Psychology of Creativity. Light, Dusk and Dark Night of Soul. Monograph

The invocation of death is the last sacred ritual, the last expression of the ultimate freedom of creative personality.

2. Self-oblivion

In the previous chapter we discussed the concept of transcendence of the ego, when personality , or the “feeling of self’, self-consciousness and self-identity“disappears” in the process of creation.

Moreover, creativity implies self-oblivion and self-sacrifice.

As a result of transcending, which happens in the process of creative activity, personality undergoes considerable changes in the sphere of values, concepts and ideas. People come into contact with the higher unconscious, or superconscious, which, it seems, we cannot but encourage.

But at the same time it leads to social autization, which results in escaping reality and being indifferent to even close relations and friends. People get absorbed in their own narcissistic intellectual and emotional experience, which leaves no place for social interaction and attitude towards others.

Such solitude is aimed at self-creation. Creativity is always a sign of ultimate egoism.

And like any egoism, it is morally indifferent to its social environment.

The crowd always reacts to creative personality’s independence by social repression. Nietzche hints to this fact in his call “Creators, be strong”. Newton’s diaries are also worth mentioning in this sense: “Nobody understands me”, “What will happen to me?", "I want to end with all this", "I am not capable of anything but tears", "I don't know what to do".

Frank Manuel, who has found all these statements in Newton’s exercises in Latin, is surprised at the fact that positive feelings are completely absent in them. For example, there is not a single word “love”.

There is no sign of delight or desire. It is a world of denial and prohibition, punishment and loneliness. It is a world of arrogant puritan values which became a part of Newton’s life: self-control, seriousness, love of order, extolling puritan virtues, and desire for dominating over other people owing to their virtuous life (12).

In the process of creation, people, being the source of their own vital energy, represent themselves in their art; it is very advantageous in terms of the development of human civilization as it increases diversity in the world.

However, this diversity is fraught with the danger to be “unlike everyone else”, a “social idiot” and to become an outcast.

Human society rarely regards a demiurge as an evolutionary potential.

It is concerned only with his being absorbed in himself and his work, and his being indifferent to the interests, motives, values and feelings of other people.

The creator himself lays a trap of social hostility and then falls into it.

Eventually, he finds himself at the bottom of this trap of oblivion, suffering from being abandoned, misunderstood and contempted.

In my opinion, this is a small price to pay for the ability to enjoy being in the creative flow of consciousness.

3. Swallowed up by Eternity

As it was stated above, oblivion and transcendence of ego is connected with impaired time perception characteristic of the flow-like states of consciousness.

The habitual “past-present-future” ceases to exists in peak creative states. There is only "here and

now".

It is possible that the deep regression of personality caused by being absorbed in some activity is similar to the infantile passion for playing that one experiences in childhood. And this regression leads to the experience of eternity.

It is also possible that the identification with the creative aspect of Shiva, God or Demiurge opens the gates of the archaic depth of the social unconscious and lets people taste the nectar of eternity beyond the linear flow of time.

It is certainly a luxurious experience, which expresses man’s intention to be free and to have power over time.

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However, impaired time perception can have serious consequences for material and social life of a person. Biological rhythms disturbance leads to irregular satisfaction of the basic needs for food, water, sleep and sex, which results in both physical exhaustion and psychic disorders.

Another example from the life of N. Gogol, a distinguished Russian novelist and dramatist.

His creative decline began in 1836. His work demanded incredible effort. Gogol wrote in “Author’s Confession”: “Several times, reproached for being inactive, I took up the pen, wanted to make myself write something like a short story or some other literary work but could not write anything at all. My effort almost always ended up in illness, sufferings and, eventually, attacks that made me postpone any kind of activity".

Such states may be caused by the disturbance of biological rhythms. Absorbed in their work, people tend to suffer from insomnia. Their rhythm of work and rest is being disturbed. Rest loses its meaning: it seems to them that they "waste their time". Recreation is regarded as absurd and provokes tension and anxiety.

Social consequences of being fully absorbed in creative work are not only indirect. People become less punctual and sometimes stop going to work, miss meetings which are vitally important for their social survival. It changes the attitude of others towards them dramatically. They become “insecure”.

Peculiar emotional states which accompany creative work - aesthetic delight, mystical ecstasy or instasy, awe, the feeling of mystery, the feeling of soaring, exultation, the pleasure of creating, the feeling of being surprised by the discovery, thrill, the joy of being – are very important for the creative personality, yet they have a destructive character. The creator is regarded as emotionally inadequate, an unworldly man, a

“Johnny Head-in-Air”, a “holy fool”.

