To Be More Creative, Cheer Up(nautil.us)
nautil.us
To Be More Creative, Cheer Up
http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/to-be-more-creative-cheer-up-rd
45 comments
As someone with clinical depression and who is also a writer: this is purest self-fulfilling, self-indulgent bullshit, and exactly the kind that kept me bound to my own illness for over a decade.
Depression does fuck all either way for creativity, but what it is very good at doing is making sure you're afraid to be rid of it lest you lose that, all the while actually serving to make every creative act an uphill battle you will probably lose. Getting out from under that rock produced the finest and most productive creative phase of my life.
The myth of the tortured artist is one of the ugliest in modern culture. Go look at the lifestyle indulging that produces, and tell me that's a good route to creativity with a straight face. Because I will grant it one concession: guilt and self-recrimination can indeed be a pretty powerful quality control measure, but it is also a short jaunt from there to self-destruction and even suicide. Hemingway drank himself to death. Woolf drowned herself. I'm pretty sure you could lose count inventorying the lives of musicians who've spiraled down that hole.
As far as I'm concerned, this romanticism for depression is no less destructive and unhelpful than "pro-ana" boards; it is an enabling fiction for the mentally ill, and nothing more.
Depression does fuck all either way for creativity, but what it is very good at doing is making sure you're afraid to be rid of it lest you lose that, all the while actually serving to make every creative act an uphill battle you will probably lose. Getting out from under that rock produced the finest and most productive creative phase of my life.
The myth of the tortured artist is one of the ugliest in modern culture. Go look at the lifestyle indulging that produces, and tell me that's a good route to creativity with a straight face. Because I will grant it one concession: guilt and self-recrimination can indeed be a pretty powerful quality control measure, but it is also a short jaunt from there to self-destruction and even suicide. Hemingway drank himself to death. Woolf drowned herself. I'm pretty sure you could lose count inventorying the lives of musicians who've spiraled down that hole.
As far as I'm concerned, this romanticism for depression is no less destructive and unhelpful than "pro-ana" boards; it is an enabling fiction for the mentally ill, and nothing more.
This is exactly how I feel.
The worst trick depression plays on sufferers is to convince them that they're at least feeling something, and that if they cheer up they'll feel nothing. It's like being in an unhealthy relationship, with yourself.
The worst trick depression plays on sufferers is to convince them that they're at least feeling something, and that if they cheer up they'll feel nothing. It's like being in an unhealthy relationship, with yourself.
The article actually barely touches on positive thinking. The more important factor is divergent thinking. I suspect the article's title is designed to generate interest.
It's a stupidly misleading title.
It's a stupidly misleading title.
> Both are very famous examples of how depression can be creative.
That probably had more to do with their substance abuse.
That probably had more to do with their substance abuse.
We don't really know the full relationship between substance abuse and mental illness. There's a very well-known correlation between the two, but it's questionable whether the substance abuse causes mental illness or the mental illness causes the substance abuse. It's likely some combination of the two: the substance abuse aids the mental illness and the mental illness aids the substance abuse.
Or, you know, actual sensitivity and sadness for something causes both depression and substance abuse.
It's not like don't have things to be sad and depressed about, creative people doubly so.
Thinking it's all just chemicals gone bad in the brain is the fad of the day, like electroshock treatment for gays and ADD over-perscription in previous decades.
People are always conflating circumstantial pepression with "mental illness" but it's not the same.
Or, even worse, a lot of persons with circumstantial pepression prefer to think they have a "chemical imbalance" to get people to think they are absolved of any influence in the matter. Which is the wrong reason, because with circumstantial depression you also don't have much, if any, influence in the matter. It's not like you can reverse the loss of a love or failed ambitions, for example, and just rewire your psyche to not care about those.
(Doctors of course, eager to prescribe anything and with no time for subtle distinctions, easily assure them that they indeed have a "mental illness". There was a whole counter-culture movement in medical circles criticizing that in the '60s and '70s, with is sadly forgotten.).
It's not like don't have things to be sad and depressed about, creative people doubly so.
Thinking it's all just chemicals gone bad in the brain is the fad of the day, like electroshock treatment for gays and ADD over-perscription in previous decades.
People are always conflating circumstantial pepression with "mental illness" but it's not the same.
