experiences.

In his article Do schools kill creativity?, Sir Ken Robinson notes that “kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go. They’re not frightened of being wrong.

“Now, I don’t mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.

“And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong… And the result is, we are educating people out of their creative capacities.

“Picasso once said that all children are born artists. The problem is to remain an artist as we grow up. I believe this passionately, that we don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather we get educated out of it.”

My related article Getting out of school alive.

Being a social animal and creative

Douglas Eby — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 04:54:49 +0000

Much writing and advice on enhancing creativity focuses on the individual. But creating happens in a social context, and it depends on inspiration from others, and on getting an audience, and support from publishers and producers. Creative work impacts other people, even worldwide. But being creative can also be inhibited by others.

Dancer, choreographer and teacher Carol M. Press, Ed.D. writes in her book The Dancing Self, “Creativity’s profound effect affirms what binds us together as a species. Creativity contributes immeasurably to the health of humankind; before we understand and accept our differences, we must acknowledge and feel our common bonds.

“This commonality is critical to human existence. Our ancestral heritage ensures that we are social animals, born to live in relation with others.

She adds, “Anthropologist Ellen Dissanayake in her book ART and Intimacy asserts that art-making is an intrinsic human capacity that has psychobiological foundations. Through such creative endeavors people experience, express, and elaborate their common interests in finding meaning and competence in their lives.”

Dr. Press quotes Dissanayake: “Aesthetic experiences transcend simple short-term self-interest, making us aware of our embeddedness or participation in an expanded frame of reference that is larger than ourselves.”

Linda Seger has written a number of books on screenwriting and filmmaking, and talks about the value of “web thinking” in her book with that title.

She writes of the emotional and career values of collaboration instead of hierarchy, and networking as a support for one’s actualization, not simply a way to make business contacts.

Sally Field has commented that she feels “Actresses and other women in the industry need to have contact with each other. Not to tell sob stories, but to kick each other in the butt creatively.”

[From my article The Company of Women.]

Another value of social connection is emotional support. Creative expression and personal growth often involve courage and dealing with fear.

Referring to a variety of research studies, Robert J. Maurer, PhD, a family therapist, writing consultant and instructor at UCLA, has commented in his classes that those people who are able to reach high levels of personal and professional success have a healthy acknowledgment of fear, and they also honor the need to be comforted and supported when extending outside comfort boundaries.

See list of his articles.

Recognizing and honoring our organic needs for interconnection can help us stay energized and creatively engaged.

But some interactions can inhibit our creativity and talent expression.

Creative people were often seen by other kids as outsiders in school, and may still feel that self concept when ‘grown up.’

A couple of teens writing in the book When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers articulated some of this impact:

“Other kids made fun of us as nerds or called us stuck-up. It was not true, it was just that we weren’t sure how to relate to some of our peers. We were informed that we were smarter by our teachers, but to a child, that is just plain ‘different.’ We needed help understanding ourselves.” Erin, 19

“Gifted kids tend to hide their intelligence, as well as their talents, for a very simple reason: Conformity.” Claudia, 16

Books:

The Dancing Self: Creativity, Modern Dance, Self Psychology and Transformation Education, by Carol Press.

Art and Intimacy: How the Arts Began, by Ellen Dissanayake.

When Gifted Kids Don’t Have All the Answers: How to Meet Their Social and Emotional Needs, by Jim Delisle et al.

Image at top from Web Thinking: Connecting, Not Competing, for Success, by Linda Seger.

How much do you censor yourself and your art?

Douglas Eby — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 05:05:29 +0000

“The danger of censorship in the United States is less from business or the religious right or the self-righteous left than from the self-censorship of artists themselves, who simply give up.”

Writer and director Frank Pierson (former President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) added, “If we can’t see a way to get out story told, what is the point of trying? I wonder how many fine, inspiring ideas are strangled in the womb of the imagination because there’s no way past the gates of commerce.” [LA Times May 26, 2003 - quoted in Utne, Sep/Oct 2003]

Censoring - both internal and external - is discussed by Eric Maisel, PhD in his article Are You Censoring Yourself? - in which he talks about “the artist’s relationship to society.

“Most of us would be quick to say that we are free to think just about anything and to express ourselves in any way we see fit.

“In reality, artists do a lot of measuring, somewhere just out of conscious awareness, about what is safe or seemly to reveal and what is unsafe or unseemly.

