As promised, I am back with my next post, Creativity and Insanity. Umm…my favorite topic. Yes, I can see you frowning. I can, in fact see a lot of you frowning. There she goes again, you must be thinking. But, hey, a promise is a promise. I promised to deliver and here I am sitting before my computer, in my workout clothes (this post is my excuse for not hitting the floor for push up lol), with a mug of steaming coffee and a lot of inspiration (which I have to chase driving my 10 second car in 5th gear every time I sit to write). Pretty sad, you know. Sad I cannot stay inspired. Sad, inspiration is for the real writers only. Sad that I don’t know how does it feel like to be really inspired to write. The write mood some of my writer friends say. Anyway, I am drifting from the topic.
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So, insanity is creativity. Or, creativity is insanity. Nope, please don’t think we are like the lunatics who will infect you by biting their teeth into your flesh. But, a touch of insanity looms beneath the surface of every Creative mind.
Aristotle had said that - No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness.
This we all will back, grinning.
People, time and again look at us bewildered and ask – are you crazy. They all are, I must admit wonderfully tolerant. They all forgive everything, but genius. Yes, that’s a deliberate theft from Oscar Wilde’s treasure chest. But, it’s true. When they call us crazy, they don’t it with affection. They do with sarcasm combined with amusement. So, amused sarcasm we get each time we try to express ourselves. But, the question might arise here – what makes creative people insane? You type creativity and insanity together in Google and you will find a flood of questions rather than answers and information.
Is creativity interlinked with insanity? Do they need to be crazy? And you will get to see images of Virginia Wolfe, Edger Allan Poe, Robin William and many others who had the courage to be different.
So, what makes creative people appear to be crazy to the world? This question has nudged my mind each time I have been called insane. And trust me when I say this I have been called crazy a lot of time by people who cannot describe the beauty of the moon with their eyes wide open. Sad yet true.
But, maybe we should not blame them for branding us as insane. Maybe it is in our body language or in the way we present ourselves. No one sane person will write what I am writing right now. This is one of the arguments which I have no counter evidence to attack. Here, I plead guilty. And there are other instances, which I cannot deny, make creative people look crazy.
The disclaimer is – I am not judging the creative minds. I am not belittling anyone. I am expressing my opinion and my observation. You might beg to differ. And you have the right to disagree with me. In fact that’s my first point.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. Another Oscar Wilde for you all to admire. But, he has rightfully expressed what most of us feel. If people agree with us, how are we different? And frankly, people don’t agree with us. They in fact oppose us. Some violently, some timidly, some reluctantly. But, they oppose. And we enjoy the opposition.
The Picture of Dorian Gray has earned strong antagonism from the critiques. Its symbolism, especially the homosexual tone of the narration had forced people to stand up and try to destroy the creator. Sadly, in this case they succeeded. The critiques – the epitome of sanity stood united to save the world.
More than hundred years had passed since the publication of the novel. Yet, it is considered to be one of the most beautifully written classics. I cannot agree more. The skill, the craft and the wits of the creator attract nothing but awe. But the critiques – we don’t even know the names of the people who took Wilde to trial. Should I be laughing? Nah, I am not laughing.
Fall seven times and stand up eight. This is the sad part. Creative people fall, too many times to keep a scorecard. They get rejected. They get humiliated. They stand alone. They lose themselves. They doubt themselves. In the end, they only have their reflections left who believe in them. But, they keep going. They keep moving. They keep doing it, despite failure. Jack Ma did. He kept pushing and pushing until his story of failure became the motivational story for many struggling souls.
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while – Steve Jobs. This might be a strong reason. Creativity cannot be explained. Ask Van Gough how he painted Starry Night. Ask Jack London how he created White Fang. Ask Steve Jobs how he came up with ideas to change the world. They will all tell you one thing – I don’t know. They are right. They don’t know. Ideas come. Ideas form. How? Impossible to say. It is insanity to people who cannot come up with ideas.
We find sanity horribly boring. Yes, we do. Being sane all the time means being rigid. I come across so many such people every day, the sane ones, who make me look up and say a prayer of gratitude that I am born with the touch of insanity. No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.” – Alan Watts. They don’t know how to dream. And when they dream, they do with reluctance, like they gotta pay big buck for big dreams. Poor soul, I find myself thinking when I met someone like this.
They don’t know what it feels like to set free. They don’t know what it feels like to paint images on the surface of empty sky. They don’t know half the things life has to offer. They don’t give the child inside a chance to come out.
They grow up – it’s their tragedy. We never do – it’s ours.
