I just found this half-baked post from 2008 which I'd left unpublished. Seemed fitting that I leave it up here. Oh, remember AOL? Dear god.
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Today, something reminded me of this:
Today, I find myself using the internet more, both for work and personal reasons. What started as using online databases for research and a myspace profile to keep up with friends without the extra expense of using the phone, has led to an entirely different online experience. I now get more news from the internet than from the tv. I have dealt with spammers and trolls galore. I have witnessed cyber harassment and identity theft. I have had run-ins with heavy handed forum moderators, and gone up against cyber-asskissing brigades. I have made new friends, new enemies, and been thrown into both constructive, discursive debate, and mindless arguments. I have had my IP tracked and receive approximately 27 emails per day from a sender who believes they can cure my erectile dysfunction. I have discovered new music, new technology, new debates and the joy of attempted CSS coding.
Often teetering on the brink of internet addiction, I do find that real life can often be a little slow, sluggish, and inefficient. Why wait until tomorrow morning to read the news when you can get it online when it happens with the right rss feeds? With a well-arranged enough google homepage, you can have your email, your subscriptions and, say, a digg widget on one page so you get a constant stream of updates on anything you like from all over the world. If you're not careful, you can end up being sucked into a vortex of disposable information and fleeting communication, with nothing to stand on in the real world, always chasing after the newest exciting story, somethingorother 2.0, or the latest, biggest, fastest way to get your gmail to integrate with your fifteenth social networking site.
As I have reason to spend a lot of time at this computer, I owe it to myself to look at exactly what I'm doing online, and make sure there's a voice of reason somewhere. I think the internet is one of the most powerful tools we have, and clearly this can be utilised for good or not so good purposes. I'll debate with myself over the issues I've come across, and encourage you to do the same.
NEWS
When it comes to news, the reason I get much of my news on the internet is because I can investigate it. I can look up nearly any subject, and have access to opinions from every point on the spectrum. I no longer need to take what I'm given. It's not like sitting in front of the tv and having opinions poured into my head. I can actively engage in the process of forming opinions, and weigh up all sides of an argument before figuring out where I stand on it. On the flip side, this can be a longer process than simply turning to a trusted news source, as you sift through pages and pages of blogs and commentaries to work out which sites are giving you facts, which are giving you lies, and which are written by someone up on their soapbox. Anything can be written by anyone and spread all over the network. Much as there is more information, it becomes harder to tell what and who to trust.
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... and that's where it stopped. I'm just going to leave it there. Happy 2014, internets. It's been a long time.
Thursday 23 January 2014
Sunday 22 February 2009
Creative Obsession - what's wrong with it?
WARNING: LONG ASS POST APPROACHING - GET A COFFEE OR GET OUT
Meet my latest subject of obsession: creative obsession.
Yes, I'm being eaten alive by an obsession with creative obsession and the causes, intricacies, workings and consequences of it for some time now. This probably isn't of any surprise to anyone, but it's really been at the forefront of my mind recently.
I've been doing some research, and have unearthed the following stuff, in no particular order:
Link: What do your possessions say about your creative obsessions?
"One theory of creativity suggests that sharp critical judgement is what separates truly great artists from the rest. And to exercise judgement, you need plenty of material - photos to sift through, books to read, records to play. So perhaps this kind of obsessive collection is inevitable for some kinds of creativity."
Link: Book review: Dancing Around Obsession
"There is no useful point in blurring the distinction between obsession as a clinical diagnostic entity in psychiatry and obsession as a description for certain kinds of behaviors that can be extremely productive. The clinical entity, OCD, involves serious dysfunction, and in fact nearly 70 percent of OCD patients sooner or later suffer major depression and become even more dysfunctional."
