Friday, October 31, 2008

Creativity

I spent four days in bed, recovering from a bout of gastroenteritis. During that time, I didn't even have the energy to read --- mostly I listened to the radio. But my mind was clear and active and extremely creative. I designed all kinds of art projects in my head and composed these entries to my blog. This experience verified what I've long thought: that some kind of deprivation, together with time to think, stimulates creativity. For example, if I read a lot, I don't write as much. If I'm deprived of reading material, I make it up in my head. When I visit someone else's house and find the decor unappealing --- that is, when I'm deprived of a satisfying environment --- I sit and mentally redecorate.

Think of the quilters from Gee's Bend who were isolated in so many ways: racially, economically, geographically. They were almost forced by these deficits to find a creative outlet in the quilts that were a necessity for their families. Many authors, artists and composers overcame physical and emotional handicaps or deficits to create the world's great art. An author I recently read posited that since the residents of the British Isles are geographically confined and no longer have a world-wide empire, no frontiers, they're forced to look inward and have thereby created great literature and theater.

Maybe as we live though a contracting economy and begin to feel deprived of material goods and even security, we'll notice an up-surge in creativity. More about that later.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You have to express more your opinion to attract more readers, because just a video or plain text without any personal approach is not that valuable. But it is just form my point of view

12:30 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home