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This is the last chapter of our 2-year series on creativity and its disorders. My how time flies! There is so much we could still say, but the basic pieces are now there for you to continue considering on your own. If I could leave you with a time-lapse inner monologue summarizing the creative experience of human life, it would go something like this:
Motivation
Appetitive and aversive, approach and avoid, love and hate – this essentially is the underlying theme of life. It may be the theme of more than just human life, too. Humans, chimpanzees, and other primates – in fact, most creatures down through fish and even insects and microbes – cluster together in groups yet compete with one another within the groups: killing each other, hating each other, and avoiding each other, yet remaining within the larger social grouping. This is the paradox of our existence and may be the social need, the insatiable conflict that needs constant soothing.
Part one – I am born – is already skipping a step. In part zero, I am conceived, and in fractional parts up to one, I am undergoing fetal development so that by the time I am born, I already have defined motivations of want and fear. I have yet to perceive, yet to envision, yet to plan, yet to act, yet to manage, yet to socialize, but I have my motivations.
Perception
I am born, and I am alive. My prewired circuits are pulsing with spontaneous activity – spontaneously generated rhythms that are modestly but significantly altered as I perceive the world around me. I see, hear, feel, smell, and taste it. I move and it is altered, even if just a little. I begin to associate things I perceive with my motivations. If I am hungry, milk and food satisfies my hunger and satisfies me. If I am alone, I am afraid, but the arrival of my mother, of someone familiar who feeds me, holds me, and keeps me warm, dispels my fear.
I am getting smart. I feel my hunger, and I remember what makes it better. I envision the arrival of food before it actually comes. I am learning what I want. When I feel afraid, I remember what makes it go away. I envision the arrival of my mother before she even gets there. And I even know if the wrong thing happens. If I am crying because I am hungry and someone gives me a toy, that is not what I want, and it is not what I envisioned. I expected food, and I want food. If the wrong person arrives, some stranger who is not who I expected, that is not who I want. I want my mother.
Action
I am getting really smart. I know when it is lunch time and where the cookies are. I can figure out when to have a snack so I am not too hungry but so I can still eat my dinner at dinnertime. I can even go to the store and get what I want (well, some things anyway, like a pack of gum). But it’s getting harder, more difficult. As I get older, people do not always give me what I want, I have to figure out ways to get things on my own more often. And that requires certain skills, without skills I have no value to trade for money that lets me buy what I want. So I am going to school, I am getting educated, I am working and learning as I work, getting better at what I do. I am getting promoted, I am graduating, I am climbing some kind of "ladder" and the higher I go, the more I can get.
Temperament
This ladder climbing and getting what I want requires some thought. I have many needs now. I want a fancy car, but I need to pay the rent. Some day, I want to buy a house. I think I want to be the boss, but that means I need to spend more time in school or at work. It means I have to perform at a higher and higher level. My own children have needs, and sometimes they need things at a time when I have other commitments, and I have to choose what to do. Some of the tasks I am given, or some of the paths I have taken have been less successful than others. My time is valuable. I have to choose carefully what I pursue and what I don’t and when to let something go and when to stick with it. Gosh, there are times I want to just throw my hands up, but I have control myself.
Social context
Society has needs and wants just like I do. I want society to like me, to support me, to reward me. If I make society happy, I will be rewarded. If I make society angry, I may get punished. If I bore society, or if society does not notice me, I will simply tread along my way but not advance very far. What does society want? Society is made up of people like me. In groups, there is a new identity that emerges. Some people are Christians, some are Muslims; some are Knicks fans, some are Lakers fans; some are Republicans, some Democrats; and some are foreigners from places like Mexico, Germany, Italy, Haiti, and China. Foreigners are different from Americans, and even from one another, depending on where they are from. It seems the groups define the identity of its members, at least to a degree. But they all have one thing in common. They all share that love-hate paradox of wanting to belong to the group while hating individuals within the group, competing with them, even sometimes killing them.
So what can I bring to the group? Something that soothes that inner love-hate conflict.
I hope you have enjoyed exploring creativity with me as much as I have enjoyed exploring it with you. Thanks for all the well wishes I have received for this column, they have meant a great deal to me. And thanks to Jeff Evans, the managing editor who indulged me this opportunity, and to IMNG Medical Media for publishing this work. And now ... back to my real job as a neurologist. See you all at the meetings!
