Sunday 11 August 2013

How to be more creative (self-help edition)

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http://iqpersonalitygenius.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/how-to-be-more-creative-gratuitous.html
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5 comments:

dearieme said...

Yeah. Time spent shaving can be productive.

dearieme said...

And don't forget that the enemy of promise is the pram in the hall.

If you want both to breed and be creative, ensure that you can afford nannies, governesses, prep schools and so on.

Arakawa said...

@dearieme

Well, if Tolkien hadn't had children, he wouldn't have had the same inclination to write in the children's genre that led to 'The Hobbit', and without the Hobbit there would be no 'Lord of the Rings', and so the cycle of legends about Middle-Earth might never have produced an actual novel. Or at least, that novel would not have been Lord of the Rings.

The corporate culture at Studio Ghibli, from what I've heard (trying to remember which of the interviews I've read mentions it....), emphasizes that it's hard to honestly make movies starring children if you don't have children. (But then, most of the people working there are assembly-line animators rather than 'creatives', so I don't know....)

dearieme said...

@Arakawa: but did he do it without nannies and so on?

Arakawa said...

@dearieme

Well, whatever nannies were employed (don't know anything about that), allowed him to devote more time to composing bedtime stories for his children....

I guess my comment earlier is best taken not as an argument for the opposite generalization, as one against generalizing on this particular point. It's difficult to predict what God may intend for a person, and warning people away from having children in this day and age (even if indirectly) is probably not the most important argument to be making....

On the other hand, I'd expect that most creatives whose creativity depends on a degree of unstructured existence that precludes caring for children (or whatever), are already well aware of this fact... and with those kinds of people, who know for a fact that they're not suitable for parenthood (and who know in their own heart why this is), I have no problem.