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I think it requires both isolation and time with colleagues/audience, but with fairly high walls between them. I.e. you need to be able to go off and work on something by yourself, and then when you're finished, show it to other people.
(This is one reason YC asks founders to move to the Bay Area, but not to work in our space. We want founders to be able to talk to other founders, but not all the time.)
I find, personally, creativity requires 3 modes, and maintaining a balance between and within each mode: Input, Output, Sleep.
Input:
-Objective research: (left-brained) Keep your idea of the problem and the reality of the problem in sync, or else any solution you come up with is useless, no matter how creative.
-Creative inspiration: (right-brained) Reductionism is a great tool, except when it runs amok. If you could truly understand everything, you could never be surprised by anything. "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science."
Output:
-Left-brained: This is what the author of this article seems to refer to. Spending time proceeding step by rational step through a large problem. This process requires high focus, so isolation often helps.
-Right-brained: aka "stop thinking about it and just do it [by feel]." Our left-brains revolt at the idea of doing something without having thought through every possible decision and outcome in terms of every scientific field and level of abstraction. But at some point we form habits, and, for the sake of time, we should be incredibly grateful for this. If you form good habits you can trust, your efficiency can skyrocket.
Sleep:
-Running other threads while you're awake: The classic example of this is "Eureka!" Some of us seem to do our best thinking while showering, driving, exercising, cleaning, or studying another science. Refine your meta-heuristics by working in a very different problem domain.
-In a bed: dreams: a very different problem domain. Go through a few thousand of them.
Lastly, it's important to consider the contiguous time I spend in each of these modes 3 modes. If I spend a week in relatively isolated, left-brained output, it's quite likely I'll feel creatively sapped by the end, and will need to spend the following week almost solely in input. By the end of that week, my brain will be so overflowing with ideas that I can't even listen to music without wanted to silence the input so I can get back to output. Oscillating at extremes is extreme. Whereas, while socializing an idea I effectively go from input to output (mostly right-brained, off the cuff) every few seconds. Both feedback loop lengths - and everything in between - have their advantages and disadvantages.
Ultimately, it's about finding a balance both between and within each mode. All things in moderation, including, of course, moderation.
What works for one may not work for others. There have been just as many (if not more) 'ah-ha' moments while interacting with others as in isolation. I've also noticed that creativity can create it's own isolation. World tends to go away while on a real creativity bender. Again different strokes etc.
Yeah, at first I agreed with the article, but then I realized I've had many creative moments while interacting with peers. Maybe when I reach a "writer's block" like coding moment, I then feed of the interaction with others. But only if "others" are firm friendly and encouraging. If I'm working with someone who takes a perverse joy in shooting everyone's ideas down, then all my creativity grinds to a halt until I get away from that person.
The really "ground breaking" developments may require greater isolation.
I'd guess that this pattern is there in the historical details, though I don't know the relevant history well enough.
(i don't just mean individuals in isolation, but also where groups can exist in a degree of isolation from others).
Creativity, in most experts' views, is generally the marriage of novelty and usefulness. In order to accomplish something creative, one must go through a process of divergent thinking, to create many varied options, then convergent thinking, to narrow down the options that make the most sense, or fit the challenge (even if the challenge is only how to create something that is new and useful). Both in divergence and convergence, incubation is a very useful tool, but it is hardly essential in every creative process. So, no, creativity does not require isolation. However, it is my contention that imagination (divergent ability) may flourish when one is disconnected from the "outside world" for some time.
edit: grammar
I feel like to be creative you just need to enjoy what you're doing.
It's like the idea of a to-do list: it's a list of things you don't really want to do, because the things you want to do are done already.
If you're doing something you love, you'll be too busy doing it and being creative that you won't have time to go, "am I being creative?"
Creativity doesn't require isolation. It requires happiness and motivation.
> I feel like to be creative you just need to enjoy what you're doing.
Enjoyment is not sufficient. Someone may enjoy playing video games, but it's hardly creative unless the game is designed in a specific way.
Enjoyment is not necessary either, at least in the beginning. There are many things at which I was (at least somewhat) creative which I didn't enjoy doing when I first started. My enjoyment of those things actually followed my realization that I could be creative doing them. (If you want to know specifically what it was: it was marketing. I had a horrible aversion to it at first, until I realized that it is in fact a form of creativity).
Bill Hicks covered marketing pretty well :)
But real quickly: yeah, that dude playing video games is playing video games. If he were to then start developing video games, I'm just saying that creativity would be easier for him in that realm than if he decided to do something he didn't enjoy.