Dr. Caselli is medical editor of Clinical Neurology News and a professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz
This is the last chapter of our 2-year series on creativity and its disorders. My how time flies! There is so much we could still say, but the basic pieces are now there for you to continue considering on your own. If I could leave you with a time-lapse inner monologue summarizing the creative experience of human life, it would go something like this:
Motivation
Appetitive and aversive, approach and avoid, love and hate – this essentially is the underlying theme of life. It may be the theme of more than just human life, too. Humans, chimpanzees, and other primates – in fact, most creatures down through fish and even insects and microbes – cluster together in groups yet compete with one another within the groups: killing each other, hating each other, and avoiding each other, yet remaining within the larger social grouping. This is the paradox of our existence and may be the social need, the insatiable conflict that needs constant soothing.
Part one – I am born – is already skipping a step. In part zero, I am conceived, and in fractional parts up to one, I am undergoing fetal development so that by the time I am born, I already have defined motivations of want and fear. I have yet to perceive, yet to envision, yet to plan, yet to act, yet to manage, yet to socialize, but I have my motivations.
Perception
I am born, and I am alive. My prewired circuits are pulsing with spontaneous activity – spontaneously generated rhythms that are modestly but significantly altered as I perceive the world around me. I see, hear, feel, smell, and taste it. I move and it is altered, even if just a little. I begin to associate things I perceive with my motivations. If I am hungry, milk and food satisfies my hunger and satisfies me. If I am alone, I am afraid, but the arrival of my mother, of someone familiar who feeds me, holds me, and keeps me warm, dispels my fear.
I am getting smart. I feel my hunger, and I remember what makes it better. I envision the arrival of food before it actually comes. I am learning what I want. When I feel afraid, I remember what makes it go away. I envision the arrival of my mother before she even gets there. And I even know if the wrong thing happens. If I am crying because I am hungry and someone gives me a toy, that is not what I want, and it is not what I envisioned. I expected food, and I want food. If the wrong person arrives, some stranger who is not who I expected, that is not who I want. I want my mother.
Action
I am getting really smart. I know when it is lunch time and where the cookies are. I can figure out when to have a snack so I am not too hungry but so I can still eat my dinner at dinnertime. I can even go to the store and get what I want (well, some things anyway, like a pack of gum). But it’s getting harder, more difficult. As I get older, people do not always give me what I want, I have to figure out ways to get things on my own more often. And that requires certain skills, without skills I have no value to trade for money that lets me buy what I want. So I am going to school, I am getting educated, I am working and learning as I work, getting better at what I do. I am getting promoted, I am graduating, I am climbing some kind of "ladder" and the higher I go, the more I can get.
Temperament
This ladder climbing and getting what I want requires some thought. I have many needs now. I want a fancy car, but I need to pay the rent. Some day, I want to buy a house. I think I want to be the boss, but that means I need to spend more time in school or at work. It means I have to perform at a higher and higher level. My own children have needs, and sometimes they need things at a time when I have other commitments, and I have to choose what to do. Some of the tasks I am given, or some of the paths I have taken have been less successful than others. My time is valuable. I have to choose carefully what I pursue and what I don’t and when to let something go and when to stick with it. Gosh, there are times I want to just throw my hands up, but I have control myself.
Social context
Society has needs and wants just like I do. I want society to like me, to support me, to reward me. If I make society happy, I will be rewarded. If I make society angry, I may get punished. If I bore society, or if society does not notice me, I will simply tread along my way but not advance very far. What does society want? Society is made up of people like me. In groups, there is a new identity that emerges. Some people are Christians, some are Muslims; some are Knicks fans, some are Lakers fans; some are Republicans, some Democrats; and some are foreigners from places like Mexico, Germany, Italy, Haiti, and China. Foreigners are different from Americans, and even from one another, depending on where they are from. It seems the groups define the identity of its members, at least to a degree. But they all have one thing in common. They all share that love-hate paradox of wanting to belong to the group while hating individuals within the group, competing with them, even sometimes killing them.
So what can I bring to the group? Something that soothes that inner love-hate conflict.
I hope you have enjoyed exploring creativity with me as much as I have enjoyed exploring it with you. Thanks for all the well wishes I have received for this column, they have meant a great deal to me. And thanks to Jeff Evans, the managing editor who indulged me this opportunity, and to IMNG Medical Media for publishing this work. And now ... back to my real job as a neurologist. See you all at the meetings!