Obsession is widely regarded amongst the "sane" members of society, those properly trained to behave themselves, or anyone who doesn't really give a fuck, as a negative thing. Think OCD, checking your door is locked 100 times before you can sleep, or arranging your noodles in alphabetical order. To me, this sounds like a very positive trait, only it's been supressed to the point where it finds fresh air in negative ways. Although I'm not a clinical psychiatrist, so I don't know if my theory has legs. We are taught to be properly (what?) balanced individuals. Never have too much of anything, even if it's good. I guess it's all down to your own personal preferences and capacity for different experiences. However. We are all expected to be pretty much the same. Carbon copies of useful people in society. It's all a bit too Brave New World for my liking, thanks. I'd rather be exceptional, and I choose to associate with exceptional people. All my friends are exceptional. They really are all completely different, but the reason I love them all is because they are ultimately themselves. They don't so much have "little quirks" and "silly ideas", they know who they are, they know what they want, and they go and just do it. This is the kind of company I need, and I've gone off on a tangent now from what I was originally writing about. I do often wonder, though, about all these people holding down the day job the same as me. Do they have their own obsessions? Do they accept them, nurture them, and grow through that experience? Or do they supress them, and phase out their personalities over the years towards their death? I guess I'll never know, and shouldn't really be concerning myself with it. I'm not them, and that's ok with me.
Another question: deprive a creative person of all positive obsessions, and how will that personality trait manifest itself? I'm betting it's in no good way.
Link: In praise of positive obsessions
"For a contemporary intelligent, sensitive person, it may well make more sense to opt for a life of positive obsessions that flow from personal choices about the meanings of life than to attempt to live a more modest and less satisfying normal-looking life that produces dissatisfaction and boredom."
Now for something completely different. In the creative community, obsession is widely regarded as a good thing. If you see little ideas flitting through your mind as a result of simply interacting with the world (and by that, I mean just being alive - there's always something new to hear or see around you) and you latch onto some of these, and let them take you off in directions you couldn't have thought of through any logical process, then you know what I'm talking about. Bear in mind that when I say "creative", I don't just mean anything involving art of some sort. It can be art, but it can also be business, it can be your dealings with the community, your family, your friends. Anything that you can see in a different way to the majority is an act of creative thought. I've only ever seen good things come of this kind of behaviour, when the subject of obsession (your new business idea, your latest shoot and editing project, the graphic novel you're working on, anything) is positive and will improve your life and lead you to greater happiness. But I have seen (yes, on the internets) some ideas that it's something that you can switch on and off. So that you can have a "healthy work/life balance" and not "suffer from isolation" because you need time when there's nobody around to obsess over your latest scheme. I guess that for some people, it can be done. The thing I can't get my head round is the idea that you have to limit yourself. That you must have other people in your life because that's what expected. If you want other people in your life, and you have something good to give one another, then it's a positive thing. But if you're just doing it because you think you can "have it all", then it can be nothing but detrimental. Integrity is vitally important. Don't go doing stupid shit for the wrong reasons just to be normal. You never will be. You'll just end up wrong.
Link: The costs of being a creative
"This life calls us, we don't pick it. And it has an austerity to it, since the majority of the time spent practicing our craft, perfecting the art, is time spent alone. In Hugh's case, feverishly drawing cartoon after cartoon, or a young software developer designing better abstractions, or a writer grappling with grammar and intention. Being creative entails a great deal of solitude."
Something I seriously don't understand is "suffering from isolation". If you like, and need isolation, then in what way are you suffering? This is different for different people. Some need more interaction with others. Some balk at the idea of being around other people for more than 24 hours. Sometimes you have to work with it. Sometimes you can decide not to. It's all good if it's what you need to do. No point in trying to be mainstream and "have a life". I'll fucking tell you something right now: you DO have a life. You always did. You still do. So it looks different to the next guy's life? Explain to me why this is bad. Perhaps because it is the norm to attach yourself to someone at some point in your life, before you've really developed and learned enough about yourself, it's tempting to go along with this practice, and do the same thing to placate your ego at the expense of living a truly deliberate life. I don't think enough people are asking the question of where the greater sacrifice lies. There's a great deal of selflessness in spending your life in pursuit of discovering, translating, and explaining new things about the world, even though it is an internal drive that some of us will never get away from. I guess the answer lies in figuring out which drive is stronger - the drive to create in the way you feel you have to, or settling into a normal life of connection with other people. Each choice involves a sacrifice. Neither is right or wrong, it's simply a case of which one is greater for each of us.
