
To Be More Creative, Cheer Up - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/20/creativity/to-be-more-creative-cheer-up-rd
======
j_baker
I have to say, I can't help thinking the author doesn't know anything about
Hemingway or Picasso. Both are very famous examples of how _depression_ can be
creative. You can name many others like Virginia Woolf or Emily Dickenson.

I think both depression and exuberance can be creative, albeit creative in
different ways. Exuberance is very good for, as the author notes, divergent
thinking. You simply have the ability to come up with so many positive
possibilities. Depression on the other hand is very converging. You just know
_for sure_ that something bad is going to happen.

EDIT: I should add that Hemingway at least was likely bipolar. So it may very
well be that he's a good example of how both depression _and_ exuberance can
be creative.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
> Both are very famous examples of how depression can be creative.

That probably had more to do with their substance abuse.

~~~
j_baker
We don't really know the full relationship between substance abuse and mental
illness. There's a very well-known correlation between the two, but it's
questionable whether the substance abuse causes mental illness or the mental
illness causes the substance abuse. It's likely some combination of the two:
the substance abuse aids the mental illness and the mental illness aids the
substance abuse.

~~~
coldtea
Or, you know, actual sensitivity and sadness for something causes both
depression and substance abuse.

It's not like don't have things to be sad and depressed about, creative people
doubly so.

Thinking it's all just chemicals gone bad in the brain is the fad of the day,
like electroshock treatment for gays and ADD over-perscription in previous
decades.

People are always conflating circumstantial pepression with "mental illness"
but it's not the same.

Or, even worse, a lot of persons with circumstantial pepression prefer to
think they have a "chemical imbalance" to get people to think they are
absolved of any influence in the matter. Which is the wrong reason, because
with circumstantial depression you also don't have much, if any, influence in
the matter. It's not like you can reverse the loss of a love or failed
ambitions, for example, and just rewire your psyche to not care about those.

(Doctors of course, eager to prescribe anything and with no time for subtle
distinctions, easily assure them that they indeed have a "mental illness".
There was a whole counter-culture movement in medical circles criticizing that
in the '60s and '70s, with is sadly forgotten.).

~~~
beatpanda
Not quite forgotten:
[http://www.theicarusproject.net](http://www.theicarusproject.net)

------
jackmaney
I know that one isn't supposed to judge a book by its cover, but I refuse to
take Kirsten Weir seriously by the title of this article alone.

"Are you depressed? Cheer up!"

"Are you in a wheelchair? Get up and walk around!"

"Struggling with money? Try _not_ being so poor!"

The title of that article makes me unreasonably angry.

~~~
denova
It's different! Not being creative isn't the opposite of being cheery. The
assumption is that the reader may not see any connection at all between
happiness and creativity, and that the association might provide some insight.
Though if you're like me and are only happy when you are able to create
things, I can see why you would be irked.

~~~
jackmaney
I honestly can't tell if you're trying to troll me or not. Is there any adult
alive who hasn't at one point realized that being depressed might--just MIGHT
--impact one's ability to be creative?

~~~
coldtea
Again with "depressed".

Not being cheery is not the same as depression.

It's a super-set that includes depression cases as a small subset.

If only depressed people were moody and grumpy... We'd all be smiling and
singing all the time...

------
drzaiusapelord
>Bilder offers up one last bit of practical advice: Just get your ideas out
there—on paper, on canvas, out of your head.

This is why a lot of creative keep a "brainjuice" file full of half-cooked
ideas they can later dip into. When you have some creative energy, its easy to
just dump it out and then, later, when you're in a more sober and productive
mood, start implementing those ideas in an effective manner. Or as writers
say: write drunk, edit sober.

~~~
kleer001
This is exactly how I make music. There's three distinct steps, sound
creation, arrangement, and mastering. Usually I don't spend more than 15-30
minutes on any one track and sometimes as little as 5-10. But I have a huge
pile of unfinished work in various stages, some I never get back to, but some
I finish happily enough. My key to creative happiness is to be entertained,
engaged, and moving forward.

