It's Time: Genius and Creativity

It's time. I've meant to do this, I've been meaning to do this, but there's no better way to do it... than to do it! Do what? This is what: start a blog about genius and creativity. I figure I might as well start my juices flowing on the blog where I am essentially writing nothing. And guess why I'm writing nothing: because I think that genius and creativity are something too lofty for me to talk about! And that's why I haven't really written anything here recently: because the very route to more writing (writing about creativity and genius) has been the very thing that I've shunned.

So, this first post is me overtly talking about that block, and although it's mainly for myself here, perhaps it will benefit you as well. I really don't know, but I need to do this anyway, for my own sake and sanity. And really... no one is reading this anyway, so it's the least risky spot to experiment on. I'm free to try out whatever!

So: why the hell do I want to write about genius and creativity? My life has been fairly consumed with the question of what makes someone creative or a genius. The reason? The world didn't look like too much fun, didn't look like it was doing well... so I asked myself,
"Who or what would be the best way to solve for this?" And then a thought occurred to me:
"Hey, if anyone can solve this stuff, wouldn't it be the geniuses?" So started this now approximately 10-year journey.

I devoured books, even before I was researching genius. One of the first big impressions I got was that of Plato and Socrates. I think someone on a plane recommended that I read "The Apologia" - I forget why they thought I'd like it - and so I got it and read it. Loved the hell out of it, adopted the method, used it on myself ruthlessly, and had a blast! When I started researching genius and creativity, I had the advantage of my local library having an online catalog. On more than one occasion did I frustrate the librarians, and that's because I was going through books on genius and creativity like they were candy... Ok, I kid. They WERE candy! And HEALTHY candy, too! Right? Am I right? Yeah? No? Poo on you.

After all these years, the book that still is prominent in my mind when I think about this is "Touched With Fire" by Kay Redfield Jamison, and you can see the Amazon link below:

I'm not sure I could point to a single best book on the subject. I can certainly recommend, as I just have with one example above, books that I found enjoyable or enlightening, but ultimately, I maintain, this is my personal perspective on the matter. I'm very picky with what books I read; I generally only read those that are what I consider "good enough" to be read the whole way through, and your tastes may differ from mine. As well, even though I keep copious records of all books that I read in full, I didn't read all of the books that I've researched for genius in full, so I would have to refer to my personal notebooks (because I would associate based on the books and try to figure stuff out, so the better books are referenced in them). I have over 30 journals. That's a lot of work. I suppose I should just start going through them, and I may just do that. After all, I've started this blog - and this part of the blog - so why not go the next step and start building?
I owe some thanks to both G+ and Debbie Lattuga:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102287555349832013091/posts/cTikrTVV1Li
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KLnXjqKL5g

So I'm starting now, no funding needed. If people enjoy these writings, and if I enjoy writing them, then we have a nice little relationship going, and possibly a business. What partially amuses me about this is that I've always written for passion, and now here I am, writing for both passion and possibly money. But you don't write for money. You write for passion, and then the money comes. The reason for this is that others share or enjoy your passion. And people want to see passion. Well, I don't necessarily know; that's just what people keep telling me. I guess talking about this stuff will show to me if they're right or not.

So... I'm noticing that I keep starting my sentences with "So"... so I'm going to note that and vary them up. Why? Because I'm also a writer, unofficially. That is, I love writing. Which means that I'm picky as hell about grammar, syntax, repetition, and so forth. Some have called me a grammar nazi. Sometimes I call myself that. Either way, I love words, whether they be from books that others have written, posts and comments, or my own writing. And, as I said up above, I've written a damn lot: at least 30 journals. I say at least for two reasons:
1. I've lost count (although, I'd say I'm at 35 at this point?).
2. I've transitioned to making videos more often than I write.

