Just find your passion and get to work on creating your art or creative business venture, right?
It isn’t always so easy or straightforward.
Once they reach a certain level of achievement and acclaim, artists such as Michelangelo – or David Lynch or Lady Gaga – may be more free to follow their passions, and gain the financial support they need.
But as Andrea Kuszewski notes in the following post, there are often conflicting attitudes and suppressive attitudes toward creative children and adults.
“Creativity seems to be the ‘buzz word’ of the 2000s. Society values it, companies need it, and employers want it. Or do they?
“Creativity is supposed to be a good thing, something we aspire to achieve. However, those who are the most creative are often faced with the worst treatment and the most rejection for their ideas.
“To put it simply, people in positions of authority and management generally like and value those who follow rules. It is much easier to maintain order when everyone is following the rules. Breaking rules = bad. Right? But in order to be truly creative, you must break rules. That is what creativity entails. So do we want order, or do we want creativity? Can we have both?
“Society’s mixed signals about the value of creativity, begins early on in school. There have been countless studies, too many to cite here, on teacher opinions of creative behavior in classrooms. In one example, a study by Westby and Dawson looked at characteristics of creative and non-creative students, then asked teachers to rate their favorite and least favorite students based on those traits.
“First, teachers were asked if they valued creativity and enjoyed working with creative students, and they overwhelmingly answered “yes”. Next, they were asked to look at their own students and rate them on a variety of traits, ranging from highly creative traits, such as being determined, independent, individualistic, impulsive, and likely to take risks, to traits that are associated with low levels of creativity, such as peaceable, reliable, tolerant, steady, and practical.
“After they rated their students on these traits, they were asked to rate them from their least favorite to most favorite students.
“Interestingly, there was a significant negative correlation between the degree of creativity of the student and his favorable rating by the teachers. This means that the most creative students were the least favorite of the teachers, across the entire sample surveyed.”
Continued in longer article: Creativity: A Crime Of Passion By Andrea Kuszewski.
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Here is a related post on schooling and being creative:
“Sir Ken Robinson addressed a crowd of over 1000 parents.
“Here’s the basic arc of his message: most people are miserable in their jobs, drudging through work in anticipation of the weekend. Only those of us who have found our passions love to work. Everyone has talents and interests to ignite, but usually schools have pushed them aside in favor of standardized academic curricula and tests.
“At a time when our economy has moved beyond factory jobs, we need creative, entrepreneurial citizens. That all happens only in personalized programs, where kids are encouraged to follow dreams. As Steve Jobs liked to say, people change the world by following their dreams, not a standard formula for success.”
Continued: Who Has Time For This?: Ken Robinson on Passion and Creativity.
Also see my post: Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
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Using multiple passions as an entrepreneur
This is a program I discovered after reading some very stimulating posts by the author on being a “multipotentialite.” Emilie Wapnick writes:
“Imagine having a business that allows you to focus on many of your interests and use all of your skills on a regular basis. In Renaissance Business, you’ll learn to use your multipotentiality so that instead of it being an obstacle to income, it becomes fuel for income.”
“Would I have to settle on a “practical job” and pursue my various passions on the side or choose among my interests and just commit to one thing?
“Both options made me my heart ache… I knew I could be doing more – that I had more to offer the world. Renaissance Business is the story of how I brought all of my interests together, and how you can do the same.”
Learn more about her Renaissance Business system – “Designed Specifically for the Multi-Passionate Entrepreneur”.
Also see my post Passion Fuels Creative Expression
Photo: Charlton Heston as Michelangelo in The Agony and the Ecstasy, 1965 – from my post Agitation or Not – Eric Maisel on Calm and Creativity.
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Related articles
Douglas Eby (M.A./Psychology) is author of the Creative Mind series of sites which provide “Information and inspiration to enhance creativity and personal development.”
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