The Creative Mind

Seventeen years after Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette has shaken off the title of pop's queen of angst. Her new album, Havoc and Bright Lights, is a thing of joy, writes Mark Sutherland.

Morissette began to suffer anxiety attacks, including one on a long-distance flight ("If you’re going to have one, mid-air surrounded by strangers is definitely the place to have it," she deadpans). Until that point, she had often visualised various career goals; clear mental images would come to her unprompted, but once success arrived those images dried up. "I’d always had these prophetic visions of what was next. I’d see myself touring or writing a book or whatever it was. "But after Jagged Little Pill the pictures completely vanished..."

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More quotes in post:

Alanis Morissette: Channeling rage and finding joy in creativity
http://talentdevelop.com/6083/alanis-morissette-channeling-rage-and-finding-joy-in-creativity/

In his book Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement [ http://amzn.to/qQyPqo ], psychologist Kenneth W. Christian, PhD talks about styles or patterns of thinking and behavior that we probably developed in school, and that solidify into ruts that can limit our fulfillment, achievement and creativity.

One example is a group of people he calls Extreme Non-Risk-Takers – who "focus totally on minimizing risk in their lives… because they try to avoid situations in which they could possibly fail, they gravitate toward occupations, relationships and activities that do not present serious challenges or reflect their real interests."

I experienced some of that pattern when I failed Organic Chemistry in college, and - in addition to the blow to my self-esteem - considered it a "message" that I was not meant to be a physician. Addled adolescent thinking, more than clear judgment.

[Photo: A man walks the tightrope in a remote mountain village in Russia.] Related post: Adult Underachievement: Kenneth Christian, Ph.D. on living up to the “gifted” label – or not
http://highability.org/72/

Quotes from my book "Developing Multiple Talents: The personal side of creative expression"
http://t.co/KqYN0ORZ

Psychologist Ellen Langer writes that pursuing creative expression may hold the key to finding meaning and fulfillment in the rest of our lives.

She notes some of what holds people back is fear: “As much as we’d love to play the recorder or write poetry, it’s easier and safer to put it off because we are afraid of making fools of ourselves. Of course, we know we shouldn’t worry about what other people think, but we do.

“Or when we actually give writing or drawing a try, the trying turns out to be more terrifying still, and we too quickly put our creative activity aside. Something interferes with just enjoying painting or playing an instrument for the pleasure it brings us.”

'The psychology of creativity–both empirical research and popular literature for the lay audience–misses this. It reduces creativity to warm showers and blue rooms, forgetting that the life of the eminent creator is not soothing; it is a struggle–a grossly uneven wrestling match with the muses.

For Gardner, eminent creators are locked into a Faustian bargain, in which fulfilling their vision comes at the cost of an otherwise fulfilling personal life:

"…the creators were so caught up in the pursuit of their work mission that they sacrificed all, especially the possibility of a rounded personal existence… unless this bargain has been compulsively adhered to, the talent may be compromised or even irretrievably lost. And, indeed, at times when the bargain is relaxed, there may well be negative consequences for the individual’s creative output."

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Book: Creating Minds: An Anatomy of Creativity as Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Graham, and Gandhi, By Howard E. Gardner. http://vsb.li/a8XKG1

The quality and intensity of fear we call anxiety can both motivate, or disrupt, creative expression.

"I don’t do anything anymore that feels safe. If it doesn’t scare the crap out of you, then you’re not doing the right thing.” - Sandra Bullock

Psychotherapist and mystery author Dennis Palumbo writes that “there is something to be said for accepting—and learning to navigate—the minor turbulences of life. I’m talking here about common, everyday anxiety. The jitters. Butterflies..."

In a NY Times article, Robert B. Millman, professor of psychiatry at Cornell Medical School, talked about the psychological dysfunction he identified as Acquired Situational Narcissism. He explains, "Psychoanalytic literature is filled with jargon about how narcissism happens really early, but I realized that given the right situation, it could happen much later. When a billionaire or a celebrity walks into a room, everyone looks at them." That might be just a description of leadership and charisma. The problem is when that attention changes the person. What happens is that they get so used to everyone looking at them that they stop looking back at others, he says.
- Quoted in my book Developing Multiple Talents: The personal side of creative expression
http://t.co/KqYN0ORZ
- Photo from my Inner Actor site post: Scarlett Johansson and Eric Maisel on stage fright
http://talentdevelop.com/1691/scarlett-johansson-and-eric-maisel-on-stage-fright/

By Orna Ross. 'When you set out to create something, the conventional self sets off fear alarms within, in the form of resistance and self-sabotage. Stephen Pressfield’s book Turning Pro, talks a lot about this tendency, which he calls resistance, in terms of the “shadow self”...'

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Book: Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life's Work, by Steven Pressfield. http://vsb.li/bzqK0G

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One of my related posts: Dancing With Our Shadow to Develop Creativity

http://blogs.psychcentral.com/creative-mind/2011/01/dancing-with-our-shadow-to-develop-creativity/

Trusting Your Creative Self;

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"I don’t like emotions… For some reason I’m more comfortable in imaginary circumstances." – Actor William H. Macy

One of our primary tools as a creative person is imagination. But in his book "Stumbling on Happiness" Harvard psychology professor Daniel Gilbert proposes that imagination may directly impact our sense of happiness in limiting or distorting ways.

Meghan Daum writes in her column "Goodbye to you, Mr. Smiley" [Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2006] that the book suggests "happiness is largely an anticipatory experience… we spend much of our time not so much experiencing pleasure as thinking about future pleasure and taking steps to ensure its attainment."

From the "Imagination, creativity, happiness" section of my book "Developing Multiple Talents."
Kindle - http://t.co/KqYN0ORZ
Website - http://developingmultipletalents.com

Many artists talk about using their intuition, exploring identity and being authentic, and how fear and anxiety impacts their creative expression.

Cameron Crowe: “Do you have a little voice inside you that you trust?”

Emma Stone: “Yeah, definitely. The gut—that’s the loudest speaker. My gut never stops talking to me—unless I’m really tired with jet lag."

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But Linda Kreger Silverman, Ph.D. (of the Gifted Development Center) notes, “Higher education indoctrinates students to think logically and skeptically and to dismiss intuitive information..."

Creativity coach Eric Maisel, PhD says, "Negative obsessions are a true negative for everyone, but most creators — and all would-be creators — simply aren’t obsessed enough. For an artist, the absence of positive obsessions leads to long periods of blockage, repetitive work that bores the artist himself, and existential ailments of all sorts." -- From his article: In Praise of Positive Obsessions. Quoted in my book Developing Multiple Talents: The personal side of creative expression http://t.co/KqYN0ORZ

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Photo from post: Creative obsessions: Adam Savage and Stanley Kubrick
http://talentdevelop.com/1554/creative-obsessions-adam-savage-and-stanley-kubrick/