Cleese on Creativity

John Cleese has some interesting things to say about creativity here, at #9 from this link by 99U. What he says is that creativity isn't a talent; it's a way of operating. It's a way of getting one's self in a particular mood, a mood of play. He goes on to advise that play must be separate from regular life with regards to both time and place, that an oasis of time and space must be created in order to ... well, create. Then he reveals that research finds that the longer a person is willing to play with a problem, to put up with the anxiety of having not solved the problem, and to not go with the first easy solution, the more creative the eventual solution will be.

This video is a little more than 30 minutes long, but it's well worth it to listen to the whole thing.

Video Recommendations

So I've had a little time to watch some of the videos I linked to earlier this week, and am ready to recommend a few.

From this link, try video #2, by radio great Ira Glass, about the gap between recognizing what is good and being able to create at this level yourself, and how not to get discouraged in the years of work that it takes to bridge this gap.

Also try video #7, by best-selling memoirist Elizabeth Gilbert. I didn't like her most recent book, Eat Pray Love, myself, but I loved this speech about re-envisioning the creative genius in a way that takes the pressure off artists, by imagining that creativity springs from outside the self rather than from within--an idea that on its surface I would expect to find repulsive, but in fact, after hearing her explanation, find really refreshing.

I haven't finished watching, so there may be more recommendations later.

10/11/12

It's 10/11/12 today in Japan -- tomorrow in the USA.

Enjoy!

Creativity Videos

The blog 99U has "10 (More) Amazing Videos About the Creative Process" here. I haven't watched them yet, so I'm not exactly recommending them (though I've appreciated previous posts from this blog). I'm actually just putting the link here so I can find it when I do have the time to watch these.

If you get to it before me, let me know what you think!

Unblocking Creative Block

Here's what writer Douglas Rushkoff (over at Brain Picking's review of Alex Cornell's book Break Through!: Overcome Creative Block and Spark Your Imagination:) has to say about writer's block:

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I don’t believe in writer’s block.

Yes, there may have been days or even weeks at a time when I have not written — even when I may have wanted to — but that doesn’t mean I was blocked. It simply means I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, as I’d like to argue, exactly the right place at the right time.

The creative process has more than one kind of expression. There’s the part you could show in a movie montage — the furious typing or painting or equation solving where the writer, artist, or mathematician accomplishes the output of the creative task. But then there’s also the part that happens invisibly, under the surface. That’s when the senses are perceiving the world, the mind and heart are thrown into some sort of dissonance, and the soul chooses to respond.

That response doesn’t just come out like vomit after a bad meal. There’s not such thing as pure expression. Rather, because we live in a social world with other people whose perceptual apparatus needs to be penetrated with our ideas, we must formulate, strategize, order, and then articulate. It is that last part that is visible as output or progress, but it only represents, at best, 25 percent of the process.

Real creativity transcends time. If you are not producing work, then chances are you have fallen into the infinite space between the ticks of the clock where reality is created. Don’t let some capitalist taskmaster tell you otherwise — even if he happens to be in your own head.

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Writer Michael Erard, quoted in the same review, questions the metaphor we use: "... block implies a hydraulic metaphor of thinking. Thoughts flow. Difficulty thinking represents impeded flow. This interoperation also suggests a single channel for that flow. A stopped pipe. A dammed river. If you only have one channel, one conduit, then you’re vulnerable to blockage."

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Which brings me to this (seemingly unattributed) article over at Good, entitled "One Way is Not Enough: Why Creative People Need Multiple Outlets."  The writer notes "...increasingly I've realized that for people like me, one creative outlet isn't enough. The most interesting, creative people I know express themselves in a variety of ways. I call this practice informing practice ..." 

Furthermore, (s)he finds that "The key is finding a form in which the final product matters less than in my professional work..." because "Without the need to produce a polished project because I'm on the clock, the creativity process feels more fluid. I explore more ideas more freely and don't feel the pressure to turn them into complete package."

Although the author doesn't currently engage in multiple forms of creativity, (s)he asserts that "Finding a secondary creative outlet would allow my creativity, not my craft, to define me. "

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Creativity can be found in writing in more than one form, in managing your life problems creatively, in tweeting brilliantly. Or in trying a new art form altogether. In letting our creativity, not our craft, define us. I can't help but think that would also be good for our craft, "practice informing practice." We who have so little time to follow our primary creative interest will need to be creative in finding out secondary creatives interests, but here's what I think: even thinking about how to do this is a start to creativity.