The Creative Mode of Being

S H I R L E Y J . HOHOT J A N E C O l M A N

The Creative Mode of Being

SUMMARY Because of misperceptions about the nature of creativity, many creative children are misunderstood in and out of their classrooms. Based on a close association with creative adults and childrenn, the authors postulate that creativity is a state of being that is challenged by the socialization process in West- ern civilization. The authors envisage two differing states of being namely, a n essential and a conventional. These states represent end points on a continuum. Creative adults speak of their struggle to try and regain something of their original state of being. Understanding creative children who are closer to the essential state is important for their emotional well- being and the nurturing of their creativity.

w w m ” l O N In our association with creative adults we became aware that they share certain feelings and experiences that are infre- quently (if ever) mentioned in the literature. They struggle to verbalize these feelings which center around a n sense of being different. This “difference” refers not only to the experience of being unlike fellow adults but also to being unlike themselves as children. Many of them express a striving to reclaim what they feel is their “original creativity.” All of them speak in various terms of a tremendous sense of loss, an emptiness, a numbness, a sense of being false, of being irretrievably “programed.” They use different terms to say the s a m e thing. S o m e are investigating how they c a m e to end up in the way they are. Others accept that life will most likely never offer them the same fulfillment they experienced a s children. Their comments inspired u s to review the meaning of being creative in a n attempt to understand what they are trying to say.

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Journal of Creative Behavior

Creativity, with its “awesome power” (Tannenbaum, 1983, p.241), is a construct that manages to elude an operational definition (Callahan, 1991 ) or consensus regarding its nature in spite of attempts by theorists from diverse schools of thought over many years. The reason for this is a lack of authentic insight to this state of being, which results in the continuing lack of understanding of the creative person. More significantly, although there is agreement that creativity needs to be nur- tured, parents and teachers of highly creative children do not have clear guidelines as to how to treat these children, particularly in early childhood. Guilford (quoted in Parnes, 1967, p.iii) said that “creativity is the key to education in its fullest sense and to the solution of mankind’s most serious problems.” Unfortunately, the adults struggling to fulfil their roles as nurturers of creative young individuals have been supplied with “formulas rather than guidance” (Eby, 1990, p.41).

To date, many theorists and researchers have focused on creativity as a characteristic or personal attribute which is an extension of the child and which is expressed in the product that results from exercising the creative ability (Davis & Rimm, 1979; Dellas & Gaier, 1970; Davis & Rimm, 1979; Treffinger, 1980). Others seem to see i t as a gift: Piechowski and Cunningham (1985, p.153) express their concern that “we are still ignorant of what constitutes the endowment for creativity itself. Rather, we measure its effects, its pattern of ripples like those of fish we never see.” The word endowment here suggests that highly creative individuals have something that makes them richer than others.

Our experience with creative individuals motivates us to challenge these views. We will attempt to offer an hypothesis about creativity as a mode of being that cannot be seen merely as an aspect of personality or a gift that may be taken out and used at odd times. We will also try to explain how the conditioning inherent in the process of socialization in the Western world results in a false sense of self that may stifle creativity from early childhood and causes highly creative individuals much pain.

There is little “proof” at this stage as to the validity of our views. They do not derive f rom books but rather from the authentic experience of creative beings. In other words, we have tried to describe “being creative” from the perspective of the person rather than hypothesising on the basis of the existing literature. To justify our views, we will use anecdotes of a creative child, Kat, and the opinions of a creative adult,

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Jan, who is able to verbalize what a young creative child like Kat cannot.

Kat’s developmental aspects promised exceptional potential virtually from birth. Her mother recalls how she, only a few days old, would lie in her carrycot on her stomach and lift her head up so that she could see over the rim. At three months she would respond to her mother’s singing by rocking her body in time to the song. At the age of two she discovered drawing. Her ability to concentrate was exceptional and she was able, at this age, to draw recognizable subjects. At three she was regularly completing three detailed drawings per day. At four her output had more than doubled and her drawings were filled with rich detail. For the following two years prior to the begin- ning of formal schooling this output remained more or less constant. She spoke descriptively, questioned everything and expressed her knowledge of the world in her remarkable drawings. Apart from these developmental and artistic signs, Kat’s creative potential expresses itself in her remarkable ability to formulate questions to timeless problems and come to an intuitive answer through the creative process. The best example we can give of this is the following: Kat, aged six, asked her mother: “Who made the world?” When encouraged to suggest an answer, she replied “God made the world, I suppose.” A while later, she returned and said “But perhaps the world made God.” A half-hour after this she returned once more and said seriously “Do you know, I think it’s all a movement out of nothing.”

