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.
4 comments:
Well I didn't have coffee....I don't really drink it (maybe someday) ..but my Hansen's Vanilla Coke worked well heh.
WARNING: LONG ASS REPLY APPROACHING heh...
I'll have to read those links further but they looked really interesting.
I can relate to judgment being a large help in my creativity. Because I know that if I wasn't as critical about my work as I am, I would not have bothered to work hard to improve (since I would have thought it was good enough or something). And once I have an idea in my head for art or whatever, it may not be easy but I figure out what I need to do to achieve it. Obsession can be good and bad. Just yeah, it depends how you channel it. My family thinks I'm nuts for being so obsessed with Nine Inch Nails. A lot of the people in my old art classes would wonder why I'd spend so much time working on something that they thought looked fine. But yeah, there's certain needs I can't explain well, but I know they are helping me artistically at least. The music is part of what drives me to create, and sometimes it's just there to keep me sane I suppose. A lot of art I create I don't like, but I feel the need to create it anyways, to express the anger or whatever that I can't express easily otherwise. Some people punch things, or play sports.....I just draw a lot with my music blasted. I would say I am more alone than I should be, but that's because I want more of a social life then I've allowed myself (as a result of fears and laziness). But certainly, if you are comfortable with being alone or having a certain number of people to be around, as opposed to a large group, that doesn't mean you're crazy necessarily. It's about what you know is right. Maybe few people agree with you, but if you conform too much you won't be yourself, so what's the point in that? I have thought about other careers besides art, because there are probably ones that are easier to fall into and get a job that pays well. But I don't think it'd be right. I wouldn't be myself. I need as much time to create, or at least by surrounded by art and the things I love, as much as possible. I have to make sacrifices of course, but there is a point where you just say "Fuck it, this is me." I really loved this quote Hybrid, because it seems obvious enough, yet I still think I need to hear it a lot, "Don't go doing stupid shit for the wrong reasons just to be normal. You never will be. You'll just end up wrong." I know that feeling and it really makes you evaluate yourself. Heh.........yeah ......... besides NIN, I'm obsessed with my online boyfriend, the internet in general, my family, music, art, my room, the smell of summer rain, cracks in the walls, etc.............. and yeah, it is good :D
"One theory of creativity suggests that sharp critical judgement is what separates truly great artists from the rest."
I support that theory.
The same can be said for states of other perceived mental wellnesses or illness: for instance, one person may be seen as eccentric, but considered dysfunctional by others.
You can keep breaking out all the myriad terms that make personalities distinct and find them all to be pretty relative only to those writing the definitions. Who decides?
I remember once hearing that a symptom of mental dis-ease was the habit of wearing mismatched jewelry. Huh? That seems utterly ridiculous. And yet there are still so many of these same kinds of biases in our mainstream culture.
I'd guess that the harshest judges of creative obsession are those with the biggest holes to fill in their own psychic lives. They have yet to liberate themselves from the demands of society to conform.
Their distinctions between creativity and obsession (or eccentricity and dysfunctionality, for that matter) are typically grounded in so many biases based upon class, gender, age, and a desire toward conformity, that at some point such distinctions eventually must cease to hold any real meaning over time.
Look at any of the world's cultural icons: Mozart, Erin Brockovich, Gandhi, Oprah Winfrey, Helen Caldicott, Barack Obama. They all might be defined as obsessed with their work. Does this make them unhealthy or simply self-liberated to achieve the life they've dreamed for themselves?
This is, in fact, why we all need to cleave to our creative drives and positive obsessions and stop worrying about what others think or say about ourselves and our work. If creative obsession feeds us well enough to make us whole and happy, and the world stands to gain from it, then everybody wins.
Well, it's been over a year since you posted this, but I needed to let you know that this is the most useful piece of writing I've read in a long time. Brilliant!
Thank you, whoever and wherever you are!
Rui Guerreiro
(Portugal)
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