Are you a truly creative person?

and

Not really. Big deal. Who cares?

So now I work for the government.

I paint, too, and I'm still trying to articulate how I feel about that, since I've been doing it for less than a year. It's something I could do when I was too manic to write, but I'm medicated now for my bipolar whoosis, so that's rarely an issue. Painting, and webcomics, and very rarely music, have been ways to clear out the leftover creative energy which I can't seem to put into writing.

I have a cousin who, for years, struggled in vain to leave a creative mark in the field of music... Finally, he just accepted that it's probably not in him. He was quite edgy and bitter over that for awhile, particularly toward any musician friends of his who WERE enjoying some small level of success. But I suppose it's mostly behind him now...

It's strange, isn't it? Some creative people have "the spark" and others lack it, even though they may actually be more talented than those who get recognized...

or maybe fifties.

I had a great idea for a book recently - a list of people who were zeroes until they were old. Like Joseph Conrad, and stuff.

If you're lacking the skills to begin with, though, there's really not much one can do. The whole basis of hatred between me and an ex of mine, besides typical "You suck"/"No you suck" differences was that he wanted SO BADLY to be creative, and just wasn't--kind of like how you said your friend just realized it wasn't in him?

Though that being said I don't consider criticism a creative sport and that's what he enjoyed most??? Is it wrong to think criticism (movie/film/book) isn't creative?

I guess I always wanted to be a good photographer and I'm really terrible at it. This is why I take so many pictures.

Also, what exactly is creative anyway? Like I said above about criticism, some people probably consider that a form of creative writing. If you are a fiction writer who writes semi-autobiographical stuff, is that creative? Why is, like, an inventor not listed as "creative"?

This post: the result of a lot of coffee.

**I probably shouldn't admit this, but as Ally says, I gots mad skills, yo.

Millar i wouldnt mind hearing/seeing your stuff

I'm not a creative liar, incidentally. I can do it, but generally I'm all like, "Hey, yo, I'm dating three guys, live with it bitchuz!" Generally they don't decide to live with it but that's all good.

Everyone knows that the person who made this is the most creative person ever anyway.

I've always been completely obsessed by creativity.

When I was a student I often felt somewhat isolated and hated. Instead of drinking myself into oblivion I'd go and check books of clinical psychiatry out of the library, books about creativity. I'd tell myself 'You are isolated because you think in a different way from those around you.' (It's rather shameful to admit this, but it made me feel better at the time.) Later, I made a conscious decision to stop pretending to think like other people, but instead to entertain them with my odd perspectives on things. Sometimes this worked, sometimes it didn't.

Some things I remember from the creativity literature I read (and I read a lot of it, Aberdeen University could get pretty depressing):

Creative people have an 'internal locus of evaluation'. In other words, they don't care what you think of their products, they make them for themselves ('and if other people like it, it's a bonus,' haha).

Creative people are usually more introverted than other people. No FAPping for these guys.

Creative people have a temperament which is 'desurgent'. They're gloomy bastards.

Intelligence and creativity are not the same thing.

They're rather high-minded and utopian.

They can come up with some sick uses for a paperclip. (Their responses in 'uses for objects' tests are fertile, incongruous, humourous, and often somewhat psychopathic.)

Creative people are often very much disliked by their teachers at school.

Creative people find and define their own problems, rather than solving the problems others set them.

They diverge 'up and out' from the initial 'brief' rather than converging 'down and in'. There is no 'one right answer'.

They idolise other creative people and think it's very important to be original.

(1) Tolerance of ambiguity
Can hold contradictory ideas in head for a while without needing to 'resolve' them

(2) Stimulus freedom
Will diverge from 'brief', will take detours

(3) Functional freedom
Will depart from practical goals

(4) Flexibility
Open to experience, change

(5) Risk-taking
There's nothing to lose! Art is where you can 'crash the plane and walk'.

(6) Preference for disorder
Like messy or asymmetrical stuff more than other people seem to.

(7) Delay of Gratification
String the game out longer!

(8) Freedom from sex-role stereotyping
Creative men are more feminine and creative women more masculine than average.

(9) Perseverance
If at first...

(10) Courage
To boldly go...

(11) Self-control
Don't come yet!

PS Martin you forgot 13) Skewing all psychology surveys towards oneself.

Aw man.

Ally, word and two muthafuckin' snapz up. Just because some self-styled critics dress up their worthless opinions in condescending bullshit doesn't change the fact that they're no different from the grandma working the cash register at the grocery store. Any idiot can stand in the corner with his arms folded and pick apart what others are doing. It's that simple. I've known a couple of self-styled Meltzers who contributed to online music rags, and they've both given me the standard Critic's Self-Justification Bit (i.e. "people need us to steer them toward the unheralded acts that otherwise would go unnoticed", etc.) but it doesn't change the rhetorical I pose to the critics of the world: If they weren't putting out the EPs and playing the concerts and writing the screenplays and filming the films... then WHAT THE HELL WOULD YOU BE DOING WITH YOURSELF??????????

I hope by the time I am in my late 40's or something, that I have seen enough of the world to finally create something unique.

depends on what kind of writer you are...

I think it is possible to be creative when it comes to non-artistic things, and the best chefs can even be artistic when it comes to their meals. Lord knows how I try to be that way when I'm serving up the things I make at home -- I will, for example, cook up a dinner of grilled lemon pepper fish, saffron rice, and sauteed fresh green beans, and will pile the rice in the center, arrange smaller pieces of fish around the rice, and surround everything with the green beans -- but I still have some years to go before I can make everything look as creative as some of the world's top chefs make their dishes look. And sure, those of us who are "artists of the kitchen" may not be considered true artistes, but we will never starve (!)

