If I think back on any moment in the past that I felt truly creative and deeply entrenched in a state of flow, it’s always been a moment of solitude or separation from society and distraction altogether. For most of my life I’ve grappled with the very real possibility that I’m just antisocial or hopelessly mercurial—the wallflower at the high school dance, persona non grata due to insufficient investment or interest in socially normative subject matters, perhaps even somewhat feared as an “outsider” in the same vein as the grotesque character referred to as “The Judge” in Cormac McCarthy’s bewildering and brutal Blood Meridian. Yet, recent and surprisingly dated studies and musings reveal that the aloof have a leg up on keeping their creativity aloft and alight.
In a 1990 article entitled “Solitude” by Philip J. Koch from The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Koch notes that one of the curious virtues of solitude is what he describes as the “the flaming-up of Creativity. The artist in her studio, the composer at the keyboard, the theorist staring into space lost in thought, all of these have abandoned the calm acceptance of what is for the creation of what can be; and they do their work best in solitude.” This draws a clear distinction between solitude and loneliness, which are all too often commingled and therefore misunderstood, though I believe both states of separation from others can ignite creativity in those with an intense predisposition to such a state of being.
“...the flaming-up of Creativity(;) The artist in her studio, the composer at the keyboard, the theorist staring into space lost in thought, all of these have abandoned the calm acceptance of what is for the creation of what can be; and they do their work best in solitude.”
Most organizations since the dawn of the dot-com era have touted a belief in the team as the ideal collective organism by which innovation and creativity takes place and thrives, but having been creatively active since the infancy of the digital behemoth now known as the digital “noosphere” or “hive mind”, I’ve read a different, perhaps unauthorized, account of the process and nature of creative output.
Everywhere we look these days, we see hip marketing showcasing happy pierced creatives sitting together in open-concept office spaces with coffees, laughing, tossing hacky sacks, heads topped with colorful beanies and necks buried beneath rippling waves of Peruvian scarves. This is what we are meant to believe about how creatives work together: that it’s endless chit-chat and mindless tossing around of ideas, and that these acts somehow inspire and energize more of the same. In my experience, however, it’s been quite a different reality.
Creativity is flighty and fleeting; it’s truly elusive, like a migrating Oriole on a quick layover at your bird feeder, only to be seen one or two times further the rest of the year. And much like such a natural beauty gracing your garden during the still hours of early evening, you must treat it respectfully, calmly, quietly. A quiet mind is much like an inviting garden: it must be prepared with the proper balance of nutritious mental energy, a sprawling and serene landscape, and removal of all distractions and deterrents—including ourselves—for the Orioles of our imaginations to take refuge. I can think of no more detrimental a thing to creativity than a room full of other people all thinking aloud and spouting ideas rapid-fire.
A quiet mind is much like an inviting garden: it must be prepared with the proper balance of nutritious mental energy, a sprawling and serene landscape, and removal of all distractions and deterrents—including ourselves—for the Orioles of our imaginations to take refuge.
A delightfully modern example of the symbiotic relationship between solitude and creativity is found in Alan Lightman’s In Praise of Wasting Time. In it, Lightman demarcates “divergent thinking” (i.e., free-flowing and spontaneous thought) from “convergent thinking” (structured, logical, step-by-step thought processes). Divergent thinking is what creatives are being asked to perform by agencies and marketing departments; it’s what those hip creatives in all of the splashy marketing ads these days are supposed to be doing bouncing ideas around and getting pumped up off the energy that such thinking creates. However, the image such marketing portrays is in direct opposition to how divergent thinking actually takes place.
Creatives are lured in to corporate jobs with the false impression that they will have complete freedom to be the weird, offbeat artists they pride themselves on being, only to find out that they’re supposed to attend an endless number of endlessly uninspiring meetings and then perform endlessly similar tasks requiring potentially endless revisions, endlessly. Not even the work-from-home creative is safe from these doldrums. And all the while, the employer expects the creative to “do their thing”; in essence, the employer is forcing upon the creative the same process of convergent thinking applied to all other areas of the business and expecting an innovative, creative product. And everyone is left unhappy and unfulfilled in the bargain.
Creative professionals require solitary environments in which they are free to curate their minds for the arrival of inspiration. It must be more than marketing, or a “culture” thing; it must be an initiative taken from a deep-seated understanding of the creative brain and how unique ideas are born from the still recesses of a clear mind. It will require research, advocacy, and a true paradigm shift in the way creative professionals are interviewed, hired, and managed.
With 70% of employers saying that creative thinking is the most in-demand skill of 2024 and the same percentage of creative professionals identifying as self-employed, employers must make a decision: “shape up” (i.e., truly understand and curate the environments conducive to creative thinking) or “ship out” (outsource all of your daily design and creative needs at a premium to creatives who have discovered their worth and their freedom to maintain the proper conditions for prolonged divergent thinking).
With 70% of employers saying that creative thinking is the most in-demand skill of 2024 and the same percentage of creative professionals identifying as self-employed, employers must make a decision: “shape up” or “ship out”.
The industry is, of course, spread across various stages of this dilemma. In my experience interviewing less seasoned creatives (many of whom are just now emerging from public education into the marketplace), I was surprised to learn that an overwhelming majority desire the office job and the stability it offers, the sense of belonging, and the camaraderie, mentorship, and on-the-job training available. Depending on the job and the industry, these perks may or may not be in the cards.
Conversely, most of the seasoned and highly skilled creatives I interact with have enthusiastically walked away from at-will employment (or at least tried it for a while as a side hustle) seeking to unplug from the data storm of relentless requests and revisions in favor of the freedom to sit and stare, to take or pass respectfully on any project request, to offer a set number of revisions included in a project scope and reserve the right to increase their hourly rate for revisions exceeding that number. For me and many others, self employment has been the first step to freedom for the creative mind.
However, the cycle does not necessarily end at any point. I, too, will someday employ others. Knowing how to foster a unique environment for each employee will be a wonderful challenge to take on. I hope to model the way for leaders to successfully assimilate creative professionals into positions of influence spanning managerial and technical roles in companies small and large.
The future will be imagined by creative thinkers; it’s imperative that we prepare the secret garden of the mind for habitation by the strange and beautiful creatures of thought that will change and improve the world for us all.
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