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 do think it's interesting, though, how defensive everyone is.
Lining up to list their creative credentials.

It just goes to show that creativity still has huge cultural cachet in this society.Particularly amongst women.

Whereas if the OP had said she found most people unscientific, I wonder if many posters would have argued.

The assertion that one is not creative is felt as a critisism, whereas the assertion that one is not scientific is not.

SGB - of course it happens and it is terrible. But people like the OP don't exactly help the image of any "non-mainstream" personality type (if there is sucha thing!) by going on and on about how different and misunderstood they are, and how the rest of the world are just boring, worker drones.

Unless of course she is, in fact, a teenager in which case we can all just give a roll of our eyes and remember the days when we could sign "I'm so different" without a trace of irony.

Or wear novelty flashing earings.

[nudges SGB in the ribs and winks]

My English teacher used to accuse me of creative spelling, does that count?

I think creativity is a myth, TBH.

litchick - the defensiveness may have come about as a result of the thread title, pitting 'really boring people' against 'highly creative people'

Litchick - I am not sure it is defensiveness so much as an attempt to demonstrate that the OP's vast, sweeping generalisations and the criteria by which she judges people are completely flawed.

A huge number of people who do very formal or very mundane jobs or who dress in a pretty non-descript way will have fascinating inner lives or interesting hobbies.

I spent several weeks sitting next to a very serious, old-school barrister during a long trial. He was terribly dry and humourless and you had the impression that he had been born in his wig and gown and would die in it. The jurors glazed over when he spoke. During this time I wathed him fill his plain blue notebook with the most intricate, fantastical ink drawings. Whenever the case didn't directly involve his client his pen would start moving and he was utterly absorbed in what he was drawing.

I never said anything but I warmed to him hugely and thought it was a shame that he had not pursued a very different career path.

I agree with Ormirian. The tone of the original post implied that there is a small select group of misunderstood creative people who all wear 'interesting' clothes and use 'interesting stuff' and are very very 'interesting' and all the other people, clearly identified by their dull jobs and clothes are just boring.

Pmsl at you inventing Sex And The City before it started though...shame you couldn't have headed the second film off at the pass- it was dire.

And to answer your question, no, I don't suppose that being accused of being unscientific would have the same impact.

I am quite willing to admit that I spent most of that same trial under intense instruction from several other advocates in the art of sudoku. By the end of the trial I had yet to complete one. My brain doesn't work that way.

I think the reason why people value creativity is that it is at the very heart of what we have become as a species. Of course we need scientific minds to put all the brilliant ideas into practice, but surely all the great leaps we have made have been driven by a little spark of creativity.

litchick, you yourself said you believed creative people have a certain 'look' about them and that you are one of those people, as though there really is a separate breed of people: The Creatives

No I did not.

I said very creative people ie people who have it at the heart of their lives are ime outliers.
We are a bit odd, I think.

I said, telly folk and wotnots all dress funkily. And they do. It's the culture.

I made it very plain that I am neither funky nor cool.

Ooh, I missed that. Is there any chance that "the look" is slightly messy, dragged-through-a-hedge backwards, jacket and skirt slightly different shade of black, ink all over hands and baby breakfast in hair?

If so then I shall immediately stop aoplogising for being a scruff-bag and start announcing "it's because I am creaaative you know."

Cross-posted.

No "look".

Bum

Scruff-bag it is then.

but just as many people who have it at the heart of their lives are inconspicuous; they blend in, are mainstream. YOu just don't notice those ones

My brother works in television and he does not dress funkily. Sometimes people expend all of their creativity on one thing and have very ordinary clothes or houses and so on. I don't think you can generalise really.

And really, if someone said to me, oh Litchick's not very scientific, or analytical, or practical, or mathematical...I'd just nod.

I wouldn't take it badly at all. Despite the fact that all those characterisitics are arguably more useful.

It is what it is, as the saying goes.

But dare to say people are not creative or artisitc and they become very defensive.
Why? There is nothing inherently better about being cretaive.

It puzzles me.

swanduck perhaps I am generalising, going on the folk I've met.

You've also got to beear in mind, that they seem awfully cool and groovy to me

And the folk I meet will be producers, editors, writers etc.

I don't get to meet the camera bods, scenery, graphic etc etc

It does irritate me that I was excellent at mathematics and physics and that due to my career people throw words like creative at me.

I like concepts anyway, feeds into lots of stuff; maths, strategy and creative stuff.

Lots of people are more than one thing aren't they? I especially like it when females don't equal gender stereotypes.

WOmen are often told they can't be logical or practical or scientific, because they're female. It makes them defensive.

In the same stroke, I have never thought that people are all dying to be creative it's a "can't get a real job" joke in many circles,

My brother's a producer Litchick and, believe me, there is nothing groovy about his clothes .

I'm just going by this thread.
Everyone seemed very put out by the notion that they might not be creative.

And I think this is a common theme in life.

People, and particularly women, consider an creativity/an artistic nature an asset. Somehting they wish to associate themselves with.

Certainly being a writer, is something vast swathes of people aspire to, whether they have any natural ability or not.

Whereas, science and maths don't attract quite the same desire, though as I say those skills are arguably more useful.

I think it's the continued worship of the dilettante, and the amateur. Those who are bright but impractical, like butterflies. Mary, not Martha. Who wants to be a dull worker bee? Added to which the disdain for the blue-collar worker and 'trade'. Just old-fashioned snobbery in other words.

But life is never that simple - most people are a blend of both. But have no need to dress themselves to fit either stereotype. I studied English and archaeology at university and some of the most vitriolic prejudice I ever witnessed were shown by the students studying archaeology as Humanity against those studying archaeology as a science. Oh the grim ugliness of those test tubes and the total lack of poetry in the bunsen burner Pathetic and narrow-minded!

Agreed Lichick.

People at my old work who weren't creative wanted to be seen as such.

Now I am surrounded by people who do it properly the mythical status of being highly creative is diminished.

But it is a different environment to most.