
Is Social Rejection the Key to Creativity? - prostoalex
http://delistraty.com/2015/04/17/is-social-rejection-the-key-to-creativity/
======
wemysh
This title speaks to me, because lonely and creative are two of my main
traits. I created so many projects, mostly startups, that people often can
hardly believe it. Some of these have been successful, so I am leading an
financial independent life. People constantly say that my work is based on
unbelievable creativity. Yet, I am completely isolated.

With people, it just does not work. In no setting. Love, friends, business,
family - you name it. I do not have a single person I am close with. The
strange thing is - even though I consider myself very smart - I never was able
to figure out why. People just disappear. Do not have time for me. Do not call
me back. When I ask them straight away "is it because I am a somehow
unpleasant person?" they say stuff like "No, I was just busy. And I am still
busy. Bye.". I wonder if I will ever find out, what the underlying cause is.

~~~
ignorabilis
What struck me the most in your comment is the fact that people just
disappear. It's the same with me. If I don't call the other person won't
either. If I call he/she is busy, on vacation, doing something else. If we
meet we can stay up all night, chat, laugh, have a nice time. Then we both go
on our separate ways.

I really didn't understand how this works. I know that now I work a lot. But I
wasn't like that when I was younger. Nevertheless it was always me that had to
keep a relationship going. If I didn't do anything things faded away pretty
quickly. If I did the relationship agonized for a while before ceasing.

I know that I am not unpleasant - people don't talk with someone for hours
just to be polite. And only one person has ever told me that she always hated
me because of how annoyingly smart I was. But then again I went to university
where one of my fears was that someone is smarter than I am (and probably a
lot of folks actually were).

When not at work most people relax with a game of cards, small talk about
repairing the car, the new update for the phone, etc. What I do for fun when I
am not programming is read about consciousness studies, biology and nutrition,
philosophy, physics. If the person is up for it we can talk for hours on such
a topic. But most people most of the time are not. I have two kids and I like
talking about them - kids are fascinating and incredibly funny at the same
time. However people who don't have kids don't have a clue what I am talking
about (I was the same when I didn't have kids). People who have kids usually
just want a beer. I like running, hiking, riding a bike - good topics for a
conversation. Until I say that it's fun to ride a bike at night, while it's
raining.

So I was at lunch with my colleagues one day and it suddenly hit me - the
problem is not that I am smarter or a genius or the like. It would be nice,
but actually most of my colleagues are as smart as I am and some of them are
smarter. The problem is that I cope with pain and hurdles differently. When
people stop to rest I usually push some more. When they seek a shelter from
the rain I want to ride more. When they need to chat with someone I need to
read a book. I am a hyperactive introvert with a strange set of interests. I
am a little different and because of that it's much harder for me to make
friends.

You say that you have started so many projects. To me this means that you have
a lot of energy and it's quite possible that people just don't want to play
catch up with you – it’s tiring for them and they may actually prefer to just
relax.

~~~
kemist
> The problem is that I cope with pain and hurdles differently. When people
> stop to rest I usually push some more. When they seek a shelter from the
> rain I want to ride more. When they need to chat with someone I need to read
> a book. I am a hyperactive introvert with a strange set of interests. I am a
> little different and because of that it's much harder for me to make
> friends.

Shared suffering & growth is how you form the strongest bonds.

If you're biking w/ people and they stop to rest (or b/c of rain). Time to
make a choice. You can keep going, or stop with them.

If you keep going, you'll grow, your legs will get stronger.

If you stop, they'll grow, their legs will get stronger. But you have to keep
stopping to see it happen. In time they'll stop less often. You'll love
watching them get stronger, and they'll love that you were there to witness
their growth. You're sharing in their suffering, even if you're not winded or
uncomfortable yourself.

Fast forward to the future, now you're struggling with something physically or
emotionally, and one of them may stop to be by your side. They could've pushed
past you but they want to be there for you. You were there for them.

~~~
ignorabilis
What I actually meant is that people are usually not up for the challenge at
all.

That being said I have found a few people that may be ready to walk with me.
Since I am very grateful I am willing to wait for them and help them whenever
they need it.

~~~
kemist
Very glad you found those people, cherish them!

------
ignoramous
The best quote on this topic I've read has come from the eccentric French
Mathematician, Alexander Grothendieck:

"To state it in slightly different terms: in those critical years [roughly
from age 17 to 20] I learned how to be alone.

This formulation doesn't really capture my meaning. I didn't, in any literal
sense learn to be alone, for the simple reason that this knowledge had never
been unlearned during my childhood. It is a basic capacity in all of us from
the day of our birth. However these 3 years of work in isolation, when I was
thrown onto my own resources, following guidelines which I myself had
spontaneously invented, instilled in me a strong degree of confidence,
unassuming yet enduring, in my ability to do mathematics, which owes nothing
to any consensus or to the fashions which pass as law...