“One aspect of this self-censorship is the way we bite our tongue at our day job and, in a corollary safety measure, skip making art that reveals what our corporation, institution, or agency is up to.

“These are knotty psychological and practical matters that confront virtually every artist.”

Related Talent Development Resources page : Censorship.

Eric Maisel on creative mindfulness

Douglas Eby — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:46:09 +0000

Creativity coach and therapist Eric Maisel, PhD notes the word mindfulness “stands for the nonjudgmental observation and acknowledgment of our thoughts.

“We notice the thought - for example, ‘I am running from my writing’ - and acknowledge that we had the thought. The thought comes, we notice it, and it goes.

“The central goal of ordinary mindfulness is to let such thoughts come and go without experiencing pain, without holding onto them, and without turning them into monsters that eat us alive.”

But the goal of creative mindfulness, he explains, is “not only the nonjudgmental observation of your thoughts but complete right thinking that leads to authenticity, creativity, and mental health.

“The high ideal of creative mindfulness is to master ordinary mindfulness, in the sense in which Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, and others have described it, and to employ that mastery in the service of deep thought, rich action, and wide-awake living.”

Maisel enumerates six principles of creative mindfulness, including:

“Fearlessly observe your thoughts. All of your excuses, all the ways you unhinge yourself, all of your dodges, all of your secret complaints and sources of pain, are right there in the thoughts you are thinking. Awaken to the knowledge of your own thoughts.

“Free your neurons, empty your mind, and ready yourself for creating. Ordinary mindfulness is the observation of thought. Creative mindfulness requires that you vanish, your mind hushed, so that your creative thoughts can appear. Open to an ever-deepening silence that is pregnant with your coming creative work.

From article: Mindfulness, by Eric Maisel, PhD.

Robert Genn on the confabulation of art

Douglas Eby — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 02:19:34 +0000

Painter Robert Genn notes a definition of confabulation is “the confusion of imagination with memory, and/or the confusion of true memories with false memories.”

In his article Marvelous confabulation, he writes, “Perhaps it’s only with the addition of confabulation that art delivers its wizardry and magic.

“Early researchers, such as psychologist Daniel Berlyne (1972), linked confabulation with amnesia and abnormal brain chemistry.

‘Nowadays it’s more pleasantly harnessed to the marvelous potential of the human imagination. Fantastic and spontaneous outpourings of irrelevant associations and bizarre ideas come quite naturally to ordinary creative folks….

“Art without confabulation is the plain goods. Confabulatory enhancement can come from an idiosyncratic style or stroke, or from some happenstance slice from an individualist’s hand.

“It can also come from the brain. Ancillary ideas, metaphors and the embellishments of truth add interest and depth to otherwise standard work.”

Continued in article Marvelous confabulation, by Robert Genn.

To create we need high energy - not anxiety

Douglas Eby — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 05:58:00 +0000

There seems to be an enduring mythology about creative inspiration and performing as an actor, for example, that it benefits from an “edge” of nervous tension or even anxiety.

Creativity coach and writer Eric Maisel, PhD comments in our interview Ten Zen Seconds (about his new book) that this really is a false and distorting idea: “It isn’t at all clear that tension or anxiety is what’s needed for peak performance and lifelong creativity,” he says.

“They may be unavoidable by-products of the difficulties that we face as we try to do large things and connected to our fear of failing, fear of making messes and mistakes, and so on, but they are not beneficial per se.

“You want enthusiasm, passion, love, curiosity, interest, and so on to inform your work and to exist right in the moment, in the performance moment or the creative moment, while at the same reducing (or eliminating) your fears, worries, anxieties, and so on.

“Creating is not an energy-neutral state: it is a high energy state, with, at its healthiest, enthusiasm and not anxiety driving its engine.”
~~

Einstein and other non-conformists

Douglas Eby — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 03:07:00 +0000

In his Wired magazine article The World Needs More Rebels Like Einstein, Walter Isaacson notes that Einstein’s concept that “time is relative depending on your state of motion” had been explored by other scientists, who “had come close to his insight, but they were too confined by the dogmas of the day.

“Einstein alone was impertinent enough to discard the notion of absolute time, one of the sacred tenets of classical physics since Newton.”