Jan is the daughter of an elementary school principal who is also an acclaimed art teacher, known for her unusual approach to the teaching of art in order to stimulate creativity in children. Jan was identified as a creatively gifted child and is a professional artist today. She is one of a group of academi- cally and creatively gifted adults that we have worked with who talk of a struggle to reclaim their original creativity. They speak in various terms of an emptiness, a numbness, a tremendous sense of loss, of being false, of being irretrievably programed. Jan is one who underwent extensive self-enquiry, and believes that one of the fundamental reasons for her very unhappy childhood and adolescence was the refusal of others to allow creative children to be WHAT and WHO they are (Jan’s emphasis). Her lifetime awarenesses and experiences and those of young Kat are examples that serve to clarify our hypothesis.

In order to hypothesize about a creative being, it is necessary to overview the existing literature concerning this field of study.

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DEFINITloNS AND

CAEATIVlw

Creativity seems t o be a te rm meaning different things t o different people. Piirto ( 1 9 9 2 ) s t a t e s t h a t a 1 9 6 4 vers ion of Webster’s dictionary did not even list “creativity,” a n d wasted little space o n “creative.” To b e creative w a s to b e productive o r inventive. In 1988, Webster’s s ta ted tha t creativity is “creative ability: artistic o r intellectual inventiveness”. T h e 1990 edition of t h e Concise Oxford Dictionary ment ions “creativity” as t h e n o u n form of t h e adjective “creative” but gives n o definition. “Creative” is defined as “inventive a n d imaginative; creating o r a b l e t o create.”

T h e word “creativity” derives from t h e Latin creare m e a n - ing t o m a k e , a n d t h e Greek krainein meaning to fulfil (Young, 1985). If o n e a p p r o a c h e s creativity f rom t h e point of view tha t it is what creative persons do or make , then o n e unders tands why m a n y consider creativity as t h e power to m a k e someth ing new o r better. If, however, o n e unders tands t h e te rm t o m e a n tha t it is what creative persons a re , we will consider creativity as a way of being -as t h e expression of a n individual’s being. As Young (1985, p.77) eloquently puts it, it is “a being becom- i n g . . . a personal adventure into t h e unknown.”

During t h e first half of t h e twentieth century, it w a s commonly a s s u m e d tha t creativity w a s a characterist ic of com- paratively few individuals who were primarily artists. Creativity was not considered a desirable attribute, a t least from t h e stand- point of objective social n o r m s (Pendarvis, Howley, & Howley, 1990). By t h e middle of t h e century, t h e c o n c e p t of creativity c h a n g e d , becoming understood to m e a n a potential ability of all individuals a n d applicable t o all fields of h u m a n activity (LaChapelle, 1983; Pear lman, 1983).

In 1950, Guilford publicized his theory known as t h e Struc- tu re of t h e Intellect Model, whereby creativity could b e s e e n as a measurable p h e n o m e n o n . This b e g a n t h e modern interest in creativity, which, a long with o ther elusive c o n c e p t s s u c h as intelligence, gained t h e attention of professionals from diverse disciplines (Ford & Harris, 1992).

T h e theories tha t a r e often used as bases for s tudies o n creativity h a v e b e e n classif ied in to s e v e n g r o u p s ( B u s s e & Mansfield, 1980) , namely: 1. Psychoanalytic - which view creativity as t h e exploration

of t h e preconsc ious mind which is t h e s e a t of “primary processes” in a s ta te where t h e ego is receptive t o impulses a n d ideas.

THEORIES OF

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The CrcaUve Mode of Being

2. Gestalt - which holds that creative thinking is new insights resulting from the conscious restructuring of a situation or problem.

3. Associationist - whereby creativity is the result of associa- tions among ideas.

4. Perceptual - which views creativity as a perceptual open- ness that allows a multiperspective approach to ideas or objects.

5. Humanistic - which believes that creativity exists when individuals allow themselves to be open to experience, have an internal locus of evaluation and are willing to play with ideas.

