You are an idea-monger. Science, art, technology – it doesn’t matter which. What matters is that you’re all about the idea.
You live for it. You’re the one who wakes your spouse at 3 AM to describe your new inspiration. You’re the person who suddenly veers the car to the shoulder to scribble some thoughts on the back of an unpaid parking ticket. You’re the one who, during your wedding speech, interrupts yourself to say, “Hey, I just thought of something neat.”
You’re not merely interested in science, art or technology – you want to be part of the story of these broad communities. You don’t just want to read the book – you want to be in the book. …not for the sake of celebrity, but for the sake of getting your idea out there. You enjoy these creative disciplines in the way pigs enjoy mud: so up close and personal that you are dripping with it, having become part of the mud itself.
Enthusiasm for ideas is what makes an idea-monger, but enthusiasm is not enough for success. What is the secret behind people who are proficient idea-mongers? What is behind the people who have a knack for putting forward ideas that become part of the story of science, art and technology?
Here’s the answer many will give: Genius. There are a select few who are born with a gift for generating brilliant ideas beyond the ken of the rest of us. The idea-monger might well check to see that he or she has the “genius” gene, and if not, set off to go monger something else.
Luckily, there’s more to having a successful creative life than hoping for the right DNA. In fact, DNA has nothing to do with it.
“Genius” is a fiction. It is a throw-back to antiquity, where scientists of the day had the bad habit of “explaining” some phenomenon by labeling it as having some special essence. The idea of “the genius” is imbued with a special, almost magical quality. Great ideas just pop into the heads of geniuses in sudden eureka moments; geniuses make leaps that are unfathomable to us, and sometimes even to them; geniuses are qualitatively different; geniuses are special.
While most people labeled as a genius are probably somewhat smart, most smart people don’t get labeled as geniuses.
I believe that it is because there are no geniuses, not, at least, in the qualitatively-special sense. Instead, what makes some people better at idea-mongering is their style, their philosophy, their manner of hunting ideas.
Whereas good hunters of big game are simply called good hunters, good hunters of big ideas are called geniuses – but they only deserve the monicker “good idea-hunter”.
If genius is not a prerequisite for good idea-hunting, then perhaps we can take courses in idea-hunting. And there would appear to be lots of skilled idea-hunters from whom we may learn.
There are, however, fewer skilled idea-hunters than there might at first seem.
One must distinguish between the successful hunter, and the proficient hunter – between the one-time fisherman who accidentally bags a 200 lb fish, and the experienced fisherman who regularly comes home with a big one (even if not 200 lbs).
Communities can be creative even when no individual member is a skilled idea-hunter. This is because communities are dynamic evolving environments, and with enough individuals, there will always be people who do in fact generate fantastically successful ideas. There will always be successful idea-hunters within creative communities, even if these individuals are not skilled idea-hunters, i.e., even if they are unlikely to ever achieve the same caliber of idea again.
One wants to learn to fish from the fisherman who repeatedly comes home with a big one; these multiple successful huntings are evidence that the fisherman is a skilled fish-hunter, not just a lucky tourist with a record catch.
And what is the key behind proficient idea-hunters?
In a word: aloof.
Being aloof – from people, from money, from tools, and from oneself – endows one’s brain with amplified creativity. Being aloof turns an obsessive, conservative, social, scheming status-seeking brain into a bubbly, dynamic brain that resembles in many respects a creative community of individuals.
Being a successful idea-hunter requires understanding the field (whether science, art or technology), but acquiring the skill of idea-hunting itself requires taking active measures to “break out” from the ape brains evolution gave us, by being aloof.
I’ll have more to say about this over the next year, as I have begun writing my fourth book, tentatively titled Aloof: How Not Giving a Damn Maximizes Your Creativity. (See also http://bit.ly/9gdXhJ and http://bit.ly/5GuvmE for other pieces of mine on this general topic.) In the mean time, I would be grateful for your ideas about what makes a skilled idea-hunter. If a student asked you how to be creative, how would you respond?
Mark Changizi is Professor of Human Cognition at 2AI, and the author of The Vision Revolution (Benbella Books) and the upcoming book Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man (Benbella Books).
This piece first appeared May 25, 2010, at ScriptPhd.
Great article.
How sure are we of the causal direction? That is, how do we know aloofness endows us with creativity and not the other way around?
Or that the underlying brain-features/mental-processes that cause us to be creative also cause us to be aloof?
. . .
In my admittedly armchair understanding it seems like the brightest stars–the ones who came up with the discoveries everybody knows about, such as Einstein–had a genius that was very specialized. Once they got off of the subject of their passion they were bright, but just as likely to be clueless about things as the rest of us.
It seems like this kind of over-the-top genius related to a specific subject is closer to over-the-top “obsession” for one particular subject over everything else (could maybe explain aloofness). Or at best obsession for a small, complimentary “island” of subjects, that all happen to be interrelated in ways that make them complimentary to one another.
Well, that’s all the spit-balls I got. I’m out of ideas.
