The creative personality

We need to be wary of making sweeping statements about the personality of creative individuals, as there is no one creative personality. Csikszenthihalyi broadly defines the creative mind as “complex, knowing the extremes of experience, with equal intensity. He gives ten examples of how this works in creative individuals:

• Energy / Rest – Creative individuals spend enormous amounts of time in their chosen endeavours, and approach it with a sense of great energy and enthusiasm. However they also seem to take long periods of rest and sleep a lot. The important thing is that their energy is under their control
• Clever / Naive – creative people tend to be cleverer than the general population, but also very naive
• Playfulness / Discipline – Creative people tend to be very playful and sometimes appear immature, they are also incredibly disciplined and dogged in their beliefs
• Imaginative / Realist – creative people have strong imaginations but are also rooted very firmly to the knowledge and history of their domain
• Extrovert / Introvert – creative people tend to be both introverted and extroverted, the solitariness one needs to master a domain is more than compensated for by their gregariousness with others, their need to talk through ideas and general sociability
• Humility / Pride – their long study of the domain gives them a respect or reverence for their work, however they are rarely troubled by doubt and usually aware of their own achievements.
• Traditional / Rebellious – again the reverence for the domain makes creative people respectful of the traditions, however to do something new in the domain they must rebel against these traditions
• Passionate / Objective – creative people are obviously motivated by passion for what they do, while also understanding the weaknesses of their own work.
• Suffering / Enjoyment – the creative persons do suffer and tend to be sensitive about their work, while also deriving a great deal of personal happiness and joy.