Creativity :: Part 2: Where Have All the Genuises Gone?

:: WARNING: Super-long post ahead! I wrote this over a period of several days; if it takes you that long to read it, I will completely understand ::

It's been a lot time since my last post on creativity, so I thought I'd return again to posting a passage from one of my fave books, "Orbiting the Giant Hairball," by Gordon Mackenzie.

The very first chapter of the book deals with the loss of genius. He starts off with talking about the elementary school assemblies he visited, in which he showed the children a hobby of his, creating steel sculptures, and demonstrated how to make them. Each time he put on an assembly, he would ask the children in the audience how many of them were also artists. He says that the responses he got were always the same: In the first grade, all the children vigorously responded that yes, they too were artists. But the numbers diminished noticably as the grade number increased, to the point that by the time he reached the sixth graders, maybe one or two of the students would respond, and then only guardedly, as if afraid to be revealed as a "closet artist." That is where I will begin the chapter:

:: Chapter 1, pgs. 20-24 ::

I would describe to the sixth graders the different responses I had received from the other grade levels. Then I'd ask:

"What's going on here? Are all the artists transferring out and going to art school?"

(Ususally, in recognition of my little joke, the students would laugh.)

"Uh-uh. I don't think that's it. I'm afraid there's something much more sinister than that at work here. I think what's happening is that you are being tricked out of one of the greatest gifts every one of us receives at birth. That is the gift of being an artist, a creative genius."

They could reclaim their creative genius, I'd tell the students. It may not be easy, but it will always remain doable. We'll get further into that later on.

The point now is: Every school I visited was participating in the suppression of creative genius.

Why? Why would anyone want to supress genius? Well, it is not intentional. It is not a plot. Genius is an innocent casualty in society's efforts to train children away from natural-born foolishness.

There is a fool in each of us, you know. A rash, brash, harebrained, audacious, imprudent, ill-suited, spontaneous, impolitic, daredevil fool, which in most of us, was long ago hog-tied and locked in the basement. If you want to see a full-fledged fool in action, watch an undisciplined child. (The more undisciplined, the better.) Oblivious to concepts of appropriate behavior, driven by rampant curiosity and innocent lust. Raw genius, resolutely stumbling into hurt and wondrous discovery. Inspired, annoying, rapturous, petulant. The creative savage of our being.

Savages, fools, do not a society make. So we tame the little Yahoos. We teach them the meaning of the word "no." We teach them the benefits of boundaries. We teach them the value of learned lessons. When our teachings fall short, our society begins to unravel, and the quality of our culture declines. So tame, we must. But we have been slow to learn how to tame the Fool without also interring the Fool's innate creativity and inborn genius.

With the bath water, the baby is cast out.

The Diamond Cartel, which exists to keep as many diamonds underground as necessary to maintain the market value of diamonds at an artificialy high level, operates with as low a profile as it possibly can. It wishes it could be invisible, but, alas, its existence is known.

But! There is at least one invisible cartel: the Genius Cartel. Shall we expose it?

To endure, a society needs a vision of what it means to be normal:

NORMAL, a. [L. normalis, norma, a carpenter's rule] 1: of or conforming to the accepted model, pattern or standard. 2: not normal.

But creativity and genius have not so much to do with being normal as with being original:

ORIGINAL, a. [L. originalis, origo, origin or beginning] 1: having to do with an origin, source, or beginning. 2: never having existed before. 3: created or invented independent of already existing ideas or works.

Our creative genius is the fountainhead of originality. It fires our cumpulsion to evolve. It inspires us to challenge norms. Creative genius is about flying to new heights on untested wings. It is about the danger of crashing. It is amorphous, magical, inmeasurable and unpredictable.

Threatened by all of this, our society appoints its clandestine cartel to put a cap on imaginitive briliance.

As old as civilization, the Genius Cartel is an originailty-suppression agency that permeates our lives. It tyrannized Galileo into recanting the fruits of his own scientific genius. It handed Socrates a cup of hemlock, put a match to Joan of Arc, and fomented the crucifixion of Christ.

Among its collaborators, the cartel numbers lawmakers, lawkeepers, bureaucrats, clergy, teachers, parents, siblings, husbands, wives, lovers, co-workers, bosses, friends, acquaintances and total strangers. Anyone who, having surrendered to the status quo, has become adverse to change.

From cradle to grave, the pressure is on: BE NORMAL.

Those who somehow side-step that pressure and let their genius show are custimarily ridiculed, reviled or otherwise discountenanced. Small wonder that by sixth grade, hardly anyone will admit to creative genius.

But we need our genius to bail ourselves out of the messes we continually get ourselves into. So, individually, we must override the cartel, set aside our herd longing for security through sameness and seek the help of our natural genius. Yours and mine.

Having trouble with the idea of your own genius? My guess is that there was a time—perhaps when you were very young—when you had at least a fleeting notion of your own genius and were just waiting for some authority figure to come along and validate it for you.

But none ever came.

Of course not. It is not the business of authority figures to validate genius, because genius threatens authority.

