{"id":25906,"date":"2013-08-16T05:59:41","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T05:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=25906"},"modified":"2013-08-17T16:18:01","modified_gmt":"2013-08-17T16:18:01","slug":"creativity-and-ennui","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=25906","title":{"rendered":"Creativity and Ennui"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[<strong>Mark Safranski<\/strong> a.k.a. &#8220;<strong>zen<\/strong>&#8220;]<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/photo.ricardovercesi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/01\/IMG_1625_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"600\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Creativity\">Creativity<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>is a subject that has \u00a0interested me, going back to the days long, long ago when I was an art student. Creativity is only mildly correlated with IQ, but like &#8220;intelligence&#8221;, the deeper you delve into the study of \u00a0creativity and creative thinking the more &#8220;creativity&#8221; looks like a multifaceted, multidimensional and diverse set of capacities, habits and circumstances than it does a single, universal, characteristic or ability.<\/p>\n<p>Creativity has been studied from a neuroscientific, psychological, evolutionary, \u00a0behavioral, economic and social perspective but what of creativity&#8221;s opposite? \u00a0What about <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urbandictionary.com\/define.php?term=ennui\">Ennui<\/a><\/strong>?<\/p>\n<p>From a cognitive perspective, the two may be flip sides of the same coin, note the correlation<a href=\"http:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/blog\/prescriptions-life\/201204\/little-weird-prone-depression-blame-your-creative-brain\"> between<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/au.artshub.com\/au\/news-article\/features\/arts\/why-are-creative-people-more-prone-to-depression-193776\">highly <\/a>\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/health-19959565\">creative<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2008\/HEALTH\/conditions\/10\/07\/creativity.depression\/\">people<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.creativesomething.net\/post\/55508909341\/the-link-between-depression-and-creativity-and-how-it\">and<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/clearinghouse.missouriwestern.edu\/manuscripts\/404.php\">incidence of depression<\/a>. It may also be a sign of overuse of certain brain functions, like adrenal exhaustion from an excess of physical and mental stress over a long period of time. Creativity, being in &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Flow_(psychology)\">the flow<\/a>&#8221; is intoxicating but it usually involves peak exertion which accumulates weariness. Exemplary performance in one area can also come at the expense of penalties in another area.<\/p>\n<p>Or perhaps ennui is the natural, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.plosone.org\/article\/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0014803\">cyclical ebb and flow<\/a> between generative conceptual fertility and barrenness, the brain preparing itself for the next creative &#8220;surge&#8221; to come?<\/p>\n<p>When are you creative and when are you not?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Mark Safranski a.k.a. &#8220;zen&#8220;] Creativity\u00a0is a subject that has \u00a0interested me, going back to the days long, long ago when I was an art student. Creativity is only mildly correlated with IQ, but like &#8220;intelligence&#8221;, the deeper you delve into the study of \u00a0creativity and creative thinking the more &#8220;creativity&#8221; looks like a multifaceted, multidimensional [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,24,21,525,78,809,47,757,436,491,32,558],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain","category-cognition","category-creativity","category-epistemology","category-ideas","category-imaginal","category-intelligence","category-musings","category-psychology","category-rambling","category-science","category-social-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25906"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25906\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25943,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25906\/revisions\/25943"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}