Fair’s Fair “For Book Lovers”

Creativity at the Zenith

Andreasen, Nancy. The Creative Brain: The Science of Genius.London: Penguin, 2005.

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper-Perennial, 1996.

I’ve been reading several books about Creativity including Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and The Creative Brain by Nancy C. Andreasen. Csikszentmihalyi gives several reasons as to why creativity plays an important function in our lives. He says that most of what is “interesting, important, and human” stems from creativity. He explains that without creativity “it would be difficult … to distinguish humans from apes” (2-3). He also notes that creativity is what makes us feel more “alive” than at any other time. Andreasen dates creativity back to the time of the “cavemen.” She notes that creativity is “the capacity to see something new that others cannot.” (2) Andreasen’s work gives considerable attention to neuropsychology, while Csikszentmihal’s is less scientifically driven. These are not books that one necessarily wants to read from cover to cover, although both are extremely readable. Rather, depending on one’s personal interests various sections are apt to stand out. If one is in search for the age old human question of “who am I and where do I fit in the world?” Csikszentmihal’s Chapter 3: “The Creative Personality” provides a useful discussion.

Csikszentmihal’s casts a favorable look at creative individuals. He states emphatically that “creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals” (51).He discusses luck, being in a particular location, and access to a field as useful to creativity. Most interestingly, he views creative people as being highly complex and goes on to discuss this “complexity” as the first main point in “The Ten Dimensions of Complexity.” He poses a question concerning complexity and answers it: “Are there then no traits that distinguish creative people? If I had to expess in one word that makes their personalities different from others, it would be ‘complexity’.” He further states that a “complex personality” does not imply neurtraliity (57). He says, “Rather it involves the ability to move from one extreme to the other as the occasion requires. These dichotomies play throughout the next nine dimensions of complexity.” These dimensions include the following:
1. Energy and the fact that energy is under the control of the creative person
2. Intelligence and Naivity: (Convergent and Divergent thinking is part of this intelligence.)
3. A Playful Attitude coupled with Persistence
4. Imagination and Fantasy but also “a rooted sense of reality”
5. Extroverted and Introverted at the same time
6. Humble and Proud
7. Escapes from “rigid gender stereotyping”
8. Rebellious and Traditional
9. Passionate and Objective
10. Openness and Sensitivity

These opposites within one person are often what is most misunderstood about creative people and yet likely what is needed to make the world go forward.

Other interesting sections of Csikszentmihaly’s text include viewing creativity during the various stages of life and a discussion on “enhancing personal creativity.” Andreasen’s The Creative Brain includes a number of mental exercises for strengthening creativity and brain function.

Mostly, these two texts give hope to the struggling poet, artist, writer, and scientist so often looked down upon by academia and by the general public. The creative mind is “a complex mind”, and it is the mind that drives the world to progress rather than allows it to become stagnant. Perhaps not everyone is born with a creative mind, although that is debatable, but people can work toward living a creative “alive” life by encompassing a variety of perspectives and by becoming more open to the world.

I give these books 5 stars and a bright moon. Further,there are hundreds of other useful ideas in them, well-worth exploring