And the thing you're doing might not be what you enjoy. The process it uses might be enjoyable. Marketing for you might have had a lot of freedom and individual control to it (I'm just using examples). So maybe you wouldn't be passionate about marketing per se, but the process of it and the lifestyle it brought might've been awesome. I mean, I bet there are very few people who really love insurance. But if running an insurance company your own way provides freedom and a good service, that can be enjoyable.
And I agree that enjoyment is not necessary; it predisposes you to creativity, though. You don't have to have genetic flaws to develop a disease, but certain genetic hiccups can predispose you to that disease....
Can't playing video games be creative? I haven't played very many, but it always seemed to me that videogames were designed as highly engaging technical challenges, and you could certainly employ some degree of creativity in solving (winning) them. It's arguably not the most productive use of creative juice...
I wasn't saying that playing video games does not engage the creative part of one's brain whatever it is. I was simply saying that at the core of creativity is producing something that you can show to others, and that the biggest pleasure you derive should be not so much from being engaged into the process of creating (many great artists in fact literally suffered expelling inner demons/whatever when they made art), but from being proud that you have something to show. Otherwise you won't be pulled in one direction (to show something great to others) but in many at once (by whatever tickles your fancy during the creative process), which means you won't be as productive, which means you won't be as creative as you could be, which means that you will eventually stop valuing creativity because people in general are biased to value only those things they are good at.
> It's like the idea of a to-do list: it's a list of things you don't really want to do, because the things you want to do are done already.
I found this comment interesting. I see a to-do list as a way to manage progress towards your goals in discrete steps. That includes things I want to do and those I don't but are necessary. Curious: how do you use a to-do list?
Well, I don't use to-do lists.
People confuse to-do lists with check lists.
I use check lists to make sure, for example, that when coding a WordPress theme I don't neglect any page templates.
But I don't write a to-do list to make the WordPress theme. If I wanted to make the theme, I'd be making it already, already have it done, or be so interested in doing it that I wouldn't need to write it down...
I have always seen creative as coming from two different sources, what I call "local creativity" and "way out left field" creativity.
To thoroughly explore a potential area of opportunity requires local creativity and this is best done with intense focus and concentration.
There are times though when you get stuck, you achieve a kind of local optima but the solution still doesn't feel right. This is where the second type of creativity fits in, and it is specialized for taking a much broader perspective than the conscious mind can handle.
This of course requires a completely different approach, as focus and concentration is definitely not welcome here. To get with this you need to disengage your conscious brain and let the subconscious take a crack at it. I find this is best done by using physical/mental distraction such as going for a walk, running, taking a shower or interacting with others.
A good nap does wonders too.
Reminds me of William Deresiewicz's speech at West Point on leadership requiring solitude. For anyone who hasn't seen it:
As to his second paragraph on "preconditions to be creative": Again, no. Amabile (1983) in "The social psychology of creativity" postulated three components of creative performance: (a) domain-relevant skills, (b) creativity-relevant skills, and (c) task motivation. Yes, you may need sufficient knowledge in a specific domain to increase your chance of acheiving creative "eminence" within it, but it does not preclude you from doing so if you are not an expert. One must understand the science of creativity before they can say they have creativity-relevant skills, which this author unfortunately does not seem to have.
Are you baiting? One must understand the science of creativity before they can say they have creativity-relevant skills wow fella. Did Picaso (sp?) or Bob Marley have those 'well maybe they did', they were just doing what they do - bet they studied their domain - bet they did not study the science of creativity (whatever that is - is it a science?), they just were creative people - ya either got it or ya ain't - needing to understand the science of creativity means one ain't. Oh sorry I see what u did - I don't think Amabile said you had to understand it - I think she means you have to have it - having creativity and understanding it are (I imagine) quite different. But they are just words eh? The creative among us don't care - they just do. Refactor edit.
Can't help it - Kids (little grownups) can be very creative - what do they care of the science or even the process - they make it up as they go along. I think that maybe that's how some of the creative people in our times are creative. In their 'own little world' is a term often used.
Pretty interesting. The times when I've been most "business-ly creative" have come when I've moved from huge dense cities with lots of people to show my work to (NYC, SF) to relative "middle of nowhere" places (Fayetteville, North Carolina and Ogden, Utah).
I totally identify with this, and think it's actually true.
For me creativity requires stimulation. Music is especially good.
Of course maybe I should try a few hours of silence sometimes.
Thanks for everyone's feedback, some good points and pointers. I've linked to this page from my post.
I've somehow created my best piano song when drunk; so I guess alcohol might also help creativity.
What a narrowly defined definition of creativity. :(
Seems like all I ever read in blogs is an author adducing results from their own experience to everybody on the planet, with a prescription to go with it. If I were a psycho-scientist, I would call it "one pill to swallow them all syndrome".