Or, even worse, a lot of persons with circumstantial pepression prefer to think they have a "chemical imbalance" to get people to think they are absolved of any influence in the matter. Which is the wrong reason, because with circumstantial depression you also don't have much, if any, influence in the matter. It's not like you can reverse the loss of a love or failed ambitions, for example, and just rewire your psyche to not care about those.
(Doctors of course, eager to prescribe anything and with no time for subtle distinctions, easily assure them that they indeed have a "mental illness". There was a whole counter-culture movement in medical circles criticizing that in the '60s and '70s, with is sadly forgotten.).
Not quite forgotten: http://www.theicarusproject.net
I think the implication was more that the substance abuse effected their creative output.
Whatever causes we claim after the fact for these people's condition, depression has been compatible with a high level of artistic creativity for many, many famous artists (out of laziness, I'll only add Kafka and Foster-Wallace).
I know that one isn't supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I refuse to take Kirsten Weir seriously by the title of this article alone.
"Are you depressed? Cheer up!"
"Are you in a wheelchair? Get up and walk around!"
"Struggling with money? Try not being so poor!"
The title of that article makes me unreasonably angry.
"Are you depressed? Cheer up!"
"Are you in a wheelchair? Get up and walk around!"
"Struggling with money? Try not being so poor!"
The title of that article makes me unreasonably angry.
So, you decided to read the article calling people to "cheer up" as something that is addressed only to depressed (and as such futile).
Because, really, it's only people who are depressed that don't cheer up, and nobody else is moody/grumpy with no reason and could use the advise, right?
Think of the second example you give: "Are you in a wheelchair? Get up and walk around!"
If the article had "Get up and walk around!" as the title (in the same way this has "cheer up") would you take it as addressed to people in wheelchairs?
What about all the sedetary people that sit in front of a PC or on their couch 24/7 but are PERFECTLY capable of getting up and walking around? The article would be obviously addressing them in that case.
So why read this title as addressing "mentally ill/chemically imbalanced" depressed cases?
Because, really, it's only people who are depressed that don't cheer up, and nobody else is moody/grumpy with no reason and could use the advise, right?
Think of the second example you give: "Are you in a wheelchair? Get up and walk around!"
If the article had "Get up and walk around!" as the title (in the same way this has "cheer up") would you take it as addressed to people in wheelchairs?
What about all the sedetary people that sit in front of a PC or on their couch 24/7 but are PERFECTLY capable of getting up and walking around? The article would be obviously addressing them in that case.
So why read this title as addressing "mentally ill/chemically imbalanced" depressed cases?
It's different! Not being creative isn't the opposite of being cheery. The assumption is that the reader may not see any connection at all between happiness and creativity, and that the association might provide some insight. Though if you're like me and are only happy when you are able to create things, I can see why you would be irked.
I honestly can't tell if you're trying to troll me or not. Is there any adult alive who hasn't at one point realized that being depressed might--just MIGHT--impact one's ability to be creative?
Again with "depressed".
Not being cheery is not the same as depression.
It's a super-set that includes depression cases as a small subset.
If only depressed people were moody and grumpy... We'd all be smiling and singing all the time...
Not being cheery is not the same as depression.
It's a super-set that includes depression cases as a small subset.
If only depressed people were moody and grumpy... We'd all be smiling and singing all the time...
"Unreasonably angry? Be reasonably angry!"
I know, I know, I just couldn't resist.
Kudos though, I concur with one's reaction to this I do.
That's my secret: I'm always unreasonably angry.
[turns around, hulks out, punches space worm]
[turns around, hulks out, punches space worm]
Made my evening, thankyou. :-)
You're welcome. If only I had more responses such as yours, instead of trolls (whom I refuse to dignify with an actual response). Oh well.
>Bilder offers up one last bit of practical advice: Just get your ideas out there—on paper, on canvas, out of your head.
This is why a lot of creative keep a "brainjuice" file full of half-cooked ideas they can later dip into. When you have some creative energy, its easy to just dump it out and then, later, when you're in a more sober and productive mood, start implementing those ideas in an effective manner. Or as writers say: write drunk, edit sober.
This is why a lot of creative keep a "brainjuice" file full of half-cooked ideas they can later dip into. When you have some creative energy, its easy to just dump it out and then, later, when you're in a more sober and productive mood, start implementing those ideas in an effective manner. Or as writers say: write drunk, edit sober.
