Wired To Create

Boldness is fascinating. Whether it’s an iconoclast like Kurt Cobain or an innovator like Steve Jobs, we’re drawn to people who break, or remake, the rules. But what exactly is it that makes these mavericks so magnetic?

Well, there is no one thing that accounts for a creative mind.

In the 1960s, psychologist Frank X. Barron studied a number of famous creatives and concluded that successful creativity had no single source.

Previously, there was thought to be a causal relationship between IQ and creativity, but Barron’s findings showed that brainpower is but one contributing factor among many.

Furthermore, creative minds are often paradoxical. A group of writers, for instance, measured above average on tests for psychopathology and mental illness; however, their overall mental health was also above average.

This mental collage of paradoxes and contradictions – the “messiness” of the creative mind – is reflected in the unstructured, “messy” work habits of creative people.

When working on Guernica, one of his many masterpieces, the painter Pablo Picasso followed no clear plan. He improvised, revising and rethinking as he went, and “wasting” a great deal of effort along the way. Some of his initial sketches appear in the finished painting; others were reworked over and over, only to be discarded entirely.

Instead of making a schedule and sticking to a plan, creative people seem to follow the plan imposed on them by their work. As psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi notes, creatives aren’t led by a rigid structure, but rather obey the demands of the work in their chosen field, and how they interact with it.