John
related?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGt3-fxOvug
On the causal direction, certainly I’d like to see a proper attempt at a study, first correlational, and eventually attempt to gauge the causal direction / scenario. In my own case, aloofness was a consciousness decision, because I felt it was the only way to guarantee creativity. It could, as you say, be that something about my creative nature tends to lead me to want to be aloof. It doesn’t sound prima facie plausible, though. No? As for some third property that tends to cause both creativity and a desire for aloofness, perhaps. I would say that I feel as if I am trying, against my nature, to be aloof. I’m a gregarious fellow, who likes to go to conferences and be in communities, and to rise within them, and do all that — which would go some way to suggesting a causal direction from aloof to creative. Best -Mark
Oh, and on your second point, for every bright star who achieved his/her discovery by specializing, I’d say there are hundreds or thousands who similarly specialized and were equally bright, but ended up bust, without a big discovery. Discovery is a hugely risky endeavor, but if a thousand people dig in different spots, one will find gold, will become famous, and when he/she recounts how gold was found, specialized-digging-of-one-hole will be the story, even though that strategy failed for the other 999 people. That’s why I’m in favor of digging many holes…
Best -Mark
Hey Mark – I love this post. You’re already making me salivate to read the book!
Paul Graham gives good advice on having good ideas (http://www.paulgraham.com/top.html). Find a way to keep a topic that may spark creative ideas stewing or fermenting in your head, so that you then explicitly think about it idly when showering or out for a walk. And, he says, don’t let boring but mind-hogging issues like money and personal conflicts get traction.
Hi Alex, That’s a great piece! And another thing he mentions that I agree with — not getting caught up in disputes. Being aloof and moving from field to field is, I think, necessary for lots of reasons, but another one I’ve talked about with others, but not written about, is that it leaves one more free to ignore disputes. One doesn’t want to spend one’s life as a “proponent” for one’s previous ideas. One isn’t usually able to be totally objective about one’s ideas anyhow, and better to let the community sort it out. That’s psychologically much easier to do if one has moved on to some new idea, or has moved a whole bunch of ideas past that. One hardly cares about the old idea any longer. -Mark
No geniuses
Just us
Question everything
Old post, by internet standards, but would like to comment…
How would I answer? “Not like me,” probably. No network of peers, not enough productivity:
I think aloofness is the state I naturally tend towards, and a state of emotional detachment I seek. Sometimes, when I get into good community, it seems that there would be creative ideas in all the aloofness, in learning about different fields and not caring about the boundaries (or rather, caring about crossing them).
But, there are social factors to creativity: your idea is not creative per se, but only when there is a community recognizing it as creative, as valuable. You can be Da Vinci, but if people think your Mona Lisa just has crooked teeth, tough luck. If you get caught between fields, you can develop creative ideas, and still not find a way of getting anywhere with them.
Is an idea that goes unnoticed really creative?
It also takes productivity, now more than ever: if you don’t develop your ideas, at least into papers, possibly into things and practices (and then, explain said practices well), you can be as creative as you want – it is just thoughts stuck in your head, not really anything that is created.
(Boston Consulting Group ran advertisements stating that “thinking is acting,” but I think I have to disagree.)
So, I think what it takes is peers, productivity – but yes, also the aloofness to stand outside of petty babble about proper behavior.
I agree on productivity, and on aiming one’s papers for *some* audience that actually exists. Whether one really must have peers (that one is community-ing with), though, is not as clear to me.
Great article.
I have always been struck by this from G Spencer Brown in “Laws of Form” which is about being aloof – but in the real world.
“To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practiced, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behaviour of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know. And yet those with the courage to tread this path to real discovery are not only offered practically no guidance on how to do so, they are actively discouraged and have to set about it in secret, pretending meanwhile to be diligently engaged in the frantic diversions and to conform with the deadening personal opinions which are continually being thrust upon them.”
Nice quote! And, I’d add, the scary thing about all that contemplation time is that it still might not lead to any idea at all! And if not, it’s hard to reconcile in one’s mind what all that wasted time was for. (Of course, it was for the *chance* at a great idea.) -Mark
Another aspect to this is that ideas can also be just plain wrong. Apparently Newton devoted much more time alchemy, which is now a footnote to his life story, then to what we now accept as his legacy.
[...] What my daughter’s irreverent attempt at a game better than chess tells us about creativity. See the game in action, and her hand-written rules, here. See also some of my earlier pieces on irreverence and aloofness and… anglerfish. [...]
Genius is a strange concept
It is supposed to mean extraordinarily intelligent
But I am wondering if it really means brave enough to be themselves, to follow their interests and to speak out and be true to themselves despite ridicule.
I feel there are many more geniuses out there than is realised
It is hard to speak out and hard to find someone to listen
Hmm, both in the article as well as in the discussion, you seem to follow the reasoning (I would call it typically American, my Turkish friend would say Western) that everything can be learned if it is properly understood.
But aloofness usually requires the fascination for a topic or subject, which none of you here mention. And what is fascination? Can that be explained by some conscious mechanism (or can you push yourself to acquire it, without being ridiculous and miserable)? I tend to think that fascination, and as a consequence also creativity and genius to some extent do relate to innate preferences and capabilities. Of course, hard work is crucial, but I believe there is talent as well.
I should not say ‘innate’ preferences, as they may well stem from nurture as much as from nature. But in any case come naturally, rather than be learned or acquired consciously.