Fascinating article in Scientific American online that offers us a research-based look at why creative types are often considered—often ARE—eccentric. This is news? (Insert smiley emoticon here.)
For those of us who have lived this reality for a lifetime, the fact that we are different is not exactly an earth-shaking revelation.
When did I realize that I was “different”? Probably as early as I became self-aware. As Lady Gaga says, “I was born this way.” And do I mind? No. Yes. Not entirely. Sometimes.
Seeing more deeply. Feeling more acutely. Never quite fitting in. Social awkwardness disguised, sometimes, as charming normalcy. Touching an unknown, receiving its graces. I am a full-blooded member of the tribe of YouThinkTooMuch. The We’re-not-sure-what-to-do-with-you club. The Exalted Order of Holy Visioneers and Oddballs. You might never know it to look at me. Or maybe you might.
Does the creativity come from the rarefied atmosphere in the brain? Or does the creativity create the rare air up there? The article shares with us some of the reasons that suggest the former. But the chemistries in the head, the way the pieces fit, they are the gift to us in our personal wildernesses.
Knowing that we are what we are is, as I said, a good thing. But knowing isn’t gonna get us back what the sidelong stares and whispered behind-the-back chuckles of a lifetime have taken away. If you are like me, you grew up feeling a member of the Outcast caste—when you could be torn from your inner self long enough to care.
We spent our childhoods treading water in a fathomless ocean of ourselves. We still do. Unable to grow calluses over our psyches, we learn to live proud, live defiant, in what we are. We persevere. And we wonder why we were such confused, hurt, and occasionally angry kids.
The article describes how a number of major national companies are now coming to value the creative angels among us, to more-than-tolerate the eccentrics who can add so much to the ideaspace. For some of us, this enlightenment seems to have come too late. We are obliged to find the creativity in the sheer ordinariness of daily life. We use it to keep ourselves alive…to keep from being, as Sherlock Holmes said, the engine that tears itself to pieces because it has been deprived of the work for which it was created.
So wave that freak flag high, fellow square pegs. Embrace the difference and turn it to use. I’m okay. You’re okay. Eccentric—but okay. Scientific American says so.
9 comments
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December 20, 2011 at 10:46 am
Dan
I need to share this with everyone that “knows” me.
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December 20, 2011 at 4:16 pm
lynnbiederstadt
Dan, IS there anyone who knows you? 😉
-lynn
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December 20, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Thereisnoway Youregettingmyname
It takes one who is self-confident to be able to embrace that “otherness” that others seem to get confused about, without flinching or apologizing. Ultimately for many of us, this means reaching adulthood before we can parse it all out. People who don’t fit the societal view of “normal” are unconscious threats to the normals I think. No one starts out in life wanting to be ostracized, just as no one has a consuming need to make everyone else fit their hold. Yet it happens. People like sameness, consistency and predictability. It makes them comfortable – and the dynamic is a prelude to the popular “nesting” instinct. An instinct, by the way, which many creative types loathe. (Or maybe that’s just me).
I like being bizarre sometimes, because I know how much it shakes things up. People don’t know what to think, or how to react, and that makes me smile. I once sent an email to my boss, providing him a text as a suggestion for a response from him to a guy at work that I disliked intensely. Rather than hiding it, I started it out with “James, you ignorant slut”. Then I offered a faux-apology and started in with the real text. I wondered how my boss would take that, and to my surprise he said he laughed.
I wonder if creative types are just really really curious, unwilling to accept the status quo for much of anything.
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December 20, 2011 at 4:16 pm
lynnbiederstadt
Hey Thereisnoway… Thank you for the thoughtful, beautifully written reply…even though I am torn to bits by the mystery of you. 😉 I hear you about the status quo…it ain’t our friend. We keep creating–even if it’s the reality around us.
-lynn
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December 21, 2011 at 11:36 am
wolfshades
Lynn I have NO idea how that happened! Sometimes I write comments to blogs from my iPad (which is what I did this time) and it usually uses my WordPress credentials. Or if my login has expired it will prompt for a name, etc. Since it didn’t do the latter I assumed I was logged in. Putting up a name such as Thereisnoway is definitely NOT my style. I’m guessing the gremlin programmers at WordPress were experimenting with a new idea.
Anyway, just I case there’s still at it, and this response shows as being written by Thereisnoway, it’s wolfshades.
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December 20, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Jo Bryant
I’m looking for my freak flag NOW !!
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December 20, 2011 at 4:13 pm
lynnbiederstadt
Jo, Get that thing flying, you!
-Lynn
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December 21, 2011 at 4:16 pm
C.B. Wentworth
I stopped trying to be anything but creative and odd. Even as a child I knew I wasn’t like everyone else, but it took me a long time to decide I was okay with that. As an adult, I thrive on standing apart from the norm. It’s what fuels my muse and keeps my soul happy. 🙂
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December 26, 2011 at 3:51 pm
lynnbiederstadt
CBW…And a good soul that is…
-Lynn
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