Dr. Caselli is medical editor of Clinical Neurology News and a professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz
This is the last chapter of our 2-year series on creativity and its disorders. My how time flies! There is so much we could still say, but the basic pieces are now there for you to continue considering on your own. If I could leave you with a time-lapse inner monologue summarizing the creative experience of human life, it would go something like this:
Motivation
Appetitive and aversive, approach and avoid, love and hate – this essentially is the underlying theme of life. It may be the theme of more than just human life, too. Humans, chimpanzees, and other primates – in fact, most creatures down through fish and even insects and microbes – cluster together in groups yet compete with one another within the groups: killing each other, hating each other, and avoiding each other, yet remaining within the larger social grouping. This is the paradox of our existence and may be the social need, the insatiable conflict that needs constant soothing.
Part one – I am born – is already skipping a step. In part zero, I am conceived, and in fractional parts up to one, I am undergoing fetal development so that by the time I am born, I already have defined motivations of want and fear. I have yet to perceive, yet to envision, yet to plan, yet to act, yet to manage, yet to socialize, but I have my motivations.
Perception
I am born, and I am alive. My prewired circuits are pulsing with spontaneous activity – spontaneously generated rhythms that are modestly but significantly altered as I perceive the world around me. I see, hear, feel, smell, and taste it. I move and it is altered, even if just a little. I begin to associate things I perceive with my motivations. If I am hungry, milk and food satisfies my hunger and satisfies me. If I am alone, I am afraid, but the arrival of my mother, of someone familiar who feeds me, holds me, and keeps me warm, dispels my fear.
I am getting smart. I feel my hunger, and I remember what makes it better. I envision the arrival of food before it actually comes. I am learning what I want. When I feel afraid, I remember what makes it go away. I envision the arrival of my mother before she even gets there. And I even know if the wrong thing happens. If I am crying because I am hungry and someone gives me a toy, that is not what I want, and it is not what I envisioned. I expected food, and I want food. If the wrong person arrives, some stranger who is not who I expected, that is not who I want. I want my mother.
Action
I am getting really smart. I know when it is lunch time and where the cookies are. I can figure out when to have a snack so I am not too hungry but so I can still eat my dinner at dinnertime. I can even go to the store and get what I want (well, some things anyway, like a pack of gum). But it’s getting harder, more difficult. As I get older, people do not always give me what I want, I have to figure out ways to get things on my own more often. And that requires certain skills, without skills I have no value to trade for money that lets me buy what I want. So I am going to school, I am getting educated, I am working and learning as I work, getting better at what I do. I am getting promoted, I am graduating, I am climbing some kind of "ladder" and the higher I go, the more I can get.
Temperament
This ladder climbing and getting what I want requires some thought. I have many needs now. I want a fancy car, but I need to pay the rent. Some day, I want to buy a house. I think I want to be the boss, but that means I need to spend more time in school or at work. It means I have to perform at a higher and higher level. My own children have needs, and sometimes they need things at a time when I have other commitments, and I have to choose what to do. Some of the tasks I am given, or some of the paths I have taken have been less successful than others. My time is valuable. I have to choose carefully what I pursue and what I don’t and when to let something go and when to stick with it. Gosh, there are times I want to just throw my hands up, but I have control myself.
Social context
Society has needs and wants just like I do. I want society to like me, to support me, to reward me. If I make society happy, I will be rewarded. If I make society angry, I may get punished. If I bore society, or if society does not notice me, I will simply tread along my way but not advance very far. What does society want? Society is made up of people like me. In groups, there is a new identity that emerges. Some people are Christians, some are Muslims; some are Knicks fans, some are Lakers fans; some are Republicans, some Democrats; and some are foreigners from places like Mexico, Germany, Italy, Haiti, and China. Foreigners are different from Americans, and even from one another, depending on where they are from. It seems the groups define the identity of its members, at least to a degree. But they all have one thing in common. They all share that love-hate paradox of wanting to belong to the group while hating individuals within the group, competing with them, even sometimes killing them.
So what can I bring to the group? Something that soothes that inner love-hate conflict.
I hope you have enjoyed exploring creativity with me as much as I have enjoyed exploring it with you. Thanks for all the well wishes I have received for this column, they have meant a great deal to me. And thanks to Jeff Evans, the managing editor who indulged me this opportunity, and to IMNG Medical Media for publishing this work. And now ... back to my real job as a neurologist. See you all at the meetings!
Dr. Caselli is medical editor of Clinical Neurology News and a professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, Ariz
