Livin la Vida Loca....or, "Does this career make me look weird?"
Living the crazy life. Yesterday, I read an article in Scientific America "The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric". It basically, scientifically, with all the mumbo jumbo they can cram into five online pages ( you need a subscription to read the rest), explains that creative types are naturally crazy.I didn't think there was anyone questioning this.
The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People are Eccentric
"Highly creative people often seem weirder than the rest of us. Now researchers know why"
After all their science-stuff was imposed on the "creatives" this is the label they came up with...schizotypal personality, meaning they have the following;
magical thinking ( fanciful ideas or paranormal beliefs)
unusual perceptual experiences (distortions in perception)
social anhedonia ( preference for solitary activities - preferring work over socializing)
mild paranoia (unfounded feelings that people or objects in the environment may pose a threat )
.....not included but I think they skipped this.. personification (giving personality traits to random objects)
The researchers tempered this by saying that even with this personality disorder, they are often very high functioning, talented and intelligent.
(now they are just complimenting the cats.... think they were scared, er scawed)
None of this is new. But I suppose giving creative people a label puts the scientific minds at ease. "Ah, they have a schizotypal personality, that explains everything."
....if I sound snarky. I am. There are days, (like all of last week) that I considered taking a "real job." Granted I'm not good at much of anything "real" But, that didn't stop me from imagining myself heading off for work, in work clothes, gathering a predictable paycheck on a regular basis, going out, coming in, being normal.
Writing for a living is wonderful, I love it, and I hate it. I spend hours talking to myself, consult all the random thoughts in my brain, make up things and people and places. It's odd, it makes me odd. Or so I thought. Now science comes along and says, no. The work doesn't make you odd, you are just crazy. Thanks.
No, really, thanks science folks. That does help.
Art disturbs, science reassures.
~Georges Braque, Le Jour et la nuit
This irks me, too... bloody scientists trying to act like THEIR OCD brains are the NORMAL ones. I mean I 'get' that 'hearing voices' isn't supposed to be NORMAL, but I think it's only disordered when a person can't keep straight real from the other. We creative types are the rebels because we won't subscribe to preconceived notions. MORE POWER TO US, I say! We are the only ones with the potential to make improvements.
ReplyDeleteHa, thanks for your passionate response!
ReplyDeleteEXACTLY, we are the ones creating something from nothing, not just walking around pointing out the obvious.
you mean it isn't normal to argue and carry on a conversation with yourself? Or think about what the birds are saying to one another or imagine how the car thinks? Oh well. Who the heck wants to be normal anyway?
ReplyDelete"EXACTLY, we are the ones creating something from nothing, not just walking around pointing out the obvious." LOL!!!