~~~
kendallpark
This is how I write my essays. Out of order. I toy with ideas, play with
arguments. Lots of disjointed paragraphs in a single document. Then I step
back, look at them, pick out my strongest points and stitch them together into
a cohesive paper (dumping quite a lot of work along the way).

~~~
kleer001
> dumping quite a lot of work along the way

As if your work were... say... evolving?

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anapparition
Counter examples (a few):

Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Larry David, Kafka, Schubert, Heraclitus, Beckett,
Beyonce, William James, Henry James, David Foster Wallace, Winona Ryder, HP
Lovecraft, Mozart, Oppenheimer, Rilke, Celine, Faulkner, Baudelaire, Newton,
Nietzsche, Rachmanioff, Craig Ferguson.

One of the main thrusts of the article, that incubation of ideas often occurs
during divergent thinking, does not entail that one must be in a cheerful mood
(in fact, one could view many forms of depression as extended periods of
divergent thinking), despite the study referenced therein, which claims
"People are more likely to maintain broader attention and solve problems when
they’re in a positive mood." Moreover, the studies represent data on a
statistical average (and probably apply largely to settings conducive to such
studies, like sorting blocks, or playing Jenga in a novel way), while many
historical examples of creative minds suffered prolonged periods of
depression.

Finally, I wonder, how many man-hours have been wasted on clickbait?

------
rbrogan
A lot of nice information in the article. I think people can be more creative
than they realize if they (1) legitimize associative thinking (this is what I
translate "being uninhibited" to mean) and (2) insist that they have a basic
capacity for being creative. Creativity often does not come immediately when
you want it, so (IMO) when it does not, you have to insist you still have the
capacity rather than treat that as a failure and give up.

------
Intoo
[http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-
creat...](http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-creative/)

Just above in the news someone posted an article about being more creative
when sad. Which one is wrong?

~~~
shepardrtc
Feeling sad can motivate you to try things to make yourself happy.

Feeling happy can motivate you to try things that make you happy.

~~~
Intoo
What is the difference between yourself and you? I don't see any

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pasbesoin
To cheer up, _fix your environment_. (And your health.)

Most of the unhappiness I've encountered has related to poor environment. Wear
and tear over time brought on increasing poor health -- another significant
factor.

Meantime, I had people telling me I simply needed to "adapt". Consistently,
_I_ was supposed to change in order to meet _their_ goals.

It was the rare person who simply took me as I am and genuinely sought to work
_with_ that to mutual advantage. Those people and occasions were some of the
most productive of my life.

A consequence of all this, is that I tend to think _quite_ poorly of most
prescriptive advice. When people are all busy talking at you, they're hardly
ever actually listening to you.

------
jganetsk
Also on Hacker News home page: "Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915681)

Well, which is it?

~~~
beobab
Maybe: Extremes of feeling make us more creative? (just a guess, mind)

~~~
collyw
But then we also have "How boredom can boost creativity". I wouldn't say
boredom is an extreme feeling.

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andrewfelix
Decent article. Appalling title. There was essentially only one paragraph that
dealt with the importance of a positive mood on creativity. The article
outlined many other more important factors.

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barrystaes
In other news: (same HN page)

Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative (wired.com)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915681](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915681)

~~~
dspillett
Also, being bored makes us more creative:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8915371)

From those results we could make one of three conclusions:

* Any sufficiently strong emotional response inspires creativity

* Different people respond to different emotional queues and the studies had samples of people biased in different directions

* It is all a load of bunkum.

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spanko_at_large
[http://nautil.us/blog/how-meaning-withdrawal-aka-boredom-
can...](http://nautil.us/blog/how-meaning-withdrawal-aka-boredom-can-boost-
creativity)

[http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-
creat...](http://www.wired.com/2010/10/feeling-sad-makes-us-more-creative/)

Clearly everything boosts creativity

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exo762
>> After all, creativity may be the key to Homo sapiens’ success.

Unlikely. Creativity in this context is only useful when it's about problem
solving. Otherwise it's about art at most. And problem solving may or may not
be creative. Point - problem is gone, everyone can move on.

------
ytturbed
One thing the article gets right I believe is that highly creative people are
annoying, almost psychotic individuals. It can't be otherwise. If they cared
what other people thought as much as the rest of us do they'd self-censor
their ideas.

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collyw
Didn't reads the article yet, but it seems ironic that the front page
currently contains three articles :

"Feeling sad makes us more creative", "How boredom can boost creativity", and
this one, "To be more create cheer up".

------
hugs
This article reminds me why I don't like working in a busy office. For me,
it's very hard to get into divergent thinking mode with other people around.

------
contingencies
TLDR; _drink_.

~~~
palmer_eldritch
And with this added element, we got the missing link between "To Be More
Creative, Cheer Up" and "Feeling Sad Makes Us More Creative".

On one hand, drinking will cheer you up. On the other hand, it will also make
you feel miserable.

Add to that the fact that boredom is one of the top reasons to drink and we
have a link with "How Boredom Can Boost Creativity".

To quote Bukowski: "That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured
myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if
something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens
you drink to make something happen."

