50 Psychology Classics (15 page)

Before turning his mind to creativity, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced Chick-sent-me-hi) wrote a celebrated book called
Flow
. Its insight was that it is a mistake to pursue happiness itself. Rather, we should recognize when we are genuinely happy—what we are doing when we feel powerful and “true”—and do more of those things. Flow activities we do for the sheer enjoyment or intellectual satisfaction, rather than to gain some extrinsic reward. You might want to win a game of chess, for instance, but you play it because it engages your mind totally. You might want to become a good dancer, but it is the learning and dancing that are the main reward.

Csikszentmihalyi took these ideas and applied them to the question of how some people become genuinely creative. He was not interested in what he calls the “small c” creativity involved in making a cake or choosing curtains or the imaginative talk of a child, but the kind that changes a whole “domain” or area of human endeavor. Truly creative people have a capacity to change the fundamental way we see, understand, appreciate, or do things, whether it is by inventing a new machine or writing a set of songs, and Csikszentmihalyi wanted to know what made them different.

Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
is the culmination of 30 years of work into creativity. There is a small industry of how-to-be-more-creative books and seminars, and many are glib, but this is one of the few serious treatments that understands the complexity of the creative person and process.

At the beginning of
Creativity
, Csikszentmihalyi provides information on what he claims was the first systematic study of living creative people, involving interviews with 91 people considered to have had an outstanding impact on their domain, whether that was the arts, business, law, government, medicine, or science (the scientists encompassed 14 Nobel Prize winners). The names included Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher; John Bardeen, physicist; Kenneth Boulding, economist; Margaret Butler, mathematician; Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, astrophysicist; Barry Commoner, biologist; Natalie Davis, historian; Gyorgy Faludy, poet; Nadine Gordimer, writer; Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist; Hazel Henderson, economist; Ellen Lanyon, artist; Ernst Mayr, zoologist; Brenda Milner, psychologist; Ilya Prigogine, chemist; John Reed,
banker; Jonas Salk, biologist; Ravi Shankar, musician; Benjamin Spock, pediatrician; and Eva Zeisel, ceramic designer.

It is worth getting
Creativity
just to read about these people, some of whom are outright famous and others who are known mainly within their own field. Nearly all the subjects were over 60, allowing Csikszentmihalyi a better chance to survey fully developed careers and elicit insights into the secrets of mature creative success.

Csikszentmihalyi suggests that the common idea of a creative individual coming up with great insights, discoveries, works, or inventions in isolation is wrong. Creativity results from a complex interaction between a person and their environment or culture, and also depends on timing.

For instance, if the great Renaissance artists like Ghiberti or Michelangelo had been born only 50 years before they were, the culture of artistic patronage would not have been in place to fund or shape their great achievements. Consider also individual astronomers: Their discoveries could not have happened unless centuries of technological development of the telescope and evolving knowledge of the universe had come before them.

Csikszentmihalyi's point is that we should devote as much attention to the development of a domain as we do to the people working within it, as only this can properly explain how advances are made. Individuals are only “a link in a chain, a phase in a process,” he notes. Did Einstein really “invent” the theory of relativity? Did Edison “invent” electricity? This is like saying that the spark is responsible for the fire, when of course fire involves many elements.

The products of creativity also need to have a receptive audience to evaluate them. A creation vanishes if it is not recognized. “Memes” are the cultural equivalent of genes, things such as language, customs, laws, songs, theories, and values. If they're strong they survive, otherwise they are lost. Creative people seek to create memes that can have an impact on their cultures. The greater the creator, the longer lasting and deeper the impact of the memes.

Creative breakthroughs never just come out of the blue. They are almost always the result of years of hard work and close attention to something. Many creative discoveries are lucky, particularly those of the scientific type, but usually the “luck” comes after years of detailed work in the area in which the discovery is made. Csikszentmihalyi tells of the astronomer Vera Rubin, who discovered that stars in some galaxies do not all rotate in the same direction—some go clockwise, and others anticlockwise. She would not have made the discovery if she had not had access to a new type of clearer spectral analysis,
and this access came from her already being known for her substantial contributions to the field. Rubin was not out to make a big discovery; rather, it was the result of close observation of stars and a love of her work. Her goal was to record data, but it was her dedication that yielded the surprise findings. Truly creative people work for work's own sake, and if they make a public discovery or become famous that is a bonus. What drives them, more than rewards, is the desire to find or create order where there was none before.

A popular image of the creative person is their defiance of all norms, dogma, and customs. This gives the wrong impression, however, as everyone who creates genuine change has first needed to master their domain, which means soaking up and mastering its skills and knowledge. It is only later, having mastered their domain, that people can truly make a creative mark, as incorporation of the “rules” of the domain allows those rules to be bent or broken to create something new. In short, to do new things, you first have to have done the old things well.

Csikszentmihalyi's other insights include:

The idea of the tortured creative person is largely a myth. Most of his respondents were very happy with their lives and their creative output.

Successful creative people tend to have two things in abundance: curiosity and drive. They are absolutely fascinated by their subject, and while others may be more brilliant, their sheer desire for accomplishment is the decisive factor.

Creative people take their intuition seriously, looking for patterns where others see confusion, and are able to make connections between discrete areas of knowledge.

Creative people are often seen as arrogant, but this is usually because they want to devote most of their attention to their exciting work.

Though creative people can be creative anywhere, they gravitate to centers where their interests can be satisfied more easily, where they can meet like-minded people, and where their work can be appreciated.

Beautiful or inspiring environments are better at helping people to be more creative thinkers than giving them a seminar on “creativity.”

School does not seem to have had a great effect on many famous creative people, and even in college they were often not stars. Many people later considered geniuses were not particularly remarkable as children; what they always had more than others was curiosity.