The Downside of Creativity
“People tell me that they wish they were as creative as I am, but they really don’t” said my sister. We were talking about life in general, and specifically creativity. I’m a fairly creative person, but my sister (and a couple friends of mine) leave me in the dust. People think they’d like to be more creative, but they only see the upsides that they’re lacking, not the downsides that creative people have to deal with, thus, I thought I’d share.
- To many choices makes decisions hard
When we see a problem or opportunity, we see dozens of choices. Not one or two, which can easily evaluated, but enough that all the choices can begin to merge together. “Oh! Choice A is good, but I like that one aspect of choice B. Can I figure out a way to do both? What if we do choice D and mitigate the problems with choices E, F, and G?”
2. Boring is painful
I had a niece who complained that school was boring. I responded with “I guess that it really IS preparing you for real life then huh?” Creative people have so much going on in their heads that putting it aside to take care of everyday life things is very difficult and can be actually painful. Imagine having ideas on how to create works of art, only to have to put them aside in order to repeatedly answer questions about financial products. (This is my sister’s fate.) It’s like running your car’s engine at 3000 rpms but only driving 15 mph. Our houses and offices are a mess because cleaning up is boring. We lose track of bills because keeping track of what day of the month it is and what particular thing needs to be done is boring.
3. You always have to explain things
One great pleasure of dealing with other creative people is you don’t have to explain things. You show them what you’re working with and say a sentence or two and they see it and appreciate it. Unfortunately, that’s a rare thing. Explaining creativity to people is like having to explain a joke. It’s work that robs the idea of its inspiration. Nobody gets it even though you think it’s obvious.
4. You see all sorts of grand possibilities that will never happen.
I’m 58.5 years old. I have a dozen invention ideas that would save normal people work and make them safer. I don’t have the time, money, or ability to develop them and bring them to market (doing this entails A LOT of boring stuff as well). People whose life could be saved by one of my inventions will die instead because it will never get to them. I have to live with that.
5. You will be poor
Being creative means that you have ideas and projects. Working on these ideas is a compulsion. These cost money to work on. The more ideas you have the more money it takes. If you have dozens of ideas, how do you find the time and money to work on them all? You don’t, however what time and money you have goes to your projects rather than in the savings account.
6. You have a hard time following rules
Creative people have no trouble following the spirit of the rule once we understand it. The letter of the rule is a different matter. Dumb rules will tend to be disregarded. This gets us in trouble.
7. You will be sleep deprived
Creative people tend to also be night people. I normally sleep from 1 or 2 AM till 9 or 10 AM. This means that if I work a normal job, I have to get up 3-4 hours before my brain and body want to. And then I have to do boring things for 8 hours before I can release my creativity. After work is a busy time and it takes till 1 or 2 for my brain to run down enough to sleep. People have told me “You’ll get used to it” all my life. I never have.
I see a lot of people calling them selves “creatives”, but rarely see people who actually are. Businesses say they want creative people, but they really don’t as creative people cause problems. We can’t help it.
If you REALLY want a creative person and are in California (and can pay enough so she can afford rent in your area), or can accept remote work, my sister is looking for a job that lets her use that creativity. If you’re an entrepreneur and are looking for a science backed invention to take to market I have quite a few to choose from. In either case, message me.