What does writing have to do with genius and creativity? Look back on that question again. Hello? Read the question to yourself. Do you see the problem with the question? OK, let's see, then:
-Shakespeare
-Wordsmith
-Abraham Lincoln (Gettysburg Address)
-The Founding Fathers
-and many more

I've always dreamed of having made a book. Literally. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to have a book out there that was written by me. I've tried several times to start writing a book, and they've all marvelously failed. Recently, I've come to realize that, I think, what I've been critically missing is that a good story requires a model. By this I mean that you need to create a world. What you then do, is give a tour of that world with writing. Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Atlas Shrugged, and so forth - all these great novels or movies are based on having a model of the reality already present, and we're given a tour of that reality.

It is interesting that there are specific formats that we recognize in relation to creativity:
Sculpting, painting, writing, speaking, modeling.
What is common to all of those is outward expression. A personal journal is not an outward expression until the person is dead and the journal is looked at. An idea that sprouts in your mind that you don't write down, paint into being, or talk about with others, remains but an idea. You need to start somewhere, like I am here, writing this post. What kept me from starting this (assuming it'll go somewhere, which, of course, is an investment risk, although I need to do this anyway, so the risk is not very substantial) was the thought that I needed to put it all up right away. And since I consider what I have right now to be a work-in-progress, would I publish something that I have not yet finished? Of course not! And so... I've never started putting the ideas together in the written format. Well, I have, but not in a cohesive way, which is the way I meant.

And so, where I'm starting, is that I'm writing a book. Perhaps two. One of those books (that I'm hopefully going to finish with this new technique) is going to be a dystopian novel centered around sexuality. The other... might be the text that you are reading. Yeah, that would sure be nice if that happened. I have no idea if it would or will.

By definition, much of what I write here is stolen material (ah yes, the creative person's motto), material which I read from somewhere else and have, unfortunately, forgotten the source of (because I've waited so long to start), though I may express the ideas in my own way. I source whenever I can, not because I don't want to be sued or something stupid like that, but because having the original source and being able to see it in relation to the others sources, as well as the combination of the ideas, means that cohesive and coherent discussion regarding the ideas - since we have the referents - can be had. How can understanding be had or science be done otherwise?

In July of 2006, Wired posted an article called "What Kind of Genius Are You?", starring David Galenson:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/genius.html
The key thought of the article is that there are experimentalist geniuses, and conceptual geniuses. Experimentalist geniuses peak later in life, and conceptuals, early. Regardless of when the peak it, however, both of them made works that are considered valuable:
"For some artists, the curve hit an early peak followed by a gradual decline. People in this group created their most valuable works in their youth – Andy Warhol at 33, Frank Stella at 24, Jasper Johns at 27. Nothing they made later ever reached those prices. For others, the curve was more of a steady rise with a peak near the end. Artists in this group produced their most valuable pieces later in their careers – Willem de Kooning at 43, Mark Rothko at 54, Robert Motherwell at 72. But their early work wasn’t worth much."

I've found myself going more and more towards video. At first, this was a delight, because it meant that I could, from afar, learn social stuff, conversation, cohesion, and the like. Then it became a sort of addiction, and I figured that I'd eventually come back to reading and writing more. Not so. Now, I come here, nostalgically, wishful, and longing to do again what I used to do every day in my journals. And it appears that I'm finally starting to do just that. And boy, is it a welcome change! I'm not saying here that video is something to be avoided. I'm saying that I've (and probably many people) put myself out of balance, in a sense... becoming Twitterized, and it's been a very slow process to going back to a slower pace, something necessary for creativity and deep thought, in my opinion.

I want to write more, but I should also take something of a rest. It's part of the my new understanding of the necessity of resting a bit before you feel the need to rest, plus that of making a model of the reality, and then letting yourself tour the model when some day-dreaming of a way to express the idea happens. And it will, if you're enjoying yourself. And how can you enjoy yourself if you're not taking time to rest once in a while?
Thus, the more accurate way of putting it would be: I want to write more, so I'm going to take a rest. It's the principle that I've used in junction with the dystopian novel. Right now I'm focusing on creating the model. Then I'm going to take the day-dream parts that I've gotten so far, and string them together. That way I don't feel the pressure to write the whole damn thing in one sitting, or have it be linear. Perhaps I could write a linear novel in a non-linear way? I have no idea - I've never even written a linear one!