By this I mean to say: to reach out in my own way to the things I wished to
learn, rather than relying on the notions of the consensus, overt or tacit,
coming from a more or less extended clan of which I found myself a member, or
which for any other reason laid claim to be taken as an authority. This silent
consensus had informed me, both at the lyé and at the university, that one
shouldn't bother worrying about what was really meant when using a term like
"volume", which was "obviously self-evident", "generally known",
"unproblematic", etc. I'd gone over their heads, almost as a matter of course,
even as Lesbesgue himself had, several decades before, gone over their heads.
It is in this gesture of "going beyond", to be something in oneself rather
than the pawn of a consensus, the refusal to stay within a rigid circle that
others have drawn around one - it is in this solitary act that one finds true
creativity. All others things follow as a matter of course."

source: michael_nielsen @
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8604814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8604814)

------
afro88
Well, no. I've been reading this book about the daily schedules of the greats
[1] and there are many artists who had very active social lives while in their
prime. Some more so than others - Francis Bacon would wake at 7am and work
hard until lunchtime, when he'd share a bottle of wine with a friend in his
studio and then drink, eat and party until the middle of the next morning,
getting to bed at 3am. Rinse and repeat.

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-
Work/dp/0307...](http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Rituals-How-Artists-
Work/dp/0307273601)

~~~
cubix
I wish I could function competently on 4 hours of sleep, let alone write world
changing philosophical treatises.

~~~
krrrh
Not to get off track, but the book looks at Francis Bacon the 20th century
painter, not the 16th century philosopher. I once had a confusing conversation
with a room full of artists before I realized that we had no idea who the
"other" Francis Bacon was.

~~~
golergka
I would like to imagine what that conversation be like for the "France is
Bacon" guy.

------
holdenc
This article deals with a romanticised and populist interpretation of
creativity. Linking creativity and rejection is likely comforting to many
isolated and rejected creatives. And while the Van Gogh archetype is a
familiar one, it's important to understand that Van Gogh is the exception not
the rule. Within the fine arts there are few similar examples. Picasso and
Matisse were popular, social and anything but rejected or isolated (even in
the beginning). Since 1945 hardly a single contemporary artist has achieved
significant fame after death, with the vast majority of great contemporary
artists actively engaged in dialogue with others.

~~~
waterlesscloud
"Since 1945 hardly a single contemporary artist has achieved significant fame
after death, with the vast majority of great contemporary artists actively
engaged in dialogue with others."

Doesn't that have a great deal more to do with the art industry than
creativity itself?

~~~
Animats
_" Since 1945 hardly a single contemporary artist has achieved significant
fame after death..."_

Elvis dead has made more money than Elvis alive. (Leading to litigation
amongst the heirs.)

~~~
coldtea
He means artist as in "fine arts" as he explains above.

------
smil
Pursuing original ideas, aka creativity, _leads_ to social rejection. There's
only so many times you can stand ridicule and disbelief before you disengage.

~~~
sliverstorm
Ah yes, the "They reject me because they are too stupid to appreciate my
brilliance" theory. Occasionally accurate, usually ego-stroking.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Ah yes, the "he/she must think they are rejected because others are too stupid
to appreciate their brilliance" theory. Occasionally accurate, usually just
used to bully those who think a bit differently.

------
2510c39011c5
If by "creativity" we mean to do things in the most informative way, in the
sense of high entropy, (creativity is thus by this assumption equivalent to
the capability of producing the most information), I feel "thinking
independently" is the key to creativity -- as an event independent of all
other events would produce the highest amount of information, for this
matter...

Quite often, "thinking independently" could lead to social rejection, as being
independent means being non-related with other people's thinking, and hence
with much less likelihood of being agreeable with other people's opinion. If
we define (roughly) social acceptance as the property of sharing common
opinions among the crowd, then we can infer that thinking independently would
unlikely lead to social acceptance.

Hence creativity would unlikely lead to social acceptance.

Perhaps that's why a tolerant environment that allows different ideas and
different opinions (even those you don't agree with) to coexist is also very
crucial to creativity -- as otherwise intolerance would simply kill it.

~~~
logicchains
>If we define (roughly) social acceptance as the property of sharing common
opinions among the crowd, then we can infer that thinking independently would
unlikely lead to social acceptance.

Thinking independently doesn't necessarily entail sharing one's independent
opinions with whomever one meets. Creativity implies the ability to create
humour, and making people laugh is one of the easiest ways to get them to like
you. Combined with intelligence, which makes it easier to work out what people
want to hear, I'd argue that creativity actually brings a significant social
advantage, at least when it's consciously directed towards achieving social
ends.