6. Cognitivedevelopmental - which postulate that creativity proceeds through stages of development similar to Piaget’s stages of intellectual growth.

7. Composite theories - which combine versions of the above theories.

In many of these theories, creativity is viewed as something which individuals possess in larger or smaller quantities - much l ike intelligence (Kogan, 1983; Runco, 1991). A certain “amount” of creativity or intelligence is believed to be geneti- cally determined, but education, or early stimulation, is seen as vital for the realization of the creative or intellectual ”potential” of each individual. From these views have grown the com- mon belief that creativity is a desirable ability or power that is an additional aspect of being human and can be developed by specially designed programs.

Recently, more attention has been paid to the measurement, processes and products of creativity, and less to the creative person. Certainly attention has been given to aspects of the creative personality. A range of documented research stretches from Lombroso’s (1891) study of human behavior, through Freud’s work in psychoanalysis, to the empiricism of contem- porary psychology (Pendarvis, Howley & Howley, 1990). But rather than seek to describe the creative person in essence, these attempts have sought to list characteristics of creativity in order to provide the formula thought to be necessary for creativity or its nurturance (inter alia, Amabile, 1983; Barron & Harrington, 1981; Bloom, 1976; Clark, 1988; Dabrowski G Piechowski, 1977; Eby, 1989; Gardner, 1983; Goertzel & Goertzel, 1962; MacKinnon, 1978; Maslow, 1968; McCrea & Costa, 1987; Piirto, 1992; Willings, 1985).

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The major personality traits found to be important for the creative process to take place are tolerance of ambiguity, open- ness to experience, possessing unconventional value, independence of judgement, curiosity, preference for challenge and complexity, self-confidence, propensity for risk-taking, and intrinsic motivation (Russ, 1993). Many of these characteristics were identified by studying individuals (or their self- descriptions) who had “proven” their creativity (Ghiselin, 1952; Gardner, 1982; Shephard, 1978,1988; Wallace & Gruber, 1989). In other words, these studies examine adolescents and adults who had produced creative works in some o r other domain. Gruber (quoted in Piirto, 1992, p.20) said that “we know very little about the childhood that leads to creative adulthood.” Certainly creative children are widely labelled a s being “diffi- cult” in the classroom (Landau, 1990; 56: Pendarvis, Howley, & Howley, 1990, p. 102) and some (Kokot, 1992;Tannenbaum, 1983) believe that conformist, factually orientated formal schooling may cause a loss of creativity over time.

Our personal experience of highly creative children has led us to believe that, rather than possessing some or other attribute in greater quantities than others, they live closer to the essence of being than usual. This is not a new concept. Maslow (Eby, 1990, p. 41) saw creativity a s a way of being that he called “self-actualization,” and Young ( 1985, p. 77) described it a s “a being becoming.” Creative children are somehow closer to a way of being that allows free-flowing, intuitive knowing that can be observed in their thinking and which is described in terms of the characteristics listed above, namely, an open- ness to experience, unconventionality, independence and total immersion in the moment (Russ, 1993). This does make them “different” from others and vulnerable to hurt a s a result of misunderstanding, but it does not explain their feelings of being “different” a s adults from their childhood selves.

WING IN ESSENCE The mode of being that we call “living in essence” means, in summary, that the child is in a state of existence that is found before too much of a particular form of social conditioning occurs. Exposure to the norms of society results largely in the development of a socialized ego, which is a false sense of self. This self is not the true essence of humanity, which is what psychology students are often taught to believe. At a very young age, parents start to pattern and condition the child according to the various belief systems they hold. Much emphasis is placed on the idea that children must fit into the

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THE SOCIAL EGO: A FALSE SENSE

OF SELF

networks of relationships which are collectively called “society.” Loving their children, parents attempt to mould them into acceptable human beings and then send them to school, where education continues to pattern generation after generation. The love that we believe is the motivation for education is, in reality, fear that our children will not be acceptable to others and will, as a direct and practical outcome, be unable to survive financially.

Some, i f not most, children, accustomed to the notion of fear being love and concern, seem to cope. They develop something that we call “self-confidence,” and this protective mechanism serves them well, although the psychological implications of the social ego are great. The function of this ego is to pro- tect the natural being that lies just beneath it. Later, the being is forgotten, and the social ego parades as the being itself. The child who has not developed this ego is still in the natural state of being that we call “essence.”

