Tag Archives: Writing

Creative people’s brains really do work differently

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” The common traits that people across all creative fields seemed to have in common were an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for complexity and ambiguity; an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray; the ability to extract order from chaos; independence; unconventionality; and a willingness to take risks.”

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Source: http://qz.com/584850/creative-peoples-brains-really-do-work-differently/
Written by Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Barry Kaufman

“What makes highly creative people different from the rest of us? In the 1960s, psychologist and creativity researcher Frank X. Barron set about finding out. Barron conducted a series of experiments on some of his generation’s most renowned thinkers in an attempt to isolate the unique spark of creative genius.

In a historic study, Barron invited a group of high-profile creators—including writers Truman Capote, William Carlos Williams, and Frank O’Connor, along with leading architects, scientists, entrepreneurs, and mathematicians—to spend several days living in a former frat house on the University of California at Berkeley campus. The participants spent time getting to know one another, being observed by researchers, and completing evaluations of their lives, work, and personalities, including tests that aimed to look for signs of mental illness and indicators of creative thinking.

Barron found that, contrary to conventional thought at the time, intelligence had only a modest role in creative thinking. IQ alone could not explain the creative spark.

Instead, the study showed that creativity is informed by a whole host of intellectual, emotional, motivational and moral characteristics. The common traits that people across all creative fields seemed to have in common were an openness to one’s inner life; a preference for complexity and ambiguity; an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray; the ability to extract order from chaos; independence; unconventionality; and a willingness to take risks.

Describing this hodgepodge of traits, Barron wrote that the creative genius was “both more primitive and more cultured, more destructive and more constructive, occasionally crazier and yet adamantly saner, than the average person.”

This new way of thinking about creative genius gave rise to some fascinating—and perplexing—contradictions. In a subsequent study of creative writers, Barron and Donald MacKinnon found that the average writer was in the top 15% of the general population on all measures of psychopathology. But strangely enough, they also found that creative writers scored extremely high on all measures of psychological health.

Why? Well, it seemed that creative people were more introspective. This led to increased self-awareness, including a greater familiarity with the darker and more uncomfortable parts of themselves. It may be because they engage with the full spectrum of life—both the dark and the light—that writers score high on some of the characteristics that our society tends to associate with mental illness. Conversely, this same propensity can lead them to become more grounded and self-aware. In openly and boldly confronting themselves and the world, creative-minded people seemed to find an unusual synthesis between healthy and “pathological” behaviors.”
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Will Rogers Wisdom

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Will Rogers, who died in a 1935 plane crash, was one of the greatest political sages this country has ever known.

Here are some of his excellent quotes that still apply today:

1. Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.
2. Never slap a man who’s chewing tobacco.
3. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.

8. There are three kinds of men:
The ones that learn by reading.
The few who learn by observation.
The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.

9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
10. If you’re riding’ ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it’s still there.
11. Lettin’ the “cat outta the bag” is a whole lot easier’n puttin’ it back in.
12. Everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else.
13. A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.

ABOUT GROWING OLDER….
First ~Eventually you will reach a point when you stop lying about your age and start bragging about it.
Second ~ The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.
Third ~ Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me; I want people to know ‘why’ I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way, and some of the roads weren’t paved.
Fourth ~ When you are dissatisfied and would like to go back to youth, think of Algebra.
Fifth ~ You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.
Sixth ~ I don’t know how I got over the hill without getting to the top.
Seventh ~ One of the many things no one tells you about aging is that it’s such a nice change from being young.
Eighth ~ One must wait until evening to see how splendid the day has been.
Ninth ~ Being young is beautiful, but being old is comfortable.
Tenth ~ Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it’s called golf.
And, finally ~ If you don’t learn to laugh at trouble, you won’t have anything to laugh at when you’re old

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Love for Oakland

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I’m so moved and saddened by the lives taken in Ghost Ship fire Friday night. When I first heard the story, I understood exactly what it was, because myself and many of my friends have attended gatherings like these many times around the Bay Area. They are exuberant, liberating, creative, inspiring and energizing events for the underground artistic community. To me, they are the heartbeat of the Bay Area, and communities everywhere. I’ve personally been inspired musically by attending these events.

But I wasn’t ready to start seeing the faces and hearing the back stories of the people that perished. I feel rocked to my core this morning; helpless and grieving for the young lives lost. To me, the artists, writers, performers and musicians of this world are hugely important and VITAL – especially as the world is becoming more conservative and protectionist. The world desperately needed to hear more from these brilliant kids, who had their whole lives in front of them.

You can read some of their stories here.

What can be said? What can be done other than to grieve? There is something each of us can do for the ones we lost. We can speak up. We can get disciplined and get to work. We can express ourselves. And we can DO OUR ART. I’m picking up my guitar today in honor of them.

 

David Bowie’s “Lazarus” Video Isn’t Just a Goodbye, It’s a Harrowing Warning

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“Do not waste any more time not expressing yourself.”

Excellent post by Jason Evangelho

David Bowie’s ‘Lazarus’ Video Isn’t Just A Goodbye, It’s A Harrowing Warning

“It’s staggering how differently a piece of art can be interpreted both before and after someone’s death. In the case of the late David Bowie’s music video for “Lazarus,” what may have been viewed as an innocuous 4 minutes of trippy entertainment turns into a disturbing, emotionally raw, premeditated goodbye letter.

I appreciate the impact “Lazarus” — and by extension the entirety of Bowie’s final album Blackstar — has and will have on his fans. We now understand that it was always meant as a final gift from Bowie to his fans.

But for me, that video is a warning.

There’s a scene about 3 minutes into the “Lazarus” video that’s difficult to watch. Scratch that, the entire video is difficult to watch now. Let’s call this scene harrowing. Bowie sits at a desk, frustrated and seemingly impatient to find the right words to jot down in the notebook in front of him. Suddenly a brief smile lights up his face and he begins enthusiastically scrawling on the pad in front of him.

A few seconds later, it’s as if Bowie is overwhelmed. He’s frantically writing now, face wrinkled in concentration, writing so furiously that his hand spills off the page and down the front of his desk.

To me, it’s screaming that Bowie had so much left to say. To contribute. To create. But time has run out.

There’s sage advice embedded here, a thinly veiled warning: Do not waste any more time not expressing yourself. Say what you need to say, boldly and without reservation. Nurture your creativity and don’t be shy about it. Stop constantly consuming and start creating before it’s too late, and that dark, mysterious wardrobe into nothingness consumes you.

Leave your mark. Start today.”

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