People in these states are described as "emotionally autistic”. Such experience usually brings to social disadaptation. An uncontrollable person in a state of creative ecstasy, bursting with boundless energy and excitement, bordering on insanity and social inadequacy, provokes malevolence and contempt of the crowd. The state of instasy is no better: a deep truth meditation, characterized by quiet delight and contemplation, gives rise to misunderstanding and laughter.

Impaired time perception has particularly harmful consequences. Creative process may take months and years, making people forget about their body, other people, money, material values, career and image.

They “fall out” of life. This “falling out” deprives them of many “eathly delights”: food, sex, obsession with things, the joy of movement, communication, love, parenthood, success... The normal human life goes by.

Being absorbed in the creative process, people do not care about their hardships, but once the creative flow is over and does not come back, they realize that eternity is not their lot and that life is short, and this is when they sink to the depth of despair.

And the most difficult time begins when you are not able to find joy in ordinary human life, while the demiurge inside yourself is exhausted, your lyre is broken and your muse, like a whore, has long been locked in another, stronger embrace.

4. Chaos of Creativity

The phenomenon of transcendence of space, described in the previous chapter, accompanies creativity and expresses itself in the indifference to the characteristics of space: working conditions are not important as long as one is engaged in creative process.

Thus the independence from both physical and social environment, characteristic of creativity, manifests itself.

At the same time, this freedom involves certain significant risks:

1) Indifference to the physical characteristics of space (aesthetic characteristics, sounds, temperature, smell, comfort, etc.) can make people live in a dirty ramshackle hut; moreover, it can result in selfaggression, premature diseases and death.

2) Transcendence of the social characteristics of space (those who surround you - male or female, smart or stupid, beautiful or ugly, bosses or subordinates, rich or poor) results in field independence, which is beneficial for creativity. It is impossible to create under the influence of opinions of those who surround you. But this very freedom and independence from others has destructive consequences: it leads to social loneliness.

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3) The phenomenon of anthropomorphizing nature and man-made objects, that is interpreting their behavior from the point of view of human motives and attributing human characteristics to them (mind, thoughts, feelings and will) seems unusual and exciting only on the face of it. Then we regard it as a creative oddity. And then, we see it as psychopathy...

5. Weeping Superman

Creativity is not inhumane, as was written above, it is superhuman. The one who creates will be generously rewarded for his sacrifice with a divine inspiration of a Demiurge and emergence of the superhuman, the transpersonal, with a creative flow of consciousness and "ideas that fall from the sky”.

The superhuman nature of creativity ("it is not the man who creates, creativity just runs through him”), is full of mystery: it gives a rewarding feeling of having fulfilled one’s predestination and having found the meaning of life.

And at the same time creativity is alienated from personality. Its goals are very often contrary to both goals and motives of the person and those of society. Schopenhauer, talking to his dog, Zoroaster, questioning Ahura Mazda, Dostoevsky, working alone at night – they all give proof to the same law: there is no place for others near those who create, collaboration and collective work do not exist as far as creativity is concerned, everything new and original is born in a lonely superhuman consciousness.

“A weeping superman” is not quite correct: a man cries when he is not able to transform into a superman, when he loses his ability to get into the creative flow of consciousness.

A man cries when he sees that while he was hovering high in the skies of creativity, his nest was deserted, his friends left him, and the front-door security man stopped letting him in to his work.

The ecstasy of creativity cannot last long. It passes like a storm. And the creator is like Maxim

Gorky’s Stormy Petrel (“Song of the Stormy Petrel”):

High above the silvery ocean winds are gathering the storm-clouds, and between the clouds and ocean proudly wheels the Stormy Petrel, like a streak of sable lightning.

Now his wing the wave caresses, now he rises like an arrow, cleaving clouds and crying fiercely, while the clouds detect a rapture in the bird's courageous crying.

In that crying sounds a craving for the tempest! Sounds the flaming of his passion, of his anger, of his confidence in triumph.

The gulls are moaning in their terror--moaning, darting o'er the waters, and would gladly hide their horror in the inky depths of ocean.

And the grebes are also moaning. Not for them the nameless rapture of the struggle. They are frightened by the crashing of the thunder.

And the foolish penguins cower in the crevices of rocks, while alone the Stormy Petrel proudly wheels above the ocean, o'er the silver-frothing waters.