Link: Creative Recovery: 90 mobiles in 90 days
"Are designers just junkies to the thrill of creative engagement? Are the feelings of loss at the end of a project the price we must pay for the thrill of being mentally and emotionally connected to our work? Is the cure to be more disciplined and strive to achieve some semblance of work/life balance or are we doomed to this emotional cycle of obsession and loss?"
Now, this whole article makes sense. The thing about that quote is, who is labelling me or anyone "just" a creative junkie? Is there anything particularly wrong with having a mind so hungry for new information that you must make it yourself if you can't find it elsewhere? We're all addicted to something. Sometimes, it's substances and/or alcohol, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's food, sometimes it's money and/or possessions. It can be anything. All of us are born imperfect, and we all need something to latch onto, something to make us more than we are. I can think of nothing more worthy of that internal drive than an insatiable need for creativity and personal evolution. After all, if we don't give into that impulse, we'll give in to another. That personality trait has to go somewhere, it's not just going to disappear. I suppose the "just" in that quote is simply an oversight, a hark back to the days of when we used to be "normal" and look down on or be confused by people like ourselves. It certainly is true that you can be addicted to creating. I don't think it can even damage you, if you're doing it right. This stuff is in you, and you can either keep it in (and that WILL damage you, it certainly can in a psychosomatic way, if it gets to the point of panic attacks and god knows what else, which for me, makes me feel like I'm 80 when I'm really 27. It goes away when I start working again) or you can let it out, which might be psychologically traumatic at the time, but it's certainly theraputic. Or you can let this bit of you manifest in more damaging ways. But back to the original point. Which was that you can literally end up high if you've been creating something for long enough. I know, I've done it numerous times. If you can detach yourself from the rest of the world, something else steps in. I have no fucking idea what it is, but it works. I did go through a phase (albeit a very long one) of becoming addicted to interacting with people who are damaging to me, because they would bring me back down to earth. Much as I didn't like it or want to be there at that point. The thing is, when this creativity thing was new to me, it was all big and dangerous and scary. I do feel strong enough for it now, and I've managed to break myself away from people who were damaging me. I guess it just took me that time to do it, analyse the behaviour, and work out how to counteract it. It's a consant process of evolution and adaptation. You can never come up with anything new if you don't allow yourself that time to act (even if that means doing nothing) and then analyse what you're doing, and learn from it. Everything becomes an obsession when you're doing this. The way you're living your life in the most miniscule detail becomes the object of your obsession. I think it's something you can learn from and use to progress yourself in whatever you're doing.
In conclusion, I feel good about this. I've finally accepted that I am this way, and see the good that can come of it, if I let it. And I do feel more worthy of this personality now that I'm making a point of training it. The course is good for me. Very good for me. I'm obsessed with my coursework. I'm obsessed with my other projects. I'm obsessed with the mac I'm about to buy now that my pc has blown up for a third time. I'm obsessed with my portfolio. I'm obsessed with shooting again, which I really missed. I'm obsessed with type. Ever since I did typography I can't stop analysing every bit of type that passes my eyes. I'm obsessed with advertising and corporate identity. I'm obsessed with all of it.
And it's the greatest feeling in the world.
Meet my latest subject of obsession: creative obsession.
Yes, I'm being eaten alive by an obsession with creative obsession and the causes, intricacies, workings and consequences of it for some time now. This probably isn't of any surprise to anyone, but it's really been at the forefront of my mind recently.
I've been doing some research, and have unearthed the following stuff, in no particular order:
Link: What do your possessions say about your creative obsessions?
"One theory of creativity suggests that sharp critical judgement is what separates truly great artists from the rest. And to exercise judgement, you need plenty of material - photos to sift through, books to read, records to play. So perhaps this kind of obsessive collection is inevitable for some kinds of creativity."