Feynman represents a good example of this, achieving social success by using
his creativity as a fount of humour.

~~~
2510c39011c5
> Creativity implies the ability to create humour, and making people laugh is
> one of the easiest ways to get them to like you...

Well, regarding jokes, if all people are making a same joke repetitively, so
you heard about it many many times, do you still feel that you could laugh out
naturally? (I mean laugh not for the sake of laugh, alone)

I just feel that the reason why a joke is a joke, is because you have never
heard of it (or at least have never got it) in the past...So this difference
-- or this independence from the past -- is the creativity in your sense...

> Feynman represents a good example of this, achieving social success by using
> his creativity as a fount of humour.

If, there have already been 500 people making jokes in the same way as Feynman
did -- for instance, if before reading his book, everyone already played prank
on some waitress girl in a restaurant by putting the tips under an upside-down
filled cup, would they still find the description in the book funny? Just like
what I typed, do you still find this re-description of Feynman's joke funny,
like the first time you read about it?

~~~
logicchains
>If, there have already been 500 people making jokes in the same way as
Feynman did -- for instance, if before reading his book, everyone already
played prank on some waitress girl in a restaurant by putting the tips under
an upside-down filled cup, would they still find the description in the book
funny? Just like what I typed, do you still find this re-description of
Feynman's joke funny, like the first time you read about it?

I was making the implicit assumption that there is an unbounded quantity of
potential jokes. 500 Feynmen wouldn't all be making the same jokes; they'd all
make different jokes. Just like how 500 Feynmen wouldn't all be writing the
same books or making the same scientific discoveries.

~~~
2510c39011c5
The model above actually doesn't directly contradict with the examples you
gave...

You can easily create a seemingly dilemma case within the model -- for
instance, use the independent creativity to create more common ground (much of
which was not visible/observable before) between people, and hence make them
more agreeable with each other.

But actually this is not a dilemma, as it is only crucial for the process to
be independent, not the ending result -- especially when the goal of your
independent creativity process is to make the ending result to be more
correlated to some preconceptions.

------
Filthy_casual
Could it be because solitude back then was similar to meditation? That you had
no interruptions, no internet to make your mind run around like a puppy
chasing the next tasty bone, and this in turn made you listen to thoughts and
ideas rising from the subconscious more often?

------
gopalv
No.

Those that try to "fit in" might not be the right people to produce
revolutionary ideas.

And those who don't already fit in have the least to lose by inviting
rejection by being off-the-norm.

Add those two together, you have an intersection of those folks who don't fit
in today and have nothing to lose by chasing their dream, choosing to chase
their dreams instead of potential social acceptability.

Orthogonal and rational choices, even if those that always did this wasn't
being rational.

~~~
onislandtime
and this what we see in most tech companies, they go out of the way to hire
people that "fit". I wonder how much talent we leave out because of people's
natural tendency to hire people like themselves...

------
enedil
Social rejentom is highly connected with creativity - and not because one has
more time to make art. Creativity is something which means the ability of
creating new things. And there's the key. The person living around others will
most probably think in a similar manner, therefore cannot be really creative.
Lonely people are not affected by the society. That's why they are truly
creative.

------
hyperpallium
I find when I'm developing my own view on something, and I discuss it with
someone (or think about discussing it, or even be near someone), that I
somehow feel a compulsion to either agree with them or disagree with them
_along the dimension they conceptualize it_ \- and my own perspective/terms
are lost. Like being interrupted when building up a model of code in your
mind.

I think this is our herd instinct, needing to fit in, in how a situation is
conceived, disagreeing only in terms of that conception. Changing the _theory_
is deeply anti-social.

------
karmacondon
Interesting ideas, but Betteridge wins again. No hard data is provided, so
anecdotes can be answered with anecdotes and the whole thing's a wash.

From everything I've read about creativity, one of the keys seems to be
thinking about things differently than one normally thinks about them. This
can mean intense states of depression, mania, loneliness or relationship. Any
state of mind that's different and extreme can shift perspective enough to
cause some people to be exceptionally creative, at least for a time.

It's herding cats, though. There are no proven techniques that will make
someone more creative, only strategies that will work some times for some
people. The best way to be more creative is to constantly try to create new
things. Social rejection isn't a prerequisite for that.

~~~
cJ0th
I agree.

The article has to lack data as that's the reason for why we are so impressed
by creativity. 'True creativity' (as opposed to opposed to the shallow "We
have to think outside the box" type of creativity) can not be measured by
definition. That's what makes it so intriguing! As soon as something can be
fully measured it becomes debatable whether it is still a creative effort or
not.

If you accept what I wrote above then the headline of the article appears even
more bonkers: How can something that is so complex that we can not fully
measure it (yet) be caused (mostly) by a one-dimensional factor? I mean, sure,
you could find a single factor if it is very vague one but that's not helpful.
I.e. I could say: Being alive is a key factor for creativity. What's more,
social rejection is surely also a key factor for becoming a dull person who
watches TV all day.

------
untog
No. At best maybe indirectly - having a lot of time on your hands and being
very bored is often the key to creativity, and being socially rejected will
give you that.

But I wouldn't start using this article a way to convince yourself it's OK to
be antisocial because you're an undiscovered genius.