To better understand the child in essence one must attempt to rediscover a way of being that is natural to humankind. This necessitates looking beyond the social ego. It is only when we understand our non-essential being that we can meet with our essential being. In order to do this, it is necessary to recognize this ego in terms of its manifestations. The following is an abbreviated list that characterizes some of the major functions and nature of this false sense of self.

The social ego is: - separative and fragmentary (we see ourselves in terms

of categories, where the “ I as a scholar” is not related to “I as an emotional being”;

- concerned with role-playing and becoming better (the aim of education is to “cure” children of childhood)

- patterned according to fixed beliefs, knowledge, opinion and ideals (as reflected by social norms and behavior);

- goal orientated; competitive; modelled on the past and aspires towards the future;

- continually draining energy to perpetuate itself (it takes energy to be continually involved in being better, something else, and so on);

- suppressive by nature (it has to suppress socially unde- sirable ideas/behaviors, etc.);

- concerned with protection and survival (in social groups);

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- a p t to follow a linear s equence intellectually; labels everything (concentrates on cause and effect);

- lacking insight and awareness (usually looks for external causes);

- concerned with answers rather than enquiry; - inclined to view itself a s the centre of existence with all

other qualities as extensions (i.e. m e + ability to sing + ability to d o math, etc.);

- patterned to function according to moral codes and has lost the love that exists in essence;

- projective, in that it projects its own inner problems onto the external world;

- something that functions within dualities: positive vs. negative; right vs. wrong; good vs. bad; sinner vs. saint.

- Stress is its symptom.

This false self hides a dimension in the human being that most can no longer access. In the losing of this dimension, adults (particularly in the fields of education and management) try frantically to find ways of accessing it, or allowing it to access us. We theorize about right and left brain hemispheres having to work together, about trying to train the mind by brainstorming, practicing lateral thinking, and so on. All this we d o while helplessly blocked out of the inner world which is the well of human creativity. Highly creative children are still in this inner world, which constitutes a different way of being.

DIFFERENTMODES OF BE”G

Those who have worked with highly creative children know that they differ in many ways from their peers. Some of the differences are almost intangible but most can be explained by their alternate mode of being. The fact that they may represent pure, original human potential is more crucial than their ability to create. To illustrate this point, we will relate some of our experiences with Kat (now aged 7), whose mode of being differs in many ways from her peers yet who is similar in many ways to other highly creative children.

We mentioned that the social ego is separatist rather than whole. The transition towards separatism is incomplete in Kat. She is struggling to acquire this aspect. She seems to have a sense of oneness with all the things in the world. She empa- thizes with thirsty trees and plants; she has insight to the feelings and “beings” of birds; she has great compassion for all

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animals and insects. She has caused trouble in her classroom because on seeing a bird land on the window sill, she “became” the bird, and began “flapping her wings” in delight. She dreams often of flying. Her understanding of the ways of living things suggests a communication through something that we do not understand. She regularly “saves” bees from pools of water and brings them indoors for “rest and recovery” yet has only been stung once. The reason, according to Kat, is “because he was hurting very much and had to blame me.”

This sense of oneness further means that she finds it diffi- cult to separate herself from her schoolwork and draws all hap- penings back to herself. She cannot say: this is me, that is m y work. She is the work; the work reflects her and she experiences a severe blow to her inner self when her work is found to be not good enough.

We wrote that the social ego is concerned with answers rather than inquiry. Kat is less interested in facts than in discovery. She is constantly occupied with discovering the world through questions to which she seldom demands answers from others. Instead, she retires for “quiet times” (the incubation phase?) which are often followed by her offering her own answers to the original question. The quality of her answers are sometimes startling, and one wonders if the “peak experiences” to which the literature refers are what Kat experiences when her intuitive awareness leads to her discovery of reality. We have already cited her question about the origin of the world to serve as an example of this. Another example may be her response to being asked, “Why do you have to be so different?” by her teacher. In spite of her bold reply “ I a m so different because I AM different” this remark upset Kat very much. She had nightmares, wept for seemingly no reason and insisted that her hairstyle and dress be the same as all the other children in case they started thinking that she was different again. But the answer came to her after helping her mother plant petunia seedlings in the garden several weeks later. “ I have it!” she cried joyfully, “We are just like these flowers. They are different because they have different colors but they are also the same all at once.”

