To think that really boring people see highly creative people as children?

[Heroine]

I AM JUST SAYING..

I had a weird thing happen, I am quite creative and like decorative stuff and cool quirky things and someone who I thought was on the same wavelength gave me a real dressing down when I showed her some cool japanese quirky notebooks I bought - with that sort of stylised fluffy, hearty, pop=art style, she sais the thought it was childish and unprofessional. (!). i thought it was just fun..

It made me think that all the people who make the rules about what is 'professional' are really just all the really dull tedious unimaginative types and that is why they think creativity is likely to diminish performance - because they can't handle it and it freaks their boring little heads out.

(I know this might seem to conflict with my 'women who run fluffy novelty businesses' thread, but I'm just saying (and not explaining well) that the dull people seem to never be interested in anything, and seem to make the rules, and the people who went wild and got into interestingb things in their teens and 20s but had to droip them because the dull run the world, are seen by the dull people as 'only having childish ideas'.
It seems a bit sad - does anyone see what I mean?? It seems to be getting worse as women have more serious jobs - I get it but as I'm a bit 'consultant-ish' I can ride above it, but it seems that somewhere there is a book that says you can't be clever or get things done or reliable unless you think and dress in a dull boring way.. and that makes no sense to me..

sorry for going on, but I think there somethin in my uncomfortableness at being thought of as childish when I think of myself as an adult who has some sense of humour and creativity.

Am I being unreasonable??

I mean people tell me that they're good at it. Doh.

OP, are you very young?

I think that most of us have realised by a relatively early age that in order for the world to carry on functioning we need creative people and analytical/practical people.

I am considered creative by family and friends. I am writing fairly seriously at the moment (after years of faffing), I make most of my clothes and all of our home furnishings, quilts etc. I play three instruments and have just started revamping second-hand furniture for our new home.

I do this in my own time. In my day job, I am a lawyer. I go to court. I wear a black suit. I carry a plain, blue notebook. My suit is strikingly similar (albeit cheaper) to every other lawyer around me. My blue notebook is identical to that carried by most other lawyers. I don't feel the need to carry a pink fluffy notebook to trill girlishly at the "opposition" 'aha, you didn't see that coming, did you?" Why? Because it would be crashingly inappropriate in such a formal setting.

You may see no reason why people conform to certain norms while doing "boring" jobs. i, however, think it is completely appropriate to recognise that you are doing a serious job, with serious implications, and that it would be very distracting and silly to make an issue out of my notebook or pen.

I'm sorry, OP, but your attitude is breathtakingly naive and more than a little silly. There are times and places for expressing your individuality, and there are times and places for merging into the background. I also don't think that a quirky notebook expresses anything more than your taste in notebooks. If you are working in the legal profession, as one of your posts tends to indicate, I would strongly advise you to get rid of this attitude asap. Your clients are unlikely to be impressed at you prioritising your individuality over their need for you to be part of their legal team, with all that entails.

Ally Mcbeal was fiction, you know.

Hmmm, I'm chewing my ostrich feather pen (complete with it's own foot stand) and thinking YABU and judgy. Btw, sadly, I couldn't be less creative and am really quite boring. Agree with DirtyMartini (mmm, which would go down a treat right now, snotty baby sleeping!), you do sound quite childish.

Ah yes.

"I'm a poet"

"Oh, really? What have you written?"

"Oh nothing - I just know I'm a poet."

Before you ask - yes, this was a real conversation. And yes, it is hard not to snort your drink.

Oh and can I suggest you read a very scary story in a book of short stories by John Connolly. It is about a writer who bought a fancy ink-pot because he thought it would help him write better. It had a little stuffed monkey on it. Over the course of a few weeks the monkey came to life, drank his blood and took over his entire identity.

Just saying....

litchick - don't you have that (productive) car crash of arrogance and doubt? you know, you'd stop doing it if you didn't think you were good at it, but you'd never do it well without the constant, despairing interrogation of what you've done? is that just me?

bad form, though, to go about announcing your genius, of course

"Creative and analytical are not opposites."

