Creativity

[Chris]

One thing that's been bothering me lately/my whole life ( )... is anyone creative, or capable of being creative?

Obviously there are people that are - but I really struggle with it. I've never been able to draw, I find it hard to come with original idea's etc, the main thing that has bugged me is music. I'm a keen musician, but I find it incredibly hard to write songs. I've only wrote a couple in my years of playing instruments and I haven't liked them that much at all. I can play music - very well. I can play other's songs to a good (or better ) standard with no problem, but when it comes to thinking of my own ideas... I'm stumped.

Another thing to expand on is the imagery aspect - graphic design in photoshop and so on. I can do it okay, but I can never get any satisfying results to me. I feel like I'm stuck on the same linear path everytime I attempt something.

I'm not entirely sure why I've always been like this. I have a very mathematical mind I guess and a linear method of thinking.... but I'm not particularly fond of it.

 

[Ruby_Aspergic]

If I already have an idea, I can develop it really well. And I am creative when it comes to logic. But when it comes to like.. making up a tune, or coming up with that first idea to be developed, or drawing a picture-- I've got NOTHING. That is why I changed over from film to government.

 

[mikeg26843]

i fail at anything creative really, i tend to take almost a mechanical approach to things, the only thing i have been able to do a little well was scale floor plans for buildings, and that was hardly creative

 

[Willow]

I can draw and paint and stuff, but I rarely have an idea before I start, I just...do stuff and see what happens. If I do have an idea I can never make it happen, but in trying I always make a mistake and the result is usually better than the original idea. I can write poetry and to make sure it sounds okay together I sing it out loud, so I make a tune up for that purpose. And...with photoshop I just sit down and mess around with stuff until I like how it looks.

 

[mikeg26843]

i would rather take apart a lawnmower than paint, actually i might do that next week

 

[krisi]

Maybe you're equating "creative" to "artistic" and making them synonyms when, in actuality, they overlap. Creativity includes the word "artistic" but goes beyond thinks like visual art, writing, music, and dance. Creativity includes the ability to solve problems in new ways. It includes asking deep questions, and finding different approaches to old questions, that may or may not find new answers.

I can tell you that I have minimal artistic talent. Put a paintbrush, crayon, oil pastel, or marker in my hand, and what will result is comparable to what is produced by some of the older children I take care of (6-11 years old). I write mediocre fictional stories and poems. I am clumsy when I dance and if I am not performing a routine, I tend to make repetitive movements instead (lots of spins! ). I was in choir for years, and I have no problem singing something that has already been written, but I can only add my own "style" to it after I know the piece backwards and forwards as it is written. Whenever I have attempted to write my own tunes and lyrics, it comes out sounding musically poor and lyrically cliche'd.

However, when I got my evaluation from my clinical supervisor, one of the things it said was, "One of the things that impresses me most about Krisi is her creativity. She constantly finds new ways to engage her young client in activities while still achieving maximal productions of target words" (it was speech sound therapy--phonology). Phonology happens to be one of my obsessions within the realm of language, and I also love working with children. I was not artistic in any of my therapy activities--the most "artistic" I got was coloring in pictures of dinosaurs or folding origami boxes out of construction paper--a simple set of steps of folding two pieces of paper and fitting them together. It was the problem solving and the approach that was creative, not the product (haha, the dinosaur "product" looked like the little guy I was working with had done it, not his 22 year old clinician!). Maybe your form of creativity is along similar lines?

 

[GetM]

I'm creative! I think Aspies in general are too, since we spend so much time in our own worlds and all!

 

[Dani Evar]

Depending on what type of Asperger's one has, it's a latent thing. Creativity and originality are the 'brute' price for one's existential self, beyond social ideals and pressure.

But, recall that creativity is often synonymous with 'avoiding repeating yourself, or falling into formulas' in order to stay unpredictably fresh, that is, to be able to always fall in love with your idea as Profound, often in the sense that your idea at the moment might be your first great or last authentic work ever.

In Genius, these things are simply there as facets, winged, free, and lonely in their entirety. Many Aspies cannot afford to do just this and there's no guarantee that their creativity is a profound one, though being autistic definitely is a foundational thing. There are many gifted Aspies, but Genius (Creative Genius) is always a class in itself. Creativity is most fulfilled when metaphysically associated with Genius, and so, being self-demanding, I often refuse to go with other (easier) definitions.