Kat is highly sensitive to the world and is extremely obser- vant. In addition, her perception is almost uncanny. One day, she said without prompting or knowledge “I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well. There is such a darkness around your head.” Liv- ing things seem to have an aura around them such as the “glow” that she sees (and therefore draws) around flowers.

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Her sensitivity to stiimuli from the world results in her being easily distracted in the classroom. Kat is too young to ad- equately verbalize supersensitivity but J a n , as a supersensi- tive adult, described it a s follows:

Supersensitivity is both a joy and a pain. Nothing is ordi- nary. Rather, the entire world is full of radiant aliveness, an extraordinary interplay of light and shadow, color and sound, so intense that it would daze m e and the world was a rich tapestry of woven color so pure that even today I see them in my mind’s eye a s the “untamable colours.” Sometimes my senses seemed so bombarded from both within and without that I would crawl into a dark area I made by pulling my wardrobe away from my bedroom wall and erecting blanket barriers. This gave m e time to rest.

We said that these children are concerned with being rather than becoming. Kat is not concerned with “growing up.” She never refers to the future but is always intensely occupied with the here and now. Her world is mostly centred around the people she loves, all of nature and her own creative form of expression: drawing. Her drawings are remarkably talented and reflect her keen observation and understanding.

Her personality shows a natural confidence which is often at odds with social norms. She is pot competitive but is spontaneous, very vulnerable to hurt, questions others’ beliefs in her search for truth, and responds to discipline only when it makes sense to her in terms of a natural order of things, which includes consideration of others.

Kat’s Grade 1 and 2 teachers did not allow for her preferred way of discovery learning or her unrepressed personality. She was labelled impudent, learning handicapped, rebellious, attention deficit and over-sensitive. Kat understands that school requires something different from her. In her own words: “Thy want me to live in my head, and I’m much happier living in my heart.” Her declaration reminded us forcibly of Lonergan’s state- ment (quoted by Linda Silverman during a discussion at a con- ference in Toronto) that “objectivity is the fruit of authentic subjectivity”, and high moral development requires reflection so that one can be what one seems to be.

We must socialize even highly creative children so that they can become adjusted to living comfortably in a social world. We must educate them and supply them with the knowledge base that is needed by all human beings in our scientific, tech-

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nological world, The danger lies in our approach to socialization. It should be done in a way that accommodates possibly different modes of being. It seems that the creativeness in all children, but especially those with a potential for extraordinary creativity, is very vulnerable and may be extinguished by adults who see conformity as security and who fail to understand the real needs of the mode of being of the highly creative.

T A W 1

ESSENCE

DIFFERENT MODES OF BEING ESSENCE CONVENTIONAL

CONVENTIONAL

Being Non separative/ Whole Knowing Subjective Conscious Intuition Open/vulnerable Spontaneous Truth Emphasis on questions Authentic/original Natural order Insight Action Natural confidence Experimental Expressive Feeling/empathy Receptive Sees cause with effect Developed senses

Lives in the moment

Flexible Direct Feels in terms of synthesis Non-competitive Symbolic Daydreams for inspiration/ integration

Becoming Separative/Fragmentary Knowledge Objective Unconscious Facts Closed/defensive Calculative Belief Emphasis on answers Imi ta tive/emula tive Fear based order Learned facts Reaction Self confidence Conditioned Repressed Emotional/sentimentaI Assumption Separates cause and effect Senses function as survival mechanism Lives for past or future (memory bound) Rigid Evasive Thinks in terms of ‘this vs that’ Competitive Concrete/structured Daydreams for escape

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THE TRANSITION FROM ESSEMlfll

BEING TO SOCIAIISED BEING

We d o not propose that the socialized state of being is something separate from the state of creativeness. This is not a dual, either-or, right o r wrong situation. Instead, there may be a continuum between two differing states of being. In order to illustrate the cont inuum between a n essential being a n the conventional, socialized being, we offer Table 1.