I agree very strongly with this.

gosh this takes me back

student parties of the arts (me): dull as ditchwater, people sitting around stoned analysing everything

student parties of the chem eng and accountants: pissed up witty fun

what if you are given a quirky, zany kooky notebook as a gift

does that mean you are highly creative by proxy?

What a fascinating thread. Aside from all the confusing flannel about notebooks (Heroine, you must see how daft it is to equate creativity to paper choices?), there is a deeper question in the OP's original point. Which is do the dull rule the world?

Well, yes they do, if you substitute the word conventional for dull. Because there has to be a middle ground and it's the easiest place to run a capitalist democracy from. It's not a artistic/non-artistic 'choice', it's just easier.

I believe absolutely no-one is dull. People have towering internal lives. Perhaps there are some people you don't want to get stuck with - my FiL has a habit of describing the route he took to get to any destination In. Excruciating. Detail. But who am I to judge who is more interesting than whom?
I have a friend who is hugely popular, people love to be with her. She's not inherently more creative, or artistic or even more interesting. She's just a really, really good listener. She's elevated it to an artform.

Litchick, I am dying to know who you are. I went to a London literary festival in an area written about in a certain writer's most recent book, specifically to hear a this woman writer speak. Guttingly I had to leave half way through because my baby started screaming. It wasn't you, was it?

I doubt it cleverclogs. It just means you have something else to stick in the bag for the school fete!

totally agree you normally need plenty of supposedly non-creative skills to be creative.

I do a very 'creative' job which I trained for at art school, but without maths, a knowledge of various diy/building techniques, and lots of technical pattern cutting/sewing knowledge I couldn't do the 'creative' stuff.

Erm I know two creative types - one is a musician and the other is a write. Neither had been able to support their own lifestyles - one had a rich dh and is OK - the other has noone and actually huge debts.

I'd like to be creative but I gawf a the 'I cannot do nine to five' - if you absolutely have to then you should do.

Writer, even.

DH is an IT manager in a top publishing house. He comes home pissing his pants about the 'creatives' at work. Tends to find a lot of them narrow minded, neurotic and self-obsessed. Says he vastly prefers his somewhat 'aspi' IT staff who he finds more intelligent and funnier.

Creativity comes in many guises..... It's not always wacky and cute.

What a senior IT manager bitching about creatives.. you do surprise me

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I love this smileY!

woah.. that went a bit weird...sorry..[bblush]

Op you are boring and all the shitty kitty notepads in the world won't change that.

[sticks head back into thread and establishes that yes, the OP is in fact 13 years old. Leaves again]

I'm afraid anyone who announces they are, or they like, 'cool and quirky' things immediately make my teeth itch. It's a bit like those who say 'I'm mad I am, I'm a right nutter' etc etc. Er, I very much doubt that.

I think everyone is pretty creative at one thing or another and I don't think that if someone can make cards, for example, it necessarily makes them creative. Creativity comes in lots of different forms and I don't believe that there is a connection between that and the kind of notebook you like.

I really hope the OP has one of those terribly nice woolly jackets with wolves or tigers on the back.

Well clearly 'creative-types' get easily confused. Good thing there are boring non-creative types out there to keep the world ticking along

Heroine - it's great that you aspire to be a published writer and are part of a band and all that. But I think what the people who are already successful in various creative fields have been trying to say is that creativity has nothing at all to do with fluffy notebooks. My advice would be to channel your creativity into what you do, not what you buy. Fluffy notebooks won't tell anyone you are creative - and might well send a very different message - a synopsis and first three chapters will do that no matter what pen you use to write them.

Just on the 'quirky Japanese notebooks' - my OH works for a Japanese company and the four Japanese men in his office all have 'quirky' notebooks and lunchboxes (yes really, lunchboxes). They all work in logistics and are grey suit wearing pen pushers. I think they'd be appalled at being thought of as 'quirky', I think they prefer 'sassy'.