This is exactly how I make music. There's three distinct steps, sound creation, arrangement, and mastering. Usually I don't spend more than 15-30 minutes on any one track and sometimes as little as 5-10. But I have a huge pile of unfinished work in various stages, some I never get back to, but some I finish happily enough. My key to creative happiness is to be entertained, engaged, and moving forward.
This is how I write my essays. Out of order. I toy with ideas, play with arguments. Lots of disjointed paragraphs in a single document. Then I step back, look at them, pick out my strongest points and stitch them together into a cohesive paper (dumping quite a lot of work along the way).
> dumping quite a lot of work along the way
As if your work were... say... evolving?
As if your work were... say... evolving?
As a 'creative' of many years (not all of them public), I have folders and folders of dead ideas I never used, many of which I agonized over for weeks and even months to no actual productive end.
Kurt Vonnegut famously said that the reason he invented Kilgore Trout and his stories was that he loved coming up with the short little SF parables, but that writing them out was just rubbish and usually not as good as the core moral itself.
That said, you can do yourself a lot of harm dwelling on never-finished ideas; at some point you have to learn to buckle down and commit to something. You'll never finish a thing, until you finish your first thing. But once you do, you'll finish another and another, and you'll keep finishing things only as long as you keep finishing them.
Kurt Vonnegut famously said that the reason he invented Kilgore Trout and his stories was that he loved coming up with the short little SF parables, but that writing them out was just rubbish and usually not as good as the core moral itself.
That said, you can do yourself a lot of harm dwelling on never-finished ideas; at some point you have to learn to buckle down and commit to something. You'll never finish a thing, until you finish your first thing. But once you do, you'll finish another and another, and you'll keep finishing things only as long as you keep finishing them.
I have the exact same struggle. I have boxes of unfinished art, folders of unfinished writing, and repos of unfinished programming projects.
I read a great quote from Steve Jobs years ago and it has definitely impacted the way I work now:
We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done.
Right now I have one project. It's hard to just have one because I'm constantly bombarded with new ideas I want to pursue. But it's the only way I actually have the chance of finishing something.
I read a great quote from Steve Jobs years ago and it has definitely impacted the way I work now:
We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of many of the things we haven't done as the things we have done.
Right now I have one project. It's hard to just have one because I'm constantly bombarded with new ideas I want to pursue. But it's the only way I actually have the chance of finishing something.
Counter examples (a few):
Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Larry David, Kafka, Schubert, Heraclitus, Beckett, Beyonce, William James, Henry James, David Foster Wallace, Winona Ryder, HP Lovecraft, Mozart, Oppenheimer, Rilke, Celine, Faulkner, Baudelaire, Newton, Nietzsche, Rachmanioff, Craig Ferguson.
One of the main thrusts of the article, that incubation of ideas often occurs during divergent thinking, does not entail that one must be in a cheerful mood (in fact, one could view many forms of depression as extended periods of divergent thinking), despite the study referenced therein, which claims "People are more likely to maintain broader attention and solve problems when they’re in a positive mood." Moreover, the studies represent data on a statistical average (and probably apply largely to settings conducive to such studies, like sorting blocks, or playing Jenga in a novel way), while many historical examples of creative minds suffered prolonged periods of depression.
Finally, I wonder, how many man-hours have been wasted on clickbait?
Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Larry David, Kafka, Schubert, Heraclitus, Beckett, Beyonce, William James, Henry James, David Foster Wallace, Winona Ryder, HP Lovecraft, Mozart, Oppenheimer, Rilke, Celine, Faulkner, Baudelaire, Newton, Nietzsche, Rachmanioff, Craig Ferguson.
One of the main thrusts of the article, that incubation of ideas often occurs during divergent thinking, does not entail that one must be in a cheerful mood (in fact, one could view many forms of depression as extended periods of divergent thinking), despite the study referenced therein, which claims "People are more likely to maintain broader attention and solve problems when they’re in a positive mood." Moreover, the studies represent data on a statistical average (and probably apply largely to settings conducive to such studies, like sorting blocks, or playing Jenga in a novel way), while many historical examples of creative minds suffered prolonged periods of depression.
Finally, I wonder, how many man-hours have been wasted on clickbait?
A lot of nice information in the article. I think people can be more creative than they realize if they (1) legitimize associative thinking (this is what I translate "being uninhibited" to mean) and (2) insist that they have a basic capacity for being creative. Creativity often does not come immediately when you want it, so (IMO) when it does not, you have to insist you still have the capacity rather than treat that as a failure and give up.
http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-creat...