But there is still hope. You are an adult now. As an adut, you can choose to become your own authority figure. As such, you will be in a position to redeem the creative genius in you that was put to sleep when the Fool was being tamed.

Reviving the creative genius in you is the beginning of Orbit.

::

Mmmmmmm, are not those words a balm for the soul?

I don't think they ever meant to, but in my childhood (and I'm sure in others' as well) the very people I thought were supposed to nurture and support my creativity in those formative years were the very ones who unintentionally let me down. For me, it was less my family, who were amazingly supportive of everything I did, than it was my teachers and peers, those unrelenting, unforgiving authority figures of youth. I'll give one example of a turning point from my own life.

In fourth grade, we wrote journals every week and our teacher would call on different students each week to share theirs. (I loved this teacher btw—she read to us the "Indian in the Cupboard" series, and made different voices for each character. I think I fell in love with the series because of her. The admiration I had for her made me value her opinion very highly.)

Well, as I child, perhaps because we got to visit the ocean or the Baltimore Aquarium a lot, or because I loved swimming and was on a swim team, I had a lot of recurring dreams about sea creatures turned monstroous in creepy enclosed pools. Instead of freaking me out beyond all reason, I was fascinated by these deliciously frightening dreams. Around this time I also discovered the magical literary worlds of Bill Brittain, as illustrated by Andrew Glass. I loved escaping to the world of Stew Meat and the devilish creatures that resided there. So my mind somehow melded these two pieces together, and I came up with a story. I conjured up a diabolical man who was recording down the greatest, most murderous traps he had made over the course of his life. Of course, those traps were the very ones I had seen in my dreams. The story was written as the journal entries of the man. At the end, I would reveal that he was writing these entries from prison; he was trying to feverishy record his masterpieces of malice, to pass on his genius before he was to be killed. (You could say I was channeling the macabre whimsy of Lemony Snicket or Tim Burton, I suppose, but this was long before Lemony Snicket existed or I even knew who Tim Burton was.)

So one day I decided to begin writing down the story that had been bubbling in my mind in my journal. I even remember drawing in the illustrations of what each torturous room looked like, since they were so vividly etched into my mind. I may have drawn the man himself, I think. That fateful day I was called upon to share my journal entry. Proudly, flushed with excitement, I stood up and began reading my story out loud. Perhaps it was the length of my entry, or perhaps it was from something else, but my teacher cut me off before I had finished reading. And when I looked up from my journal to see her face, my heart sank and the world momentarily stopped. The look she gave me—I can't describe it, but for a budding artistic child, the look was everything heartbreaking all at once. And I could see from my fellow students' faces that they thought I had gone mad. (Can you already tell that I was not the most popular of children in elementary school?) My feelings of pride over my blossoming story turned to abject shame and humiliation. I remember sitting down and wishing I could run far, far away. I rested my journal on my little desk, and as far as I can remember that was the first and last time I ever worked on that particular story.

Because I was such an independent and insular child, even then, I didn't go crying home to my mother to hug me and make it all better; that just wasn't in my nature, then or now. Looking back I wish that perhaps I had, though, because maybe she would have known just what to say to make the sting of the abject rejection I was feeling less painful. But instead, I burrowed into myself and internalized all of those swirling emotions, and this affected my willingness to make or share anything creative for a good long time. I was a budding poet, writer, and artist at the time, but a fear of being too creative, too abnormal had begun to take its hold on me, and began poisoning every artistic gift of mine it touched. I became afraid to explore the depth of my own creativity, to plunge my hand into those wells and see what I could find, in the way that every true, unfearing artist should. And when I shared anything artistic, even if I felt it was great, my fear overwhelmed my pride. I relate a lot to the boy in "The 6th Sense," whose feelings in the movie mirrored my own as a child: afraid of the reactions his class pictures got, the boy simply stopped drawing the pictures that fueled those reactions. But in both our cases, those pictures never truly left us.

(I hope anyone reading this is not thinking to themselves "wow, you are so stupid, how could you let one silly moment get to you like that? What a waste." But that is the point I think, that everyone along the way has those formative moments, and whether or not they appear stupid to an outsider, they are painfuly real and hurtful to the child experienceing them. Does not everyone have regrets from their childhood of times in which they let the feelings of others dominate their own will or good sense? Ye without shame cast the first stone, I think.)

I think the reason I love this chapter so much is because of what Mackenzie acknowledges: the need of all bruised artists to address past hurts and to re-validate their genius if they wish to heal. And I love his affirmation that the process of losing your genius can be reversed. A lot of those artistic gifts I once had in abundance as a child have since faded, by my own hand and to my own personal grief. But I do believe that if I choose to work hard at them, I will be able to get all those gifts back someday, if I wish to. (I have found new artistic loves along the way, like ceramics, but there are some old loves I would like to return to.) And as hard as it is to do, as an adult who wants to make a career out of being creative, I need to, and am working on, letting those moments of rejection fade from my psyche. Like Margot at the end of "The royal Tenenbaums," I am trying to rediscover the potential for genius I had as a child, and reclaim my discarded gifts. I hope that doesn't sound too optimistic or sappy, like an after-school special, because frankly life doesn't wrap up as neatly as it does on TV. But at least I've realized all this now, I suppose, while I can still do something about it, and try to avoid wallowing in regret when I turn 80 over the things I could have done or been.

