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The renowned Ecologist, and my dear teacher, John Milton once made what seemed like a casual comment: “What comes in is pure light. What comes out is pure projection.”
“Psychological projection is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.” - Wikipedia
In a similar way, we tend to categorize much of behavior and behavioral traits as either good or bad based on our individual and societal biases. A few examples: Working hard is good. Creativity is good. Being impulsive is bad. Being too wild is bad, etc.
Dear friends, life cannot and should not be reduced to such simplistic black and white categories. Today we are going to talk about Creativity as our primary example, and illustrate how all behavioral traits have a helpful side, and a sometimes not so helpful side, a lighter side, and a darker side, and the darker side has been mis-categorized as villainous. Sad state of affairs. Back to creativity.
When we consider creativity, our minds often think of great musicians, artists like Picasso, inventors like Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Elan Musk. We think intelligent, mysterious, gifted. She’s so creative is generally quite a compliment. And I agree. Being creative has a helpful, actually amazing upside.
And like almost all of life, there’s another side to the story. On our Assessment, the word “Dissatisfied” is directly related to a high Creativity score. I might add the words, restless, often distressed, moody, and at times a bit flaky. The highly creative person loves “new”, loves bright and shiny. And, as you know, new is only new when it’s new. Bright and shiny fades.
So, is creativity good or bad? Wrong question? Creativity has a complexity and depth to it. Sometimes being creatives makes us and others feel great, sometimes is drives us and others out of our minds.
I’m challenging you to embrace complexity and become curious. I’m encouraging you to think more deeply, learn more, be more flexible, and continually learn.
And perhaps most importantly, learn about yourself. Are you creative? Picasso famously stated “all children are artists.” And almost 100% of children in Kindergarten say they are artists. By the time they reach high school, the number drops to about 10%. Why? For multiple and complex reasons, we stopped believing we were artists. We succumbed to either our own doubt or the doubts of others. Well, get busy becoming dissatisfied, moody, restless and impulsive, just like me. Then we can be Creatives together.
Cheers!
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