Just above in the news someone posted an article about being more creative when sad. Which one is wrong?
Just above in the news someone posted an article about being more creative when sad. Which one is wrong?
Feeling sad can motivate you to try things to make yourself happy.
Feeling happy can motivate you to try things that make you happy.
Feeling happy can motivate you to try things that make you happy.
What is the difference between yourself and you? I don't see any
> Which one is wrong?
Yes.
Yes.
To cheer up, fix your environment. (And your health.)
Most of the unhappiness I've encountered has related to poor environment. Wear and tear over time brought on increasing poor health -- another significant factor.
Meantime, I had people telling me I simply needed to "adapt". Consistently, I was supposed to change in order to meet their goals.
It was the rare person who simply took me as I am and genuinely sought to work with that to mutual advantage. Those people and occasions were some of the most productive of my life.
A consequence of all this, is that I tend to think quite poorly of most prescriptive advice. When people are all busy talking at you, they're hardly ever actually listening to you.
Most of the unhappiness I've encountered has related to poor environment. Wear and tear over time brought on increasing poor health -- another significant factor.
Meantime, I had people telling me I simply needed to "adapt". Consistently, I was supposed to change in order to meet their goals.
It was the rare person who simply took me as I am and genuinely sought to work with that to mutual advantage. Those people and occasions were some of the most productive of my life.
A consequence of all this, is that I tend to think quite poorly of most prescriptive advice. When people are all busy talking at you, they're hardly ever actually listening to you.
Also on Hacker News home page: "Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915681
Well, which is it?
Well, which is it?
Decent article. Appalling title. There was essentially only one paragraph that dealt with the importance of a positive mood on creativity. The article outlined many other more important factors.
In other news: (same HN page)
Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative (wired.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915681
Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative (wired.com) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915681
Also, being bored makes us more creative: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915371
From those results we could make one of three conclusions:
* Any sufficiently strong emotional response inspires creativity
* Different people respond to different emotional queues and the studies had samples of people biased in different directions
* It is all a load of bunkum.
From those results we could make one of three conclusions:
* Any sufficiently strong emotional response inspires creativity
* Different people respond to different emotional queues and the studies had samples of people biased in different directions
* It is all a load of bunkum.
http://nautil.us/blog/how-meaning-withdrawal-aka-boredom-can...
http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-creat...
Clearly everything boosts creativity
http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-creat...
Clearly everything boosts creativity
>> After all, creativity may be the key to Homo sapiens’ success.
Unlikely. Creativity in this context is only useful when it's about problem solving. Otherwise it's about art at most. And problem solving may or may not be creative. Point - problem is gone, everyone can move on.
Unlikely. Creativity in this context is only useful when it's about problem solving. Otherwise it's about art at most. And problem solving may or may not be creative. Point - problem is gone, everyone can move on.
One thing the article gets right I believe is that highly creative people are annoying, almost psychotic individuals. It can't be otherwise. If they cared what other people thought as much as the rest of us do they'd self-censor their ideas.
Didn't reads the article yet, but it seems ironic that the front page currently contains three articles :
"Feeling sad makes us more creative", "How boredom can boost creativity", and this one, "To be more create cheer up".
"Feeling sad makes us more creative", "How boredom can boost creativity", and this one, "To be more create cheer up".
This article reminds me why I don't like working in a busy office. For me, it's very hard to get into divergent thinking mode with other people around.
TLDR; drink.
And with this added element, we got the missing link between "To Be More Creative, Cheer Up" and "Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative".
On one hand, drinking will cheer you up. On the other hand, it will also make you feel miserable.
Add to that the fact that boredom is one of the top reasons to drink and we have a link with "How Boredom Can Boost Creativity".
To quote Bukowski: "That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen."
On one hand, drinking will cheer you up. On the other hand, it will also make you feel miserable.
Add to that the fact that boredom is one of the top reasons to drink and we have a link with "How Boredom Can Boost Creativity".
To quote Bukowski: "That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen."
I think both depression and exuberance can be creative, albeit creative in different ways. Exuberance is very good for, as the author notes, divergent thinking. You simply have the ability to come up with so many positive possibilities. Depression on the other hand is very converging. You just know for sure that something bad is going to happen.
EDIT: I should add that Hemingway at least was likely bipolar. So it may very well be that he's a good example of how both depression and exuberance can be creative.