11.11.2004 09:15 - Creativity and its Associated Problems
Adrian and Paul are linking to this article from Mr. Sleepless about Creativity. It speaks of the incredible high when something just goes right and a fully-formed, completed work just pours out of you. I must admit, with music and with cartooning, I\'ve probably had my fair share of those moments.
But the problem is, there\'s a downside. First of all, for any number of times when it flows, there\'s hundreds of times when it doesn\'t, or won\'t, nothing comes out right, and then the doubts start to set in, and the frustration, that somehow the power has left you, and you will never create another thing again. This results in a black mood in which you often lash out at those closest to you.
Worse still is the time when you haven\'t had chance to exercise your talents, and you\'ve finally made time and you sit down and start to work, and something begins to come...... and you are interrupted. Someone demands something trivial of you like hoovering the dog or shaving the cat or one of the 1000s of minor irritating little chores, AND YOUR CREATIVE MOOD IS COMPLETELY DESTROYED. You go and do whatever needs to be done, you come back and it\'s gone. It\'s lost, and you feel incredibly frustrated to the point of tears. It hurts, because not only have you lost a very important moment which has gone forever, your creative release has been stifled, and it\'s usually been done by someone you are very close to.
Her Maj does not understand this. She is not a creative person. I can understand her viewpoint, too, that things should be done and out of the way before I do something, but the problem is that ideas don\'t make appointments. I cannot sit down and say \"On November 17th at 5:30pm I will be creative\" - it just doesn\'t work like that. Trying to explain this to someone who isn\'t creative is extremely difficult, and it makes me an extremely hard person to live with.
