The Pillars of a Creative Life
In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s mind, it’s
the process of creativity that makes one’s life fulfilling.
In the 1990s, he interviewed 91 of the most
successful people on Earth (including 14 Nobel Prize winners), from various
disciplines, to uncover what it is that made them different.
As an accomplished psychology researcher
himself, he knew that meaningful, creative work is high on the list of human
needs, but there hadn’t been any great, systematic attempts at undressing what
exactly such work may look like. That’s, of course, until his famous study.
After months and months of interviews and
observations, Csikszentmihalyi and his team of researchers brought together
everything they had learned and compiled it for comparison.
In such a broad mix of people – from artists
to scientists to politicians – naturally, they found differences here and there
but, at the same time, they also uncovered many similarities.
In every single case, for example, as he had
predicted, the people cited their work as one of the core joys of their life.
He also noted the importance of many things that now seem obvious – things like
long-term perseverance, discipline, attention, and curiosity.
They all took great care to manage their
health and energy, and each of them had learned to create a consistent personal
rhythm and work environment through years of trial and error.
There is a chapter at the end of his book
(based on the study) that narrows it down to ten key similarities possessed by
them all; many that you would expect, a few that you wouldn’t.1
That said, the most interesting thing about
the whole experiment is the conclusion that Csikszentmihalyi presents as to
what creativity is and the pillars that hold it up as it works.
Contrary to popular belief, creativity isn’t
just artistry alone, and nor is it solely about the qualities a person possess.
It’s a way of life, one that has specific inputs and outputs.2
Creativity As a Product of Complexity
As we go on living, all of us change and
adjust how we see reality. Your belief system in late-adulthood is likely to be
very different from the one you held in early-adulthood.
This aligns with the message coming out of
the literature in adult developmental psychology. Often, as we experience more,
we slowly alter our interactions with the world around us.
In spite of this, however, one thing that
most adults have in common is that there is a certain consistency in how they
operate at any given point. You may have believed one thing in your 20s and now
a contradictory thing in your 40s, but you didn’t believe them at the same
time.
But in roughly 1% of the population, what we
find is that they are at a stage of development, which is usually the final
stage, in which they live in a complex and contradictory manner.
It’s less about one extreme or another, but
more so, it’s about knowing and balancing both of them at the same time and
using whichever one is the most relevant at any given point.
The core input requirement for creativity that Csikszentmihalyi
found across every person he interviewed was that they were all complex and
contradictory people in this precise manner. Even beyond their surface-level
similarities, this was the trait that connected everything.
They were both humble and proud at the same
time. They were rebellious, but they were also conservative. They were not only
passion-driven but also results-driven. They valued the role of discipline
while also leaving room for random play. Each thing had its place.
This diverse complexity is what gave them the
foundational tools to do new, original, and innovative work. They could attack
their problems from a variety of angles as they needed.
In the life-long process of creativity, the
inputs you bring to the table heavily inform the outputs that are produced.
They define the range in which you are capable of operating.
To do interesting work, you have to be
interesting. To produce complexity, you have to live it.
Meaning Is in the Intersubjective Reality
One of the distinctions
that Csikszentmihalyi is quick to make is between lowercase-c creativity
and capital-C Creativity. The latter being what he was trying to define
concretely.
Lowercase-c creativity is the art of making
connections between previously unconnected things. It’s something everyone does
all the time. In this way, each one of us is creative.
Capital-C Creativity, however, is what
distinguishes the people he had isolated for the study.
Great creative achievement isn’t just a
product of doing new and innovative work in your own domain, or merely making
original things for yourself, but it emerges as you disrupt culture.
What makes something meaningful is the
relationship it has to other things. While doing good work in your own domain
may be objectively relevant, and making something great for yourself may be
subjectively important, meaning is only found in the intersubjective realm.
The intersubjective is neither objective or
subjective. It’s the world of collective ideas that drive our cultural
direction. It’s the realm that shapes what we value and what we believe.
For something to be considered capital-C
Creative, it has to satisfy all three of these criteria: objectively important
in your domain, subjectively valuable to you, and intersubjectively meaningful
in a way that influences how society and its people operate and live.
This output into culture is why almost all of
the subjects in the study found their work fulfilling.
There is no point, for example, developing a
life-saving vaccine that stays in a lab. Similarly, writing a philosophy that
alleviates spiritual suffering is limited unless others connect with it.
A truly creative life is as much about other
people in the world and what they gain from your work as it is about how it
makes you feel and what it accomplishes in the eyes of your peers.
All You Need to Know
Is the process of disrupting culture the only
way to combine a life of creativity and fulfillment?
Only if we narrow our vision. While it’s nice
to appreciate how certain models understand achievement and the way it
interacts with the rest of us, they contain only a partial truth.
Although not all of us will live a life that
produces something we consider capital-C Creative, we can all use this
definition to help us enhance our lowercase-c creativity in daily affairs.
There are important lessons to take away from
the two pillars we have identified and the way that they relate to fulfillment;
lessons that are easily applicable to our own work and hobbies.
They are a reminder that it’s okay, and even
beneficial, to embrace the complexity that comes with balancing contradictions.
When you can see opposing extremes in a way that does them both justice, you
allow a diverse range of inputs that open up new possibilities.
Similarly, when you look beyond just the
objective results produced in your own domain or the subjective personal joy
you gain from creation, a whole new world invites you in.
There is profound meaning that can be created
in our intersubjective reality, in both big and small ways. As soon as you
share your creativity outside of the limitations of your domain and your
personal space, there is unbounded potential in the connections that are
available.
Many people, by default, don’t see themselves
as creative because they treat it as some mysterious force they don’t possess.
But in truth, it’s just a matter of living and expressing.
You don’t need to chase a creative life to be
fulfilled. You just need to avoid being boxed in.
ZAT RANA
https://designluck.com/creative-life/
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