The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric

Highly creative people often seem weirder than the rest of us. Now researchers know why by Shelley Carson

The brain is freaking phenomenal, I think we can all agree on that to a degree. I found this article fascinating because, yes, why ARE creative people a little outside the cage? Carson reveals that most creative people feel like "a square peg in a round hole" and then goes into some detail about creative people not filtering as much information, thus often coming across strange or "creative" ideas and solutions to problems. She also talks about how "creativity" is similar in brain function in ways to schizotypal personality (etc etc etc) and can be hereditary like mental disorders. Interesting stuff. Okay.

BUT THEN at the very end of the article (if you can make it through the five pages, which — let's be honest — in the Internet World, is a lot of reading) she says, "As the market value of creative thinking increases, the round-hole world may continue to make adjustments to accommodate and assimilate eccentrics." (and if you're Canadian, you know that "assimilate" is a dirty word) and a few sentences later she writes, "Square pegs...no longer have to work so hard at fitting in."

Which, yes, square pegs can now get jobs instead of living off the lead-based paint they work with. But having a job doesn't make it easier to fit in. Given, Carson admits she fits "more comfortably into [her] round hole." But for that exact reason she doesn't realize that "fitting in" isn't about having a job, or having the people around you politely ignore the fact that you think urchins are following you in the street (Charles Dickens) or that the music you wrote was given to you straight from the long deceased Beethoven (Robert Schumann) — both examples used in the article.

Sticking with the square-peg and round-hole analogy, not all creative people are square pegs. I think most creative people can be best imagined as amoeba-like in that no two are exactly the same shape and even just the one person is often changing shape throughout their life. Therefore "fitting in" can be extremely complicated and delicate, especially when a person is use to when "the brain is focusing on internally generated stimuli rather than on the outside world."

The square-peg round-hole analogy falls flat when you try to think of creative people fitting in, especially together. It's not as simple as filling in the missing piece. Most creative people will tell you that making close-bonding relationships is difficult at best. This is because an artists' amoeba-like shape has to be the right shape at the right time in order to fit together with another amoeba.

When it comes down to it, I don't think creative people need to fit in as much as non-creative people need them to adhere to some kind of logic. We need each other, creatives and non-creatives, just the way we are. We also need a bit of friction because no great accomplishment ever came easy. So the next time you meet someone who is a little wacky and hard to get along with, give them a break. It's a lonely world in here.