~~~
Kiro
You make it sound like it's not OK to be antisocial.

~~~
eivarv
It's not, though. Being _asocial_ , on the other hand, is not quite as frowned
upon;)

~~~
Kiro
Oh, I see. I thought antisocial was the same thing as asocial. My mistake,
sorry!

~~~
eivarv
Nothing to be sorry about, it's a very common mistake. And to be completely
frank, "antisocial" seems to be losing the battle against descriptivism, much
like "literally" [0, 1] :P

[0]: "1.1 informal"
[http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/literal...](http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/literally?q=literally)

[1]: "2 : in effect" [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/literally](http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/literally)

------
dschiptsov
Is one meme is the key to another meme?)

Like it was suggested in The Programmers Stone and elaborated in The Art Of
Scientific Investigation, there are different modes of training of certain
areas of the brain (clusters of Neural Networks or whatever crude model you
like). The common sense term for resulting structures is "mental maps". Notice
the correct intuition about having a structure (made out of neurons) and that
it supposed to be traversed (insight from the AI spring).

In other words, you will traverse (or pattern match against) what you have
managed to train, and different resulting structures will result in different
processes - different modes of "thinking".

Social rejection (which usually an effect, not a cause) is beneficial due to
much less distraction and more time for myself, but unless you have
appropriate habits of reflective thinking (to understand hows and whys and
realizing multiple causation) no amount of social rejection will make it.

The benefits of solitude has been noticed even by Vedic seers but it is
definitely not enough.

BTW, creativity is a packer's term. For mappers it is a default mode which
need not to be named.

~~~
mordocai
I was unfamiliar with the terms(packers, mappers) you used in your last
sentence. Having done a quick read on them, I find the concepts interesting.

It looks like at least a couple books talk about these concepts. Where would
you recommend reading more about them?

It must be noted that I am not convinced from my <1 page of reading that
people are truly divided into only two camps in this category, like the
philosophy seems to suggest so far.

~~~
dschiptsov
There are a lot of support for this crude model. Look at writings of J.
Krishnamurti, Nabokov, Huxley, Chomsky, the guys who invented NLP (before it
has been ruined by adopters), there are a lot of consensus among insights of
thinkers with completely different background..

------
voidz
From van Gogh to Huxley, and lots of subjective questions but it's lacking
data. So we can't answer this empirically, or at least, the article doesn't.
And it's hard to read because of it, just jumping around the various, well,
anekdotes. I guess the only really valid answer that follows is this:

"who knows..."

------
Htsthbjig
In the past I would say yes. The best work of my life, nobody around me
understood. I was crazy while doing it against everybody around me. When you
succeed it is obvious in retrospect, but while doing it you doubt in yourself
if everybody doubts about you because they can't see what does not exist yet
like you do.

But at the time I didn't know what I know now: That there is other crazy
people out there, and you have to find them. With Internet is not that hard.

Hollywood, Silicon Valley or even YC is all about putting crazy enough
creative people together so saying something like "I am going to change the
world" sounds totally normal.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Two crazy geniuses walk into a bar; minutes later they both storm out claiming
the other is a crazy crackpot. Two people are not similar just because they
are both different.

Ya, we can find allies, but these relationships are fragile and often limited.
The problem is that we often cannot find common ground to explore our ideas
together (though we can and do offer moral support). When working with other
creatives, someone or all of them have to tone it down a few notches to get
anything done at all. Studio models attempt to deal with this by providing a
decent balance between independence and review.

------
k__
It's just a question of time.

You can have an active social life and be creatively productive. But you have
to schedule.

The more time I poured into IT, the better I got. When it was a 24/7 thing, I
left all my mates at school behind. When I started playing guitar, going to
parties and play too many games, the others caught up.

Now I'm mediocre at all of those things, but I've seen a bit more of the
world.

If you put your time in as few things as possible, one can be "social
activity" and you still can be a creative mastermind.

------
SQL2219
This gives perspective to the phrase "peaked in high school." High schools
tend to be incubators of social rejection.

------
ashleyp
The article may be fudged. I studied creativity and found from journals/papers
with social rejection we see higher levels of divergent creativity, it's as if
the brain does everything it can to think about how to socially include. With
social inclusion we see higher levels of convergent creativity. We need both
in society!

------
jokoon
Not if schools punish students for not socializing, which is what happenned to
me for a stupid technical french degree.

------
pitt1980
t

------
crystalchen
The title speaks the truth, at least on some level. I can't help but think how
talented my cousin is in creating 3D characters, and how she recently objected
to filing her taxes.