Link: Book review: Dancing Around Obsession
"There is no useful point in blurring the distinction between obsession as a clinical diagnostic entity in psychiatry and obsession as a description for certain kinds of behaviors that can be extremely productive. The clinical entity, OCD, involves serious dysfunction, and in fact nearly 70 percent of OCD patients sooner or later suffer major depression and become even more dysfunctional."
Obsession is widely regarded amongst the "sane" members of society, those properly trained to behave themselves, or anyone who doesn't really give a fuck, as a negative thing. Think OCD, checking your door is locked 100 times before you can sleep, or arranging your noodles in alphabetical order. To me, this sounds like a very positive trait, only it's been supressed to the point where it finds fresh air in negative ways. Although I'm not a clinical psychiatrist, so I don't know if my theory has legs. We are taught to be properly (what?) balanced individuals. Never have too much of anything, even if it's good. I guess it's all down to your own personal preferences and capacity for different experiences. However. We are all expected to be pretty much the same. Carbon copies of useful people in society. It's all a bit too Brave New World for my liking, thanks. I'd rather be exceptional, and I choose to associate with exceptional people. All my friends are exceptional. They really are all completely different, but the reason I love them all is because they are ultimately themselves. They don't so much have "little quirks" and "silly ideas", they know who they are, they know what they want, and they go and just do it. This is the kind of company I need, and I've gone off on a tangent now from what I was originally writing about. I do often wonder, though, about all these people holding down the day job the same as me. Do they have their own obsessions? Do they accept them, nurture them, and grow through that experience? Or do they supress them, and phase out their personalities over the years towards their death? I guess I'll never know, and shouldn't really be concerning myself with it. I'm not them, and that's ok with me.
Another question: deprive a creative person of all positive obsessions, and how will that personality trait manifest itself? I'm betting it's in no good way.
Link: In praise of positive obsessions
"For a contemporary intelligent, sensitive person, it may well make more sense to opt for a life of positive obsessions that flow from personal choices about the meanings of life than to attempt to live a more modest and less satisfying normal-looking life that produces dissatisfaction and boredom."
Now for something completely different. In the creative community, obsession is widely regarded as a good thing. If you see little ideas flitting through your mind as a result of simply interacting with the world (and by that, I mean just being alive - there's always something new to hear or see around you) and you latch onto some of these, and let them take you off in directions you couldn't have thought of through any logical process, then you know what I'm talking about. Bear in mind that when I say "creative", I don't just mean anything involving art of some sort. It can be art, but it can also be business, it can be your dealings with the community, your family, your friends. Anything that you can see in a different way to the majority is an act of creative thought. I've only ever seen good things come of this kind of behaviour, when the subject of obsession (your new business idea, your latest shoot and editing project, the graphic novel you're working on, anything) is positive and will improve your life and lead you to greater happiness. But I have seen (yes, on the internets) some ideas that it's something that you can switch on and off. So that you can have a "healthy work/life balance" and not "suffer from isolation" because you need time when there's nobody around to obsess over your latest scheme. I guess that for some people, it can be done. The thing I can't get my head round is the idea that you have to limit yourself. That you must have other people in your life because that's what expected. If you want other people in your life, and you have something good to give one another, then it's a positive thing. But if you're just doing it because you think you can "have it all", then it can be nothing but detrimental. Integrity is vitally important. Don't go doing stupid shit for the wrong reasons just to be normal. You never will be. You'll just end up wrong.
Link: The costs of being a creative
"This life calls us, we don't pick it. And it has an austerity to it, since the majority of the time spent practicing our craft, perfecting the art, is time spent alone. In Hugh's case, feverishly drawing cartoon after cartoon, or a young software developer designing better abstractions, or a writer grappling with grammar and intention. Being creative entails a great deal of solitude."