We d o not know how many children retain much of their natural mode of being but it is interesting that many case studies of creative individuals describe traumatic childhoods that are believed, perhaps erroneously, to be a necessary catalyst for later creativity. Equally noteworthy is the attempt made by visionary theorists such a s Dabrowski (1972) to explain that mentally ill individuals are often gifted persons who struggle against society’s norm of conformity.

f~ D€SCAIfTION OF CAEFITIV’TY

S o m e theorists have come close to describing creativity as we have experienced it in the being of children. Perhaps the description by Young (1985, p.78) may serve a s an example:

Creativity is those attitudes by which we fulfill ourselves . . . Creativity is the actualizing of our potential.. . It is the integration of our logical side with ou r intuitive side . . . Creativity is more than spontaneity, it is deliberation a s well. It is divergent thinking for it converges on s o m e solution: It not only generates possibilities, but also chooses among them. It is more than originality which may only express the bizarre. . . Creativity is an advance and change a s well a s an expression of continuity with the past.

There is much that we agree with in this description. A reviewer of this article pointed out that the quote seems to say that creativity combines the two modes of being. This is very possible, because creativity demands the integration of all human facilities. We would like to add that creativity is simply a state of being. Really understanding this state of being is not easy for many of us. It necessitates being creative, which for most of us would mean making a quantum leap from the periphery of existence to the centre of existence. This we may not be able to do, but we can observe and listen to those children (and adults) we call “creatively gifted.” The young children in particular have somehow retained a portion of their essence and are still in the natural state of being which is expressed in many different forms.

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hUXlCfVlONS FOR EDUCAT’oN

The alarming result of the academic disciplines of psychology and education is the belief that the whole child may be divided into parts. A creative child defies the formula: Creative child = creative + child. It must be seen as Creative = Child. The creative is the child and not something that we can attempt to ignore while the child gets on with a mathematics lesson. It demands inclusion in every aspect of the child’s life.

True nurturing of creativity will necessitate a paradigm shift in education as it is commonly practiced in most countries. Many classrooms around the world have indeed begun by slowly moving towards integrating thinking skills in the cur- riculum and encouraging brainstorming, intuitive activities and other aspects of “creative thinking” in the classroom. A n educational revolution is not our aim. However, changing attitudes and creating the awareness needed to support creative children within existing educational models seems a reasonable goal, especially as there are excellent guidelines available for teachers. Researchers and authors such as Barbara Clark (1988) and Dorothy Sisk (1987) give examples of lessons that accommodate the creative child’s intuitive learning while h e l p ing to reawaken the essence in other children.

However, teaching highly creative children requires more than a lesson plan. It means firstly recognizing and accessing their natural way of learning. By allowing them time to know by means of discovery through involvement and intuitive insight, learning can be a means of expression and wonder- ment for these children. Teachers must be helped to realize that it is not what is taught, but how i t is taught that will deter- mine the degree of joyful learning in the creative classroom. We need to facilitate and direct the confidence and energy of these children into meaningful interactions with learning material. This means that we must refrain from trying to su- perimpose our views and beliefs on the children but rather act as an “interface” between them and schoolwork to help them find the way that they may best express their discoveries. The approach of Maria Montessori (1965) may serve as a wonder- ful guideline here.

Natural learning requires a moving away from the highly systemized approach of teaching as well as intensive teacher training for both primary and high schools. Perhaps the most crucial part o f the training will be making prospective teachers sensitive to the state of being of these children so that they are not harmed by misunderstandings in the form of destructive words or actions, such as experienced by Kat, whose teacher

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Journal of Creatlve Behavior

labelled her different in front of t h e class a n d could not under- s t a n d her grea t hurt.

T h u s teaching should n o t b e g e a r e d towards prompting creative products , or artificially st imulating creative thinking. If educa t iona l i s t s s t u d y a n d a c k n o w l e d g e t h e e s s e n c e of being creative, t h e products a n d thoughts will come naturally. Perhaps we need t o begin by selecting teachers w h o s h o w sufficient sensitivity a n d flexibility t o enable t h e m t o nurture creativity.

O u r hypothesis is being evaluated as we cont inue o u r inter- act ions with creative children a n d adults. We d o not yet have conclusive evidence to either s u p p o r t o r reject it but t h e reaction from adul ts t e n d s t o s u p p o r t o u r views. In addition, we feel tha t we a r e better equipped t o help t h e children w h o a r e referred t o u s for help b e c a u s e we have gained in understanding their creativeness.

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