Behold, à côté, an image of the Gates of Paradise crafted by Ghiberti for the baptistery in Florence, Italy, a work of art, of genius, born of the confluence of being in the right place at the right time, and not solely of individual genius or talent, a conclusion to which one might ordinarily be given to jump. Ghiberti beat out Brunelleschi, according to Csikszentmihalyi, in a competition in A.D 1401. Yesterday. On the Big Bang scale. He did so by staying within the boundaries of what was “classical”, by giving his field of experts something they knew how to appreciate so that they could judge when he had surpassed, in their eyes, something with which they were familiar. It appears the design took him reasonably long enough to create, but the saying goes that it took him 50 plus years to complete his vision. Proof enough that it is a work of art, non?
Initially, ughing and bristling seemed appropriate when rummaging through the early pages of "Where Is Creativity? "Where? Was the hunt on? I had never thought about where creativity could be. (Of course some of the fault here lies with just reading what was assigned – “Setting the Stage” was supposed to prepare me for this.) The question appeared to want to ground creativity in some sort of treasure hidden in a sunken vessel beached at the ocean's floor never again to be retrieved but at the expense of broken and rusted illusions. Worse yet, the question smacked of scientific inquiry. Mon dieu! Mais, against which, as a science buff, I hold no ill will. That was the other thing I was going to be when I grew up--a scientist, either a physicist (well, that's mathematics, rightfully speaking), or a chemist. I loved them both. Anyhew, Mr. C said a number of interesting things in that first chapter, thereby actually setting the stage. Hmmm…
In the first chapter Mr. C tells us that because of the evolution towards specialization (still smacks too much of scientific analysis) – “Creativity is the cultural equivalent of the process of genetic changes that result in biological evolution…” (p.7), and we see where he is headed in the analogy of genes and memes. One possible conclusion: an amoeba is the equivalent in biological evolution of the idea of a crude rock tool in the Palinolithic Age (see next paragraph) in cultural evolution. Thomas Kuhn’s theory of a “paradigm shift” in the field of science seems to speak to a similar or parallel evolutionary phenomenon. I’m now wondering if the scientific procedure to ablate Social Evil, the Limbaughtomy (see paragraph below) would qualify as a social paradigm shift and change our culture in some important respect…
Admittedly, I have always been of the belief that being in the right place at the right time is often a formula for success. I just didn’t know why I believed that, i.e., I hadn’t investigated the forces at work. But why else, in my humble opinion, would a Kris Kristofferson ever achieve the status he did as a singer, a singer (nor could he act), when he had one of the ugliest voices I have ever heard and spoke words instead of singing lyrics? However, I donned my best braking shoes and plowed forth, hoping to find some reflection of myself as a creative individual, hoping for validation and self-recognition in wanting to be on a par with Ghiberti (lest you not know, I jest).
It is unthinkable to think that Einstein could have gone unnoticed were it not for the ‘fact’ that the importance and relevance of his Theory of Relativity depended heavily on the willingness of a field panel to validate his contribution to the "cultural pantheon" - Domain a refrain freezing my brain... interpretation versus computation (p.40), two ways of deconstructing and reconstructing reality. We interpret personalities and dreams. On the other hand, we compute the distance between the Earth and the Sun or how many calories of heat it takes to boil a ml. of water. It begs the question: Who created or caused the greatest “epistemological rupture “(coined by Gaston Bachelard) - Freud or Galileo? It takes pretty much 3 years of graduate study to get a PhD in math, whereas 6 to 8 to get one in literature (I'm surviving proof of that one!), 8 to 10 in History (I once knew a young man who was not so young when he finished), or such was the case when I was last in graduate school, back when bats first lost their sight and had to start relying on sonar travel. My bubble is burst.
Simply stated, finally, "We believe that things that can be measured are real, and we ignore those that we don't know how to measure: (p.40) “Only a very small percentage of the great number of novelties produced will eventually become part of the culture"(p.41). Ouch! How depressing. Although depressing, the stark reality of this statement is sobering. Are we not all novelties? No two of us are alike, even if you discover that you have an identical twin in Madagascar. If a unique combination of x's and o's can reproduce the likeness of anything experienced on the Internet, albeit only 2-dimensional at this juncture, at least as far as any of us know, what is to be expected of the inexhaustible combinations of ACGT - Adenine, Cytosine, Guanine, and Thymine - the 4 basic nucleotides of life that can result in the scary synthesis of 3-dimensional representations of who knows what but often referred to as living and breathing plant or animal of some genus- or a Palin or a Limbaugh or other palinolithical beings. Ô where ô where would we be without diversity! The combinations of resultant mutants are staggering, non? Segueing, roughly...
Are you lousy at anything? I tend to be a "Jack of all trades" ;-), clearly not a good sign, since the flip side of that is “and master of none”. I suppose my wanting to be a well-rounded person will most likely continue to stand in the way, according to Csikszentmihalyi, of my topping the charts in any particular field of endeavor (domain). He quotes Jacob Rabinow (p.48), “[D]o the things which are easy and don’t do the things which are hard…so you get better and better at the things you do well…and eventually you become a [Roger Federer] or inventor or whatever…and you’re lousy at everything else because you don’t do it well”. In other words, you ‘can’t have a life’, right? I can’t believe the formula is so simple. Hmm… I’m wondering if it’s too late…
"Cultures are conservative, and for good reason". Remember that, but don't think twice about the odds when you submit a work for publishing. After all, someone always wins the lottery. I, for one, feel the tugs of the quicksand of anonymity that I must tread cautiously lest I succumb to the pull of its dark gravity. And yet here I am. I don't relish looking at the rest of you like a field... But oh well. And, oh, is there any way of knowing, without the objectivity provided through distance, if we are in a reactive or proactive "field"? Nevermind. We should be grateful for any high-fives our field is willing to bestow on us.
In all seriousness, I have always maintained that we are all, to a person, products of our place and time in society and history. We owe much to that, in that it is inescapable that we are not always master of who we are. We cannot shake ourselves free. For some of the good stuff we can praise Allah or Jehovah, or whomever, and some of it we can say came about through personal dedication and focus. Honing.
The 'truth' can sometimes be hard to swallow. This is especially so if it comes in unattractive packaging such as “domains”, “fields”, and “systems models”. Csikszentmihalyi’s premise and provocative assertions rattled me. It all feels too structured and scientific. As a creative person I don’t want to be ‘defined’ or have creativity “bestowed on me”, let alone boxed into a paradigm where the only way I can fight my way out is to invent/create something that will change the domain in some profound and measurable way, to become an alchemist. Well, gold can be weighed. All that be as it may, I came back to graduate school in spite of the fact that I said I’d never ever do so again as a student. I did it for the reasons Mr. C writes about. I recognized that I needed to up the odds of being in the right place at the right time. I recognized that I needed to learn about creative writing, not just practice it, to make connections and to feel validated. I recognized that I needed a domain with which to associate myself, and a field of experts who “know what the critics’ criteria for good writing are…” with the belief that I meet those standards.
Are you willing to stand on queue? I am.
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