…after posting this to one of my forums, I thought it might be suitable to the psychology section, here, as well.
Are more creative personalities more frequently confronted with anxiety-creating situations? Perhaps even seek out anxiety-creating situations to further creativity?
Dr. Rollo May states: “One thesis was set by Kierkegaard in his contention that since anxiety arises as one confronts possibility in his own development as well as his communicativeness with others, the more creative persons are the ones who confront more situations of possibility; hence, they are more often in anxiety-creating situations. In similar vein, Goldstein has held that the more creative person ventures into many situations which expose him to shock and hence is more frequently confronted with anxiety.”
Kiekegaard’s “creative” is taken from the German word Geist, the capacity of human beings, as distinguished from animals, to conceive of possibility and actualize possibility. Goldstein phrases it in his studies as the capacity to transcend the immediate, concrete situation in the light of “the possible.”
On first glance, i agree, but i know of creative people who are passive and not anxious… hm…
Maybe there are difforent forms of creativity that are fuled by difforent kinds of mindsets?
I disagree with Kierkegaard. Seeing possibilities need not create anxiety, dread, or existential angst. If you see many possibilities and think that you must find the “best” or “perfect” possibility, that may cause you anxiety, but you need not have that belief. Therefore I say that more creative perfectionists might suffer more anxiety than less creative perfectionists, but aside from perfectionists nothing can be said about the relationship between possibilities and anxiety.
I’ve never met a (good) artist or writer that wasn’t a perfectionist. Intelligent people are usually perfectionistic as well because they are more likely to see errors in their work or over intellectualize things. As for the others (amoung those creative or intelligent types), who might appear lazy at first glance, they are usually horribly indecisive. Having too many possibilities is going to cause anxiety for either. Ignorance is bliss- maybe that’s why many of these people give in to vices.
I very much agree. Those who venture outside the beaten path, face the unknown and anxiety is one of the by-products of uncertainty, such as are failure and other inevitable consequences of risk-taking.
I believe that more creative individuals tend to suffer frequent bouts of emotional highs and lows, particularly depression. Not sure how that relates to anxiety, but being artistic/musician myself, I tend to default more to the spiritually existential elements of life… . Then, get depressed about them… .
It is true that dynamic creativity yields dynamic anxiety as a biproduct.
Firstly, anxiety, like any problem, can be solved by creative solutions. One who’s mind generates gargantuan anxieties, or existential or solipsistic anxieties, is uniquely qualified to create gargantuan creative solutions to the anxiety – creative solutions stemming from the gargantuan creativity that generated the anxiety in the first place.
Secondly, I believe in two kinds of creativity, that which is allowed, by way of laziness and passivity, and that which is forced, by activity and aggressiveness. I contend that they first one, the passive creator, is MORE likely to suffer the worse types of existential anxiety, because being passive by nature, they have little means of actively attacking or countering the anxiety once it hits. It is their nature to let it be, and that often means an inertial or growing cancer of anxiety. This anxiety can resolve if the person is simply too lazy to be anxious, which is what winds up happening in many cases. Anxiety sucks through them and passes as if pulled by gravity.
The active creator, who can present an equal amount of inspired genius, does not easily succumb to anxiety, for to create gargantuan anxiety they would have to actively create it, and they have little incentive to do so. Mostly they are occupied in that which they actively pursue and little more. They may be more privy to a kind of anxiety involving fear of failure or perfectionism, but these are hardly of the caliber of the fear and trembling of the lazy creative who ambles into the labyrinth of fear and trembling.
thanks so much…i think that speaks to a special problem… . can we say then for those of us who are passive with thier existential belief systems, that in a pragmatic sense, to become more active in ‘correcting’ those thoughts viz. transforming them into active behavour, then can we become less anxiety driven? for instance, if a person is lonely, then to do no thing makes it [those thoughts/feelings] worse versus going out and becoming involved say with other people, and the temporary feelings of dispair go away(?)
it seems though it might be deeper than that … some [creative] people are never happy, which perhaps explains why some musicians overdose on drugs… . maybe once certain individuals tap into that left-right [logic and sentient existence] brain exersize via expressing oneself on an instrument and through words/feelings, it may trigger, somehow, more existential angst…
on the ‘active’ side, maybe howard hughes was depressed… .
A really interesting question. IMO, creativity happens when we go into unknown space; places where we risk both new vision and failure. If I know the outcome, I may still be innovative, but creativity lies in going beyond myself. At its best, creativity is disciplined play. where there is no particular outcome in mind, just playing to see what might happen.
As for the anxiety issue, it seems to me that there is only anxiety when one is looking for a specific outcome and is anxious that the outcome may be failure. I can see innovators suffering from anxiety, but not those who are truly being creative. For the creator, the playing is what is important and the success or failure, while interesting, is beside the point. Creators are involved in the process of doing whatever they are doing. The ‘artifacts’ produced are just proof of playing around. The success or failure is something decided after the fact, not before.
Admittedly, I have a rather narrow view of what is creativity. It is a word much used to describe what I would call mere innovation. “Oh, you are so creative!” Not very often…
I’d toss out another word: trepidation. It would be unreasonable to expect anyone to not have a bit of trepidation as they go over the edge.
