I’ve recently been reading ‘The Courage to Create’ by American psychologist Rollo May. In a similar way to reading John Berger’s writing on creativity, he manages to put into words so many of the unconscious elements involved. It feels both affirming and inspiring to read what feels like a timeless assessment of what it means to create, not solely within the arts, but within the realms of science and maths, any discipline that involves a sense of discovery, of trial and error.
One of the key elements of the creative process for me is the way in which the conscious and unconscious worlds unite, something which May analyses as a moment of ecstasy involving the whole self. Ecstasy is not merely a moment of hysteria, but that of ‘ex-statis’, an intensity of consciousness which fuses the division between the person and the object, a freeing sense of standing out from a prior understanding.
Perhaps those heightened moments aren’t a daily occurrence, but his allusion is that of a heightened state, something which seemingly out of the blue offers clarity, a sense of seeing the world more vividly than before. As an artist, this is what I labour for, not as a means of gaining a temporary high, but that sense of purpose and breakthrough which allows for a greater understanding of the world.
May goes on to dissect the notions of the unconscious meeting the conscious and how ideas can seemingly pop out of nowhere, but only if the groundwork has previously been laid. He draws a link between the fruitless graft, the research and testing which seemingly always comes before the moment of revelation, which more often appear when we are disengaged from the activity itself.
Nick Cave alludes to this in his recent book of interviews with Sean O’Hagan when he comments that boredom is next to epiphany. I don’t think he necessarily means a religious moment of enlightenment, (although maybe it can feel like that at times) but more in the sense that these moments of inspiration do seem to appear when we are disengaged and doing something mundane like having a shower or doing the washing up. Our brains need space in order to process and invite these ideas in. We’re all aware that we can fill every moment with relentless scrolling, so perhaps it’s about taking more control over those habits in order to create space for our ideas to flourish.
I thoroughly recommend reading both the Rollo May and Nick Cave books as a means of understanding more about the creative act, and in particular how the conscious and unconscious worlds can unite and blossom to generate something more fruitful and beautiful than we could otherwise fathom.
This article is taken from my April Mailout which also features some of my latest news and cultural highlights.
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