Imagine in your mind a writer. Extra points if you imagine my dumb face writing this very article.
What kind of environment are they in? Is there anyone around them? Now do the same, but with a painter.
Very likely, you imagined them both alone. Depending on your disposition, the painter might have been in a dilapidated studio or in a peaceful meadow.
If you imagined Da Vinci in a bustling workshop working alongside dozens of apprentices, know that you're in the minority.
There's nothing unusual about this. Most people find it easier to focus in a quiet environment.
A judgement-free zone is almost a necessity for creative thought,
and who judges more but the gazes of bystanders? This is no myth—most artists work best alone.
The misconception starts with how deeply ingrained this link between artist and isolation is.
Since the process of creating art often requires isolation, and this process is what defines an artist,
it's easy to subconsciously think "artists are alone", and "being alone is conducive to creating art".
Where this becomes dangerous is when you misattribute the source of creative thought to isolation.
You start to use your art as an excuse to stay home instead of going outside.
You convince yourself that being alone is better and that it makes you a more productive artist.
This is demonstrably wrong. Before I get into the scientific evidence, let me first slap you with some enlightening anecodes.
From where comes the quicksilver that artists seize and display?
When I first became doubtful of my own preconceptions of what it means to be an artist,
I took a digital pilgrimage to some of my favorite artists' wikipedia pages.
I wanted to know if Nikola Tesla really lived like Willy Wonka—as a recluse solely dedicated to his research.
I wanted to know if Franz Kafka's reputation for being unrecognized, unappreciated and alone was really true.
I encourage you to go on your own pilgrimage. Here are the results of mine:
Tolkien was a professor and part of a literary discussion group called "The Inklings" alongside C.S Lewis.
H.P. Lovecraft also had his own group later referred to as the "Lovecraft Circle".
Da Vinci apprenticed for seven years in a bustling workshop alongside his contemporaries,
and continued to work there while part of the Guild of Saint Luke. He travelled Europe doing commissions for royals and clergymen.
Nietzsche was also a professor and actively made friends among his peers,
who later helped him financially when he was too sick to work and travelled the world as an independent philosopher.
He frequently exchanged letters, and later travelled with two friends in what could
only be called a love triangle. The subsequent breakup and mental anguish inspired him to write his magnum opus.
Kafka was a womanizer. He frequented brothels and had numerous affairs.
He was also an accomplished rider, swimmer and rower, and he liked to hike with his friends on the weekends.
Nikola Tesla was friends with many notable figures such as Mark Twain and J.P. Morgan.
He liked to eat out and often conversed with patrons and staff. He also did theatrical and dramatic public presentations on his inventions.
I could go on, but at this point it should be clear that rather than isolation, a relatively social and varied lifestyle
was a common attribute among these creative powerhouses. What's certain is that none of these artists were "too devoted" to their art
to care about their loved ones or to pursue other interests. None of them treated the outside world as just a momentary muse.
Yes, they had periods of isolation, whether intentional like Tesla's retreats or caused by grief like it was with Nietzsche.
But they weren't chronically alone.
Especially negative emotions like grief can push others away, because most people don't know how to express them.
Many artists have found inspiration in these dark times,
but it's active living that brought them those experiences in the first place.
It's because they dared to live that they got those scars and were able to express them.
Now, a question arises: Can we definitively argue against-, and put the nail in the coffin of the titular "myth of the solitary artist"?
Can we make the case that a variety of experiences and an active social life are beneficial for creativity? Spoiler alert: someone already has.
Science, probably.
In 2022, the Journal of Intelligence published a special issue called "Emotional Intelligence and Creativity".
It's a collection of seven research papers and two reviews on the broad subject of the intersection of creativity and emotional intelligence. We'll be focusing on the two review papers.
The first one is a dud for our purposes.
It's only relevant conclusion is this: that feelings inform the process of evaluating and selecting ideas during the creative process.
If you were under the impression that creativity is an unfeeling, purely logical process, then I guess you might have fallen from your chair just then.
For the rest of us, let's continue to the next review paper, "Being Intelligent with Emotions to Benefit Creativity: Emotion across the Seven Cs of Creativity"
This one jumps over the foregone conclusion that creativity is obviously fueled by emotion. It quotes famous psychologists Freud and Maslow,
who each had their own ideas about the purpose of creativity, but both agreed that it was inextricably tied to emotion.
There are two concepts that I should define before I start throwing quotes at you.
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is defined as the ability to perceive emotions, to use emotions for assisting your thinking, and to understand and
regulate emotions in oneself and others. It's an empirically measurable skill that can be improved through experience and practise.
Emotional Creativity (EC) constitutes the originality, appropriateness and effectiveness of an individual's way of experiencing and expressing emotions.
You might have to read these definitions again to understand, but EI and EC are independent attributes.
I feel really intelligent right now
Let's tackle EI first since it's connection with creativity is less obvious.