Isaacson wrote the biography Einstein: His Life and Universe

Robert Ornstein, PhD, author of The Psychology of Consciousness commented, “If you spend too much time being like everybody else, you decrease your chances of coming up with something different.”

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.” Albert Einstein

That quote affirms one of the main values of non-conforming. It is in the book by Neuropsychologist David Weeks - Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness, and Weeks lists as other eccentrics William Blake, Alexander Graham Bell, Emily Dickinson, Charlie Chaplin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Howard Hughes.

One of Einstein’s characterstics, shared with many other eccentrics, was his “childlike propensity of the creative mind,” Weeks writes. Another example was artist William Blake, who was “often described by his contemporaries as being childlike.”

Weeks notes that a “good proportion of computer hackers are eccentric… Because of their innate ability to innovate and their penchant for the unorthodox, many young science jocks are are able to live a solitary, nocturnal life…”

Some of those aspects help support being creative, but can also fuel the ethical distortions and costly destructiveness perpetrated by some hackers.

Keeping an identity and staying comfortably eccentric as an adult can be a challenge, with so much social pressure to conform.

The book Gifted Grownups: the Mixed Blessings of Extraordinary Potential quotes researcher J.M.Tolliver, who has studied gifted and creative people, about the danger of not allowing non-conformity: “Of all the disservice we do our students, perhaps the most critical is demanding that they ‘fit’… we are intolerant of deviant discretions, expelling those who do not learn their (conformity) lessons well… A cynicism develops concerning the generation of ideas.”

Being childlike and eccentric can work very well as an artist and actor. Rex Lee plays agent assistant Lloyd on the HBO series “Entourage” - and says he has “always understood that I’m incredibly strange. And at some point in my life I decided that I really liked myself the way I was..” [More on The Inner Actor]

Cecil Beaton [1904-80; fashion and portrait photographer, and stage and costume designer] encouraged actively being non-comforming:

“Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.”

Related pages & posts on eccentricity / non-conformity
~~

Judy and Hilary Swank on courage

Douglas Eby — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 03:43:00 +0000

Exploring who we are, putting ourselves into places and situations that develop our talents and abilities, standing up to internal and external pressures that get in the way - all that takes courage, and dealing with fear in positive ways.

After being fired from her office job of nine years, Judy Swank initially felt despair at being able to continue supporting her daughter Hilary in her dream to be an actor, but decided to move to California, as she describes in her HuffingtonPost entry Journey Down the Road:

“Our grand adventure to Hollywood was the first time that I did the unexpected,” Judy Swank writes. “The first time I really took a risk. I had no money and could certainly be thought of as either extremely naïve or just plain crazy. But whatever was ahead of us, I knew we would figure it out.

“I did not come to this conclusion on my own. I gained this knowledge by watching my daughter. The most revealing thing I discovered was how much courage Hilary has. Some times when the door of opportunity opens, we spend too much time deliberating on whether to go through the door or not, all the while the door is slowly closing.

“Hilary’s youth and complete exuberance for what she’d chosen in life allowed her to be unafraid to take the risks involved in pursuing her dream… She followed her instincts. I had learned to believe in them. I completely believed in her.”

Hilary Swank said about her powerful role in “Boys Don’t Cry”: “I wanted to play the joy of living your life the way you want to. It’s a beautiful love story. And I think people are reacting to the fact that this was a person who had the courage to live life the way he wanted to. I think everyone wishes they could do that.” [Interview mag., April, 2000; photo from "Million Dollar Baby."]

She has also commented on trying to achieve your goals: “As in life, your mind can be the hugest obstacle or tool, depending on how you choose to use it. And I find that a lot of people who are successful in life say, ‘I can do this, and I will do this.’ Their minds don’t get in their way; whereas people who wake up and say, ‘Oh, I can’t,’ their mind is in their way, and it’s going to stop them from doing what they need to do to achieve their dream.” [imdb.com]

Arianna Huffington points out, “Fear is universal; we all have fear.” But, she adds in her book On Becoming Fearless, that some fears “do tend to be more prevalent among women than men, including fear of staying single; fear of imperfection; fear of failure; of ugliness; of loneliness; of growing old; public speaking; ridicule; being alone; getting wrinkles.” [From a Women and Talent post.]

Related post: Watch out for that comfort zone

Related Talent Development Resources pages:
Fear
Courage / confidence
Courage / confidence articles books
~~