Ever lower, ever blacker, sink the stormclouds to the sea, and the singing waves are mounting in their yearning toward the thunder.

Strikes the thunder. Now the waters fiercely battle with the winds. And the winds in fury seize them in unbreakable embrace, hurtling down the emerald masses to be shattered on the cliffs.

Like a streak of sable lightning wheels and cries the Stormy Petrel, piercing storm-clouds like an arrow, cutting swiftly through the waters.

He is coursing like a Demon, the black Demon of the tempest, ever laughing, ever sobbing--he is laughing at the storm-clouds, he is sobbing with his rapture.

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In the crashing of the thunder the wise Demon hears a murmur of exhaustion. And he knows the storm will die and the sun will be triumphant; the sun will always be triumphant!

The waters roar. The thunder crashes. Livid lightning flares in stormclouds high above the seething ocean, and the flaming darts are captured and extinguished by the waters, while the serpentine reflections writhe, expiring, in the deep.

It's the storm! The storm is breaking!

Still the valiant Stormy Petrel proudly wheels among the lightning, o'er the roaring, raging ocean, and his cry resounds exultant, like a prophecy of triumph--

Let it break in all its fury!

Oh, Maxim Gorky, if you knew that the storm of creativity washes away and crushes all human, maybe your Petrel would not have shouted from the heights: “Let it break in all its fury!”

Creative states of consciousness pass like a storm.

And life goes on with seagulls, crying gulls and foolish penguins.

And even if “Not for them the nameless rapture of the struggle", they represent the essence of life in community, the essence of life itself...

So do not rejoice when you face the superhuman, and do not invoke the chaos of creativity, if you do not want to stay without wings, without nest, in emptiness and blindness. Not because you will not be able to see, but because you will not want to see. For, after you have seen the world with the eyes of a demiurge, the world seen by the common human eyes becomes worthless: dull, faded, insipid.

6. Old Socks with Holes

Impracticality of creative people has always been the subject of skepticism and mockery of money oriented consciousness of ordinary people.

The process-oriented character of creative work, creators’ desire to live in the creative flow, their readiness to do anything in order to realize their creative potential usually leads to poverty.

Their wives ask them: “Why don’t you do anything?”

And they are always right.

Creative people rarely work for profit, in this sense they "don’t do anything worthy".

When I see an academician living in a studio buried in books with a huge water stain on the ceiling, a television set “Rubin” bought in early 80s and an empty fridge, I understand that he is a creator. Forty years of creative work and an old “Moskvich” car in the yard, as vulnerable to bad weather as he is vulnerable to the misfortunes of life.

7. Howling

In May 1978 I got lost in the national park "Stolbi", situated to the south of Krasnoyarsk.

I was very young and I longed to meet somebody, but for a week the only living being I saw was a wolf which howled at the moon on the nearest hill, and his cries were full of pain and sadness.

Throwing wood on the fire, I kept thinking: "Why do you howl?"

And now, sitting in a wall alcove at the Buddhist stupa in Nepal, I can hear this howling, and I listen to it with understanding: there is nothing more terrible than loneliness in the night.

And I hear the howling of creators.

The howls of lonely wolves and the cries of creators are similar: there is nothing more terrible for a demiurge than loneliness in the darkness of misunderstanding.

And if you hear the howling and your heart is open – give him support, reassure him with your words, actions and feelings.

Maybe there will be a bit less poignant sadness in the world.

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I finish this book in Nepal, on the last day of my training “A Journey to Dharma”, near a Buddhist stupa, situated to the north of Pokhara, on one of the mountains of Annapurna in Himalayas.

The stupa is an object of pilgrimage, it gathers Buddhist monks from Nepal, Thailand and Sri Lanka. I cling to the wall.

I am glad that I don't see or hear anybody - the city and the lake is very far below, and the thick wall protects me from the monks, worshiping Buddha, and from idling tourists.

I am still powerful and I create.

And someone inside me is fervently praying for it to last forever. What can be more perfect, more joyful and sweeter than creativity! Even if the tragic end is quite probable.

I wrote this book for those who created, for those who create and for those who will create. It is an invitation and a warning.

Pure white light contains all the colors of the rainbow, and the palette of creativity likewise: it does not consist only of the light of joy, it also has the depressive twilight of creative quest and the night and death of the loss of creativity.

One can find the true meaning of life in creativity.

But what deep meaning we can find in simply living on Earth!

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