No really. I'm not kidding you. I can make a meal for three using the most barebones of ingredients. I have done that in the past, in fact.

My next goal is to be able to make the most fabulous homemade fettucine alfredo anyone's ever had. I think I'll be able to accomplish that in a year. (And yes, I'm talking about homemade right down to the pasta.)

And that makes me different from every other man how??

...And on and on, for too long.

But now it's morning in Britain. The British are coming. Are they are extremely cynical about this issue. Hello flowers! Hello trees! Hello Julie Burchill!

Here's the economic angle on the topic, from This Is Brighton and Hove (right next to 'Pets in the News'):

'Brighton and Hove has launched a major campaign to promote the city as a cultural destination and creative hotbed. Some people have dismissed the idea, saying the city should concentrate on causes such as reducing poverty or improving public services. But culture is fast becoming the lifeblood of Brighton and Hove and may be the luxury we cannot afford to be without.

Culture and the arts have not traditionally been considered as important as manufacturing or engineering. Theatre, concerts and art galleries were just there for pleasure and were not "real" industries. But the nature of the economy is changing and, in a city like Brighton and Hove, culture and creativity are now worth big bucks.

Cultural attractions from museums and arts festivals, to huge outdoor pop concerts attract visitors in their tens of thousands, bringing millions of pounds into the city. Each year, the city's reputation as an arts and cultural centre helps attract ten million tourists, who pump an estimated £380 million into the economy, more than any other industry.

According to Brighton and Hove City Council's economic development department, the creative industries have been responsible for the city's impressive economic performance since the mid-Nineties.'

This is the argument for creativity for people who only believe in money. It's a strong one. (Try substituting 'the USA' for 'Brighton and Hove' -- the number one US export is also its culture industry).

BTW, Brighton and Hove are very gay towns. So that's the argument for creativity for people who only believe in hardcore man-on-man sex action.

Douglas wins for exactly my problem! "I don't want to write or act! I want to sing and take photographs!" It is so lame.

oops, there are plenty, plenty, plenty of ILXor men who can vouch for my not-wanting-to-punch-them-in-the-nads behavior. I've only even smacked two of them, much less punched them in the nads.

*"we" as in society mass-brain collective-consciousness or whatever

Okay, um, I'm gonna get coffee now, and hopefully not click submit...D'oh!

(c'mon, somebody had to take this thread there)

Well spoken, Bush or Bin Laden or whatever your name is. It's a lot harder to build a tower / nation than to knock one down.

Creativity is vastly overrated, and in a way it is the ultimate selfishness. That is not a value judgement, it really comes down to what your opinions on selflishness vs. unselfishness are.

I would like to say something about the introver-bashing upthread. It is true that socialising is a SKILL which can be learned. But that does not negate introversion. At the end of the day, an introvert expends energy being around other people, and reserves/aquires energy by being along. This is very important, and it bugs the shit out of me that extraverts DO NOT UNDERSTAND the former part of that statement. Yes, introverts CAN be social, but if they are forced to be so ALL THE TIME, then it will exhaust them, both physically and mentally. It bothers me that many extraverts just cannot conceive of the need to be alone, and interpret it as some kind of willful rudeness. For an introvert, being forced to BE SOCIAL or BE ON all the time is as damaging as being forced to go without sleep.

I think that actually has a lot to do with creativity, actually. But anyway. It is breaking my relaxation and just winding me up making this post so I shall stop now.

If only! Our society values team players more than lone creatives who break the mold. We value distributors more than inventors. The person who takes stuff to the masses more than the person who brainstorms it. The commentator rather than the seer.

A lot of lip-service is paid to creativity, but when you look at the way creative people are actually treated (financially, in the classroom, in their working lives, in terms of exposure and backing) it's usually quite another story. The status quo resists all thoughts which threaten to turn accepted wisdom on its head -- precisely the kind of thoughts creative people want to think, whether it's Einstein ('Time is curved!'), Howard Schultz ('Coffee can sell at $3 a cup!') or Jason Pierce ('The feedback is the song!').

Were Einstein, Schultz and Pierce selfish for bringing relativity, Starbucks and dronerock on the world? I'd say 'driven' is probably a better description than 'selfish'. No matter what you think of their products, it would be hard to say their devotion to their work made the world a worse place or made them worse people, although they may well have disappointed their S.O.s by being up in the attic most of the time, unavailable for tickling and hugs.

if we're gonna say that truly creative ppl helped to create new concepts, say, then its always a risk that they will not be recognised during their lifetime.

But i also think that these people will not give a damn abt it.

How is breaking the mold a lonely pursuit by definition? This isn't a trick question, it's serious.

haha like when I listen to the radio!

Well spoken, Bush or Bin Laden or whatever your name is. It's a lot harder to build a tower / nation than to knock one down. < /lack of sense of humor, apparently>

The only common thing I find between all successful creative people - whether they have to take a shite job to finance their expression or not - is plain old non-quitter HARD WORK and no excuses made as to why hard work is not possible.

I consider myself to be creative in many ways. The only thing that can stop me, myself (right now) is mobility. Personal motivation is the key, I think: you can find a way to fulfil whatever drives you, if you enjoy doing it.

(All that made sense in my head, it did.)