Are you afraid of your Creative Genius? You aren’t alone. “Creativity is terrifying, in ways we lie to ourselves about it.”
According to the research Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Matt Richtel did for his book, Inspired: Understanding Creativity, A Journey Through Art, Science and the Soul, …” the most basic reason we resist creative impulses is more primal: New ideas scare the heck out of us.” Creativity researchers found that we have an “unconscious bias against creativity.” In fact, people seem to resist it and discourage it in others, particularly in their children. Creativity and creators can make people deeply uncomfortable. “Creativity requires confronting this fear. A small but growing body of neuroscience offers hope through concrete steps people can take to manufacture the environment and mental state in which to conjure creativity.”
How many of us live in an “if you just work hard enough and play by the rules, you’ll be safe, secure, and prosperous” culture? Capitalism forces conformity. So do authoritarian governments and places where there is scarcity and constant instability. The fear of creativity is deeply rooted in us. Richtel also introduces the idea that we are hardwired against risk-taking because it could result in death. Yikes, that’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?
But fear of one’s creativity is real for many people. Maybe you too.
Researchers found that religious people can ‘struggle to be creative because they subvert their ideas to the wisdom of an all-knowing God.’ Hmmm… Not so sure about this. I consider myself deeply religious, and I connect my creativity to the flow of inspiration from God. I would say that some people confuse rigidity and fear of wrath from an angry God (the one from the earliest part of the Old Testament) with faith. We can find many reasons to bind ourselves with rules, strictures, and rigid structures and call them religion, politics, etc. But in the end, I think we are just afraid of uncertainty, risk, failing, losing, looking stupid, and instability. All states are necessary to the creative process.
“People get locked into identities, narrowed by fear that interferes with natural creative impulses and limits our access to our own natural capacities. In some ways, this is quite understandable: the impulse to constrain and narrow is undeniable, and simple answers can help dull the feeling of the chaos of life around us. It might feel as if safety and rigidity provide sanctuary amid the ecstatic swirl of the twenty-first century.” Richtel acknowledges that he, too, “resisted creative impulses for years, scared of the multitudes within, resistant to them – a defiance that caused me to implode emotionally before finding my voice.”
Amen, brother! I did not follow the artistic path everyone from my childhood assumed I would take because I did not want to be a starving artist.
“Too many people adhere to the idea that they are not creative,” Dr. Lynne Vincent, Syracuse University. .. A big first step is “coming to terms with the fact that you are a creative person, and understanding what creativity means.” And maybe this is because we have these deep feelings of doubt and disgust about creativity? Could this be doubt and disgust about our own value? To me, our innate and unique is the most regenerative and vital life force.
In studies designed to capture people’s reactions before they could think about it, researchers found that people routinely register doubt and disgust regarding creativity. …Companies, research centers, leaders, and others “routinely reject creative ideas,” and teachers” dislike students who exhibit curiosity and creative things.”
“People actually had a strong association between the concept of creativity and the negative associations like vomit, poison, and agony,” Goncalo. This suggested to researchers that people say they like creativity, but they also like its stability. So when things feel unstable or uncertain, they are more likely to reject creativity because it suggests even greater chaos. “People want creativity and stability’” says education professor Jack Goncalo at the University of Illinois.
Creativity is threatening because it causes people to leave the moorings of their safe harbor of living by the rules so they can be culturally acceptable. If we claim, own and express our inherent creativity, we will relate to the world differently. We will live our lives differently in “what we listen to, watch how we interact with one another. Creativity changes long-accepted behaviors, technology, and basic social contracts. It can be wrenching.”
“Saying you don’t want creativity is like saying you don’t like hope,” says Goncalo. Creativity is our life force, it is our hope for the future. “Creativity is absolutely essential to everyday life, to language, to moving ahead, and no profound creative leaps would be made without the universal, quotidian advances.”
“The main cancer on this planet is that people don’t believe in their own light,’ Carlos Santana said. “We’re at the age of enlightenment, where we can put that nonsense aside,…the keys to the kingdom come from your imagination.“
We are all called to the courageous work of “overcoming doubt, embracing authenticity, allowing inspiration to bully obstacles, internal and external. …creativity inspires unconscious fear that starts early in life, which can be overcome only by a resolute faith in oneself, one step after the next.”
Life is uncertain. We cannot guarantee safety, security, outcomes, or stability in this life. But we can allow our creative sparks to fly. We can be prudent and still be creative. We can be mature and wise and still be creative. Our work can be a step toward a better world and future if we channel our creativity with purpose.
“What might indeed come across is the terrible, unspoken risk of failing to live up to expectations. This thinking, in turn, can limit a person’s desire to take risks. … The number one enemy of creativity is perfectionism. .. If you can’t make a mistake, you can’t take a creative risk.
Creativity is “intelligence having fun. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. Imagination is more important than knowledge; You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created.” – Albert Einstein.
And the rejection and discouragement you’ll face from others are real. But hold fast, and know that your work will mean something in the future. Impressionists were criticized for not knowing how to paint and being silly. Because they were groundbreaking in their use of abstraction, brushstrokes, and color, their work was disregarded. Now we think they were geniuses, and most modern art forms evolved from their willingness to paint ‘outside the box.’
“Creativity and inspiration are quite understandably scary in that creations can yield mixed and unexpected results.”
”Your odds of creating something others find meaningful increase if you feel the impulse to create and take the risk to go with it. “it you want to be creative, you can’t guarantee a solution in advance,” Simonton. “it’s true if you look at any creative genius Do know how many dead ends Albert Einstein went through. It was astronomical. – sometimes you make really, really horrible mistakes.” … The point is that creators persevere without knowing whether their pursuit will succeed. For many deeply creative people, creativity itself is the end game because the nature of the process is to venture into the unknown.”
“It helps to open the windows of perception and to believe that your imagination is the doorway to the future to you,” Santana says.
So persist, open the door of your soul and connect with your creative life force. Your unique perspective and work to bring your ideas and longings to life will save the world. Even if you can’t see how, your work matters.
All references are from Inspired: Understanding Creativity, A Journey Through Art, Science and the Soul. by Matt Richtel, 2022
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