You might have heard that emotionally intelligent people make for good leaders.
Being able to understand and regulate other's emotions is vital for effective collaboration; even moreso in a creative setting.
There is evidence that heterogenous, complimentary mood states within a group increase creative performance.
A person with high EI can more effectively create and maintain such an environment.
We can't all be leaders though, right? I get anxious in big crowds. Maybe this emotional intelligence thing just isn't for me.
Question: have you ever given up on a creative endeavour because you got frustrated? Have you ever been in a creative rut because you were crushed by anxiety?
Well congratulations. You have failed at regulating your own emotions.
Here's a direct quote from the paper:
"high-EI individuals "regulate their responses to the boredom or lack of interest (...)
by using effective emotion regulation strategies"".
That sounds badass! Two of those for me, please!
I argue that emotional intelligence is a necessity to become creatively productive.
If you let your emotions toss you left and right—let frustration get the better of you—you'll never be able to maintain a creative state for long.
If you can't understand your own emotions, how can you honestly express them in your art? If the idea behind art is to invoke emotions in others,
isn't it kind of bad if you suck at doing that?
I want to reiterate: EI is something you can learn. It's not a bogus INFP personality type—it's a skill you can cultivate through experience.
I hope you can already start to see why secluding yourself in the name of art might be a bad idea.
If you still see a bit of nail sticking out from our hypothetical coffin, then the next section on emotional creativity should hammer it flush with the wood.
EC-peasy
Pick an emotion and try to remember when you last felt it. Some find this difficult, but the point is that you can do it.
Now recall some random detail about the event. You can do this too. For this to be possible, your brain must have a memory of that emotional experience.
You're able to recall it by simply thinking of the attached emotion with no other context.
Have you ever been mad at someone, and found that it's shockingly easy to come up with other stuff to be mad at them about?
You suddenly remember all the petty grievances from ages ago.
Well, to explain these phenomena, the paper introduces the concept of an endocept. It defines them as follows:
"There is a rich network of emotional traces attached to images or concepts in memory. These representations, or emotional schemas, are referred to as endocepts.
They are "acquired through people’s self-involving experiences and reflecting their covert subjective judgments and attitudes related to these experiences""
The little exercise we just did regarding emotion recall is explained by this line:
"The activation process is called “emotional resonance”,
in which endocepts attached to a source concept will harmonically resonate with endocepts showing a similar emotional trace,
although they may be attached to cognitively distant “target” concepts"
Connecting cognitively distant concepts? That's pretty close to the definition of creative thought. And indeed—
"A rich network of emotional information can be used in the generation as well as the interpretation of new ideas."
And to tie it back to our definition of emotional creativity:
"It can be hypothesized that individuals with high levels of EC have a wider foundation of unique,
idiosyncratic associations to draw from, given their tendency to experience unique blends of emotions in different situations"
In summary, our memories have traces of emotions that we can use to recall other distant memories with similar emotional traces.
This is conducive to creativity where nonlinear thinking is key, and emotional creativity is directly linked to the effectiveness of this process.
Do you know where you can experience various new emotions? Outside. What's the one place that rarely changes and collapses your emotions to a predictable
subset of mundane feelings? Your room and cubicle.
Touch grass, then?
If emotional intelligence and emotional creativity are so great, what can we do to develop them?
You're not going to like the answer, but here it comes anyway. You really need to get in touch with your emotions and take some time to understand them.
Why did you give up on that project you were so excited about just yesterday? Where is the source of that frustration? What kinds of activities can you do
to unravel it? By asking these questions, you accumulate experience. You become more wise to your own emotions, and that also allows you to better understand others'.
To avoid emotional stagnation, you should also seek life out more. Go on a trip and really focus on being emotionally present. Feel something new for once.
Looking at the colorful wikipedia articles of the artists of the past, I can't help but think I've arrived at some greater truth.
That the source of their elusive ingenuity and creativity isn't hidden behind closed doors. It's out here and within reach.
Consider the nail hammered.
-END-
After writing this, I tried to find other articles sharing the same sentiment and found a few.
[1][2][3]
The review paper I referenced
a ton is great and has a bunch of stuff I didn't include in this post. You should check it out.
If you need help getting started with managing your emotions, you can check out Dr. K's stuff. I've found it helpful,
being a bit of an emotional dunce myself.
I'm currently reading Daniel Goleman's book on emotional intelligence to hopefully get a better understanding of the concept. I've always had a very humanist world view
so I'm attracted to the concept of emotions and their impact on individuals and society. If EI is something that can be taught, why is this never mentioned in discourse about bullying and the like? Can our public
school system really not pick up the slack on subpar parenting by providing this education to students?
What about otherwise cognitively normal students who consistently underperform? If attention deficiency is indicative of poor emotional regulation (and therefore low EI), why the fuck did no-one tell me?
