God must have been *really* bored one day…

[ornoth]

Here’s the assertion: your brain wants a rough balance of activity and rest.

If your brain has to work really hard most of the time, it has a tendency to seek out quietude when it can. If you’ve ever worked in a high stress position, you know how precious “down time” can be. On the other hand, if your brain doesn’t get enough exercise, perhaps it becomes restless. Once you reach a certain level of boredom, you start looking around for things to occupy your mind.

Let’s start with that latter state. I’m going to kick around the idea that “creativity” (in general) may be a symptom of your brain looking for things to occupy it. If you have the spare mental energy to noodle on things and wonder about this or that, you’re more likely to produce stuff we’d call “creative” than if your brain is overwhelmed and working hard all day. No?

The reason why I say this is because I think that the converse explains some things I’ve seen in myself. When I’m slammed at work and putting in twelve-hour days, the last thing I can imagine is sitting down and writing a story or designing a web site, even when I happen to find myself with ample time on my hands. But those are exactly the things that motivate and excite me when I’m not challenged at work and there are few demands on my limited attention.

Is “creativity” a symptom of your brain searching for something interesting to do? Does intense, focused work sap your brain of the desire or the impetus to create? I’m curious about others’ experience.

I’ve struggled in recent years to justify my self-perception that I’m a creative person. I rarely find time these days to write fiction, take pictures, or design web pages, and when I do… I keep finding myself stymied by a complete lack of creative energy or inspiration.

Should I attribute that to creative burnout from a very stressful career? Or is it just that I have become less creative with age? Or should I resign myself to the idea that I’ve never been a very creative person, since even my prior successes were mostly derivative in nature?

Whatever the cause, these days my brain seems to be less willing to jump into creative pursuits, but very attracted to just turning off the internal discourse and letting my mind just rest.

Comments

[iniren.livejournal.com]

Hm. I definitely know what you're talking about, though I find your conclusions kind of... odd. I don't think creativity is facilitated by idleness. In fact, my personal experience is just the opposite!

I would say, that creativity thrives best in a state of relaxes balance. Just enough mental activity to keep you interested (and this level is different for everybody, of course). But also not enough to keep you so stressed that you're basically, to use an ornyism, a waste product.

Over the past several years, I've had a huge creative boom, which has been really great. For me, much of the process of "filling the creativity well" I think comes from suspending judgement very early on in the process. I think that's just a skill, like so many others, to practice and learn. I really enjoy the process of brainstorming, and will often come up with random fun ideas both for my coaching practice and for my artwork and jewelry at odd times. I've found it helpful to just jot things down, and then re-read them when I have the time and emotional space to act on them.

For you, I think giving yourself permission to some some judgement-free brainstorming would be a huge bonus for enhancing creativity. Then, of course, comes the discipline of actually doing something, but that process is a little different.

Curious to see what you think about this.

[somervillian.livejournal.com]

I think momentum is a key concept for me related to this topic. I think that creativity begets more creativity. Same with idleness, stress, etc. As iniren pointed out, you need a balanced mind (and a rested mind). Often the stressful lifestyle doesn't provide that.

On the few occasions where I've felt my work really challenged me creatively, I've found lots of energy for other creative pursuits.

[ornoth.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I hadn't really thought of that, but perhaps it makes sense. I think I had some of that momentum during art school. And I think my writing career has also been of that streaky nature. I'll think about that one some more.

[ornoth.livejournal.com]

Well, that's why I posted it. If I were just whining about not having the time or energy, that wouldn't be a very interesting post. But the idea that creativity is just your brain's expression of "nervous energy" is at least thoughtful, if not exactly the formula for world peace.

I think the word "relaxed" is key in your "relaxed balance" statement. Perhaps that's the part I'm missing. Although I'm a very laid-back person, I'm not very "relaxed" when it comes to writing or any art, because I'm so judgmental about it, always comparing myself.

Perhaps that's part of the problem. I have a well-educated, critic's eye, but I don't have the skill to create something that pleases that eye, to execute a project to the rules that I know chapter and verse as an observer.

Certainly the advice to suspend judgment is valid, and something I hear over and over again. But I don't think that's my only issue. The lifestyle certainly doesn't help, and that's what I'm struggling with now more than anything, but it's also just the way my brain works. I can't make up a bedtime story on the spot. My creativity is always something produced by struggling through a tortuous process. Unless it's a journal entry spurred by idle thoughts, or my Ornyesque brand of preformance art that is mostly just the result of random neurons firing.

Dunno. But thanks for contributing to the thread!