Something I seriously don't understand is "suffering from isolation". If you like, and need isolation, then in what way are you suffering? This is different for different people. Some need more interaction with others. Some balk at the idea of being around other people for more than 24 hours. Sometimes you have to work with it. Sometimes you can decide not to. It's all good if it's what you need to do. No point in trying to be mainstream and "have a life". I'll fucking tell you something right now: you DO have a life. You always did. You still do. So it looks different to the next guy's life? Explain to me why this is bad. Perhaps because it is the norm to attach yourself to someone at some point in your life, before you've really developed and learned enough about yourself, it's tempting to go along with this practice, and do the same thing to placate your ego at the expense of living a truly deliberate life. I don't think enough people are asking the question of where the greater sacrifice lies. There's a great deal of selflessness in spending your life in pursuit of discovering, translating, and explaining new things about the world, even though it is an internal drive that some of us will never get away from. I guess the answer lies in figuring out which drive is stronger - the drive to create in the way you feel you have to, or settling into a normal life of connection with other people. Each choice involves a sacrifice. Neither is right or wrong, it's simply a case of which one is greater for each of us.
Link: Creative Recovery: 90 mobiles in 90 days
"Are designers just junkies to the thrill of creative engagement? Are the feelings of loss at the end of a project the price we must pay for the thrill of being mentally and emotionally connected to our work? Is the cure to be more disciplined and strive to achieve some semblance of work/life balance or are we doomed to this emotional cycle of obsession and loss?"
Now, this whole article makes sense. The thing about that quote is, who is labelling me or anyone "just" a creative junkie? Is there anything particularly wrong with having a mind so hungry for new information that you must make it yourself if you can't find it elsewhere? We're all addicted to something. Sometimes, it's substances and/or alcohol, sometimes it's sex, sometimes it's food, sometimes it's money and/or possessions. It can be anything. All of us are born imperfect, and we all need something to latch onto, something to make us more than we are. I can think of nothing more worthy of that internal drive than an insatiable need for creativity and personal evolution. After all, if we don't give into that impulse, we'll give in to another. That personality trait has to go somewhere, it's not just going to disappear. I suppose the "just" in that quote is simply an oversight, a hark back to the days of when we used to be "normal" and look down on or be confused by people like ourselves. It certainly is true that you can be addicted to creating. I don't think it can even damage you, if you're doing it right. This stuff is in you, and you can either keep it in (and that WILL damage you, it certainly can in a psychosomatic way, if it gets to the point of panic attacks and god knows what else, which for me, makes me feel like I'm 80 when I'm really 27. It goes away when I start working again) or you can let it out, which might be psychologically traumatic at the time, but it's certainly theraputic. Or you can let this bit of you manifest in more damaging ways. But back to the original point. Which was that you can literally end up high if you've been creating something for long enough. I know, I've done it numerous times. If you can detach yourself from the rest of the world, something else steps in. I have no fucking idea what it is, but it works. I did go through a phase (albeit a very long one) of becoming addicted to interacting with people who are damaging to me, because they would bring me back down to earth. Much as I didn't like it or want to be there at that point. The thing is, when this creativity thing was new to me, it was all big and dangerous and scary. I do feel strong enough for it now, and I've managed to break myself away from people who were damaging me. I guess it just took me that time to do it, analyse the behaviour, and work out how to counteract it. It's a consant process of evolution and adaptation. You can never come up with anything new if you don't allow yourself that time to act (even if that means doing nothing) and then analyse what you're doing, and learn from it. Everything becomes an obsession when you're doing this. The way you're living your life in the most miniscule detail becomes the object of your obsession. I think it's something you can learn from and use to progress yourself in whatever you're doing.
In conclusion, I feel good about this. I've finally accepted that I am this way, and see the good that can come of it, if I let it. And I do feel more worthy of this personality now that I'm making a point of training it. The course is good for me. Very good for me. I'm obsessed with my coursework. I'm obsessed with my other projects. I'm obsessed with the mac I'm about to buy now that my pc has blown up for a third time. I'm obsessed with my portfolio. I'm obsessed with shooting again, which I really missed. I'm obsessed with type. Ever since I did typography I can't stop analysing every bit of type that passes my eyes. I'm obsessed with advertising and corporate identity. I'm obsessed with all of it.
And it's the greatest feeling in the world.
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