In this era of the internet, I think has become easier for people to find communities in which to nourish their creative genius. Deviantart and web comics are great examples. It is not as difficult anymore to find people who share your vision and who celebrate the things you have to offer artistically. And that hopefully will lead to finding new, untapped ideas from people whose gifts would otherwise remain unshared. At least, this is the future I yearn for. =)

::

Another thought I had from re-reading Mackenzie, that I think would be good to bring up in this section and goes along with the cartel idea. but I'm not sure if I will get my true point across. Oh well, here goes nothing.

I believe that everyone has the potential for genius within them. But I think that we as a society incorrectly idolize a few select geniuses more than is healthy, thereby supressing the budding creativity of others and perpetuating the viscious cycle of the genius cartel.

Admit it, we as a society revere the creatives to no end; just look at the worship people give to artists like Shakespeare, Picasso, Einstein, Elvis, or J.K. Rowling, to name a few. (If you have seen Picasso at the Lapine Agile, you will know why I included Einstein; he too is an artist, albeit in a diferent way, and his contributions are no less great.) Do these artists deserve the praise they have garnered? Of course they do. But I think that the way in which we idolize them creates incorrect assumptions about the nature of genius in our society. By lauding them too greatly and by placing their acheivements on too high of a pedestal, we undermine our own ability to create equally great works. It generates the "Well, I never could have thought of that," or the "I'll never be that great, so why try?" kinds of thoughts that nip in the bud the potential genius of a lot of people. We assume they are geniuses because we don't know where to begin ourselves, so we just stop trying. (I suspect that many of the artists themselves promote this myth, because if we all became geniuses, the supply of genius would be greater than the demand, and those artists would lose their lucrative paychecks.) When we supress and undermine the genius inherent in us all, we, like the diamond cartel, cause a lot of the imagination in the word to go untapped. As a result, those who do manage to ignore the pressure of normality and who by luck, connections, or sheer determination get to present their creativity on a world stage are quickly heralded, and the vicious cycle of assuming that genius is given to a select few—rather then all of us—begins once more. (I think I may have overused the word "genius" a bit too much in this paragraph; my apologies.)

Case in point, which I've talked about before: when I was little I thought you had to have a natural artistic gift, apparent from day one, to seriously consider a career as an artist. I did not draw people very well, and it was implied to me that such a talent was born, not made. so I never tried to master the talent of drawing people, since I didn't think I could. Luckily for me, I had some good art teachers and a sis in costume design, that have since helped me realize that this is not the case at all. Elicia, bless her and all her gifts, has not been in the past the greatest drawer in the world, especially when it comes to people. But from her design classes, she has not only learned how to draw well-proportioned people, but has also learned how to make them come to life on the page. She has done this simply from the proper training and drawing figures constantly, not from some inherent knowledge of the human form. (Thanks to her stubbornness she has taught me not to be afraid to draw people anymore, hooray! Because you can't do manga and not draw people, for the most part.) And with my own design work, my stuff has improved immensely from the time I was a freshman. Most of my first designs are, to be kind, laughable; if I had dismissed my novice skills as proof of an inability to design, and erroneously believed that I couldn't learn how to design myself out of a paper bag, I never would have gotten to the level I am at. In portfolio reviews, there is a reason why you rarely see the artist's older works; it is because they improve so much, what was once considered acceptable is now embarassing.

I went to Elicia's portfolio review last night, where a lot of grad students presented their portfolios. One costume design grad student in particular interested me. She has won national collegiate awards for her designs, and her stuff looked great and very professional. A really sweet, unassuming girl. One of the profs said in her critique that he feels she has reached a level in her design skills where she can aggresively compete with any other designer nationwide for jobs and get them. (Because of his credentials I am inclined to believe him.) She got emotional when he said that (she is pregnant, so she joked that her tears were due to the hormones.) Anyway, she told all of the students there that were beginners in the theater program to just keep trying to be the best they could, to constantly work hard to improve, because she never imagined in the beginning that she could ever reach the level she is at now. (It sounded like she has been through a lot emotionally in coming to grips with her abilities, which I could relate to.) It was a very small little speech, but her words were so encouraging that I took them to heart.

She made me think of the oft-too-repeated (yet annoyingly true) quote by Edison that says, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." Or rather, genius is more the work you put into making the idea real than the idea itself. Flashes of inspiration that descend from the gods are a pretty picture, but in truth good ideas come from all the work—the research, the toil, the attention to detail, the sacrificed time—that their maker is willing to give.

So it is with all creative skills: we all have undiscovered genius within us, we just have to find it.

::

Speaking of creativity, here is an old but good link from the Gaping Void (this guy draws cartoons on the back of business cards, v. cool) where he posts his own advice on how to be creative and counteract those who would stomp on your creativity. A good, inspirational read. (Link found via Humid Haney's creative rants blog, like a year or so ago.)