Creativity and Discipline
Either/Or, Part 4
What does a creative person look like to you? The dominant image for many of us stems from the Romantic era, especially its poets. Shelley, Byron, the Russian Pushkin and others all lived short, turbulent lives, often distinguished by a reckless exploration of societal boundaries that spilled over into their art. Later generations of poets took their rejection of poetic norms even further, abandoning the metrical forms that had framed poetry for centuries.
This freedom produced more bad writing than any other artistic movement I can think of. The first example that comes to mind is Walt Whitman, whose boasted freedom from constraint produced a long stream of lazy, self-absorbed, self-indulgent blather. He was capable of much more but rarely achieved it.
Abstract art often falls into a similar trap. The artists who experiment with abstract ways to present color – in itself worthy of exploration – sometimes end no further along artistically than they began. If you agree with the premise that each era’s art shines a light on its cultural currents, modern art reveals the vacuous intellectualism of our culture, darkened by a spiritual deadness at its core.
The paradox of creativity is that it is fueled by constraints. Sometimes those constraints are imposed in ways that seem artificial or arbitrary, as in poetry. But the sustained, disciplined effort to navigate them skillfully produces the best work. The poets who have achieved great success in seemingly unstructured verse – Yeat, Frost, and John Berryman come immediately to mind – were masters of form.
Architecture is an art form that is necessarily rooted in constraints. A structure is designed and built for a functional purpose – a home, office, factory, or church. It is built in a specific place where geography and climate both present important considerations.
The most famous exemplar of American architecture is the home called Fallingwater, designed and built by Frank Lloyd Wright as a summer getaway in Western Pennsylvania’s Laurel Highlands for Edgar and Liliane Kaufmann, department store magnates in nearby Pittsburgh. The Kaufmanns visualized a home that was centered on a view of a waterfall; Wright decided to build the home over the waterfall. The entire home is cantilevered; that is to say, its foundation is not underneath it but to the side. Fallingwater is anchored in the rock formation beside the waterfall.
This design choice added great complexity and difficulty to constructing the home, but it stems from the constraints and the opportunities of the site. Fallingwater was designed in the era before air conditioning. How do you keep a summer retreat cool and comfortable in the hot, muggy Midwestern summertime? Wright’s design channeled the cool air flow from the rapidly moving water through the common living area of the house.
The constraints of location and climate required a creative response that would otherwise never have been called forth.
I’ve learned that I have more opportunities for creativity than I usually see. Much of my life is structured upon routines – doing things in the same way each time. This is good and necessary; as I wrote in an earlier post in this series, I see no benefit to reinventing my morning bathroom routine each day given the very modest outcomes they fulfill.
Discipline is not the enemy of creativity; instead, it provides an essential foundation for most creative work. It is hard to make things better; the flash of transformational creativity that seemingly springs from nowhere is not the norm. The best results usually come when discipline and creativity work hand in hand.
For example, I’ve learned that mentoring is a creative endeavor. Given my age and a still-active network of business and ministry involvements, I generally have several active mentoring relationships at any point in time. While mentors are only one among many influences in a person’s life, and usually not the most important, they can make important contributions to young lives. Sometimes a mentor’s impact comes primarily through advice, such as the advice a newly appointed executive might receive from a trusted, supportive predecessor, or that a young parent might receive from someone who has raised their own children.
At other times, mentors might be sought out for the aura of wisdom that others see in them. The object is not to learn what the mentor would do in a given situation, but the process they’ve learned for thinking and deciding.
In either case, a mentor has an opportunity for far-reaching impact. What you say or how you live may shift the trajectory of a younger person’s life in lasting ways. The temptation can be to play a role, which has the effect of telling the younger person what they might expect to hear.
Instead, a mentor needs to respond discerningly to the specific moment. There is no foreordained right answer; there are only responses that are more or less wise, more or less helpful.
I consider these relationships among the most important involvements in my life. Seen through a spiritual lens, they are relationships that God has brought to me for a time, and perhaps for a specific purpose. How do I fulfill that trust?
As you might suspect, I pray before each encounter. If contact happens unexpectedly, I still try to quickly ask God to be present, to guide my thoughts, and to enable me to speak truthfully, lovingly, and wisely. These are not simply “God, please do something” prayers; rather, they draw me to put aside other thoughts and focus on the young man or woman I’m to meet with, to immerse myself in the context of that specific relationship.
And I try to focus completely on the person I’m with. If possible, I don’t bring my phone with me. I try to maintain my concentration on the other person by looking into their eyes. I am attentive to my body language, concentrating on a relaxed, open posture. Being mindful of these things provides a structure that helps me listen and observe attentively; otherwise it’s easy for my attention to wander. When that happens, not only might I miss something important, I am also conveying to the other person that they are not important. Both things can damage intimacy and limit helpfulness.
These disciplines help me create the setting most conducive to seeing clearly and sharing wisely. Each moment is unique; it has its own context and it comes at a specific point in the other person’s life. It demands a creative response, not a rote one.
I’ve chosen this example because it is likely to be far at odds with what you normally think of as a creative endeavor. Your work, relationships, and other involvements have opportunities for creative responses that can magnify your impact.
Look at them with fresh eyes. What do you see?
Jack Jr.’s new book, Becoming Yourself: A Perspective on Christian Character is now in print. You can order your copy HERE at our website
It’s fun to watch you apply these principles in real time.
I gave learned through the years to listen carefully, suggest rarely, and enjoy the person with whom I am interacting. Many thanks Jack for your input.