Hello, readers! What does a creative person need to function in this world? This Wednesday Words helps answer that question. It’s part of an article in Transformation magazine, Spring 1991, another treasure from my wwwaaayyy back archive of articles and poems—a few of my favorite things.
A Brief Dialogue on Creativity
By Murray Stein and James Wyly
Note: Stein is a Jungian psychoanalyst, author, lecturer. Wyly (who died in 2023) was also a Jungian psychoanalyst. Their bios on their websites are fascinating. Click their names in the byline (above) to read them.
By the way, I searched for the article in the online archives of Transformation magazine but with no luck. The issue is too old, I guess. If you want a PDF of the complete article, send me a message here.
The following are Stein’s opening comments on the topic. Formatting is my own.
Murray Stein:
I think of human creativity as a force of nature, channeled by human skill, and put forth into the world with confidence and power. It seems to me that each of these three factors must be recognized.
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- By “force of nature,” I am referring to the unconscious, source of creative inspiration.
- By “skill,” I mean the trained and also specially gifted ego.
- “Confidence,” I think, derives from the ego-self axis.
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If any one of these factors is emphasized at the expense of the others, or even any two to the exclusion of the third, we get an inaccurate and one- or at most two-dimensional account of creativity.
As psychologists and psychotherapists, we, of course, focus on creative persons (or uncreative ones) rather than on creative works like paintings, houses, or poems.
To be creative, a person needs to be strongly connected to the unconscious or inspiration (to get the creative idea in the first place), but then must be trained and gifted for the execution of the idea, or else the creative process founders and ends in frustration.
Finally, the creative person must possess the self-confidence and personal authority to “put the work out there” against what are usually pretty great odds against support and recognition.
Creative people have to believe in themselves, often irrationally and stubbornly, or the creative impulse withers on the vine.”
—END of quote from the interview—
Thanks for reading!
Until next time, with best wishes from your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Nylda Dieppa
“Creative people have to believe in themselves, often irrationally and stubbornly, or the creative impulse withers on the vine.”
Love this quote!
Charlene L. Edge
I agree, Nylda. The whole article to me was one giant, important, wonderful quote.
John Arnett
“Force of nature”. I think some creative people have creativity encoded in their DNA which “almost” makes one believe in the “Intelligent Design” hypothesis. We don’t know but can be thankful there are creative composers, writers, painters, film makers, bloggers, et al
Charlene L. Edge
Thanks for sharing, John.
Speaking of film makers, we just went to see the movie, Conclave, with a super cast portraying a very intriguing story. Well worth going to the movies!
Robyn
I needed this! Thank you, friend!
Charlene
Oh, I’m delighted you liked it. I needed it, too!