Honestly, there's no way of formally taking care of creativity, in the most authentic sense. It isn't always perpetual, but highly discrete. For me, a sudden, rare, silent or loud bursting of singular creativity is sometimes enough, following an obliviously long period of lethargy. The seal of silence.

For this reason, the word 'job' should be socially redefined for Aspies as not being shallowly associated with just a regular job almost everyone else is capable of doing. It's but a social construct. Many creative artists/writers are Aspies who cannot be framed by this sort of monolithic regularity, yet who idly dares deny they do have a 'job'? A job is creative work and creative work is mentally related to the question 'If you only had one day left to live this life, what would you do as the very last thing?' or the question, 'How does one become immortal in this transience?'

 

[Chris]

Good post, Evar. Again. :lol:

Sometimes I think if I could just break out of my mechanical/mathematical mindset for a few hours at a time, things would be great. I'm not entirely convinced its impossible. I think I'm like this since I've always had an interest from maths from such a young age... if I had been interested in art, surely I would have developed more of an organic or 'creative' mindset? Maybe if I play guitar or piano long enough with no particular aim or direction, I may start to wander into the realms of creativity. It just takes longer for me than everyone else or something I guess....

 

[Dani Evar]

Oh Chris, you mean 'Mathemusic'? That's awesome :shifty: .

I've been doing mathematics as well (plus theoretical physics): differential geometry, especially manifold embedding as well as constructing new non-Euclidean geometries for the unification of physical forces (this is where the novel part is). I'm one big mess of a mind, and so luckily, to me, mathematics and art are not oppositional things; rather they subconsciously surge and fill the most creative aspect of me, following (or actually sujercitvely shaping) the common contour of my mind and soul.

Even in mathematics, the mind without the (movement of the) soul, in the form of passion and new images, is simply a static machine, incapable of creation, and the soul without the mind is dull and blind, incapable of profound objectivity. So there's always space for creative (logical) subjectivity, such as in art. For instance, things of geometry, topology, and algebra are not less profound than a surreal painting. (Unfortunately, mental illness (psychosis) often follows behind, lol.)

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, for example, has been one of the most beautiful theories of the physical Universe ever constructed by the human mind. I really mean it's artistically elegant (it's actually the marriage of elegant mathematics (Riemannian geometry) and profound, spontaneous, 'structureless', penetrating intuition, that of Genius). As known, the holy grail of physics would be the eventual unification of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. This desired ***** is called Quantum Gravity, which will definitely erase the obscure big-bang origin of the Universe. Although many people are collectively doing it now in the University setting, a linear mathematical-physical mind might not be able to come up with a profoundly elegant version of it. It takes some insanity and highly authentic individuality ('autism'). An artistic one.

The fact is that the most original of mathematicians have been geometers and number theorists, supported by musical zeal and a parallel interest in abstraction and painting. This is reminiscent of the popular question, "What is the Shape of Sound?"---you can even construct a physical-mathematical theory of the Universe based on self-referential noise (that noise is essentially taken as pre-geometry, or that the Universe began with it.)

So don't worry, it's not impossible at all for you, a gifted musician and a mathematical young mind for the future; in a Pomeranian way, open your eyes unto themselves, and see their two deep landscapes: mathematics and art. That's definitely a profound meeting between the Earth and the Sea. (Though more often, it's mathematics and physical science that are coupled to each other.)

Nowadays, I speak a lot of philosophy (and religion) because, compared to mathematics, it's an idle thing to do, and so it's easily recreational. I'm having a major break from mathematics now (refusing to think the way I used to more than 2 hours per day), to rest my mind for further creativity to emerge. But I doubt I can ever repeat my original mathematical period again. Most mathematicians take it for granted that they're past it once they reach the age of 27. Sure, there's still some time before 27, but yeah, that can be very depressing for anyone desiring to come up with totally original ideas.

While aspergically young, go for the signaled hills! :showoff:

Good post, Evar. Again. :lol:

Sometimes I think if I could just break out of my mechanical/mathematical mindset for a few hours at a time, things would be great. I'm not entirely convinced its impossible. I think I'm like this since I've always had an interest from maths from such a young age... if I had been interested in art, surely I would have developed more of an organic or 'creative' mindset? Maybe if I play guitar or piano long enough with no particular aim or direction, I may start to wander into the realms of creativity. It just takes longer for me than everyone else or something I guess....