The creativity test

"Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character had abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time."
~ John Stuart Mill

"The Unleashed Mind," the cover story of the May-June 2011 issue of Scientific American Mind, is an article about highly creative people. I've been thinking about it off and on for almost a year now.

The article includes several stories about the eccentricities of extravagantly creative types. My favorites are about Charles Dickens, who "is said to have fended off imaginary urchins with his umbrella as he walked the streets of London." Dickens also apparently believed his characters sometimes followed him down the street. Perhaps that explains "Dickens' Dream," the positively ensorcelled creation of Victorian illustrator Robert William Buss.

But back to the known world. Scientific American Mind is in the helpful habit of summing up its articles in snappy bullet points — in this case:

• "People who are highly creative often have odd thoughts and behaviors—and vice versa.
• "Both creativity and eccentricity may be the result of genetic variations that increase cognitive disinhibition—the brain’s failure to filter out extraneous information.
• "When unfiltered information reaches conscious awareness in the brains of people who are highly intelligent and can process this information without being overwhelmed, it may lead to exceptional insights and sensations."

Some scientists believe the key to creativity is "cognitive disinhibition" — basically, having fewer filters to block out disorderly thoughts.

But that's not what made me want to write this post. The impetus was a sidebar containing an eleven-question test titled "Are You a Creative Eccentric." For now let's just focus on question 11: "Do you often feel like a square peg in a round hole." The magazine says, "A yes answer to question 11 is related to both creative thinking and schizotypal personality."

That surprised me. Not the schizotypal personality bit — you can have that without schizophrenia. The surprise was that while I don't consider myself an exceptionally creative person, my whole life consists of holes into which I do not fit. I remember feeling wrong-shaped as early as three or four years old. In fact, I don't ever recall feeling completely right-shaped, even in my own family. When you were a child, did you ever believe you were adopted — or perhaps wish you were? Then you know what I mean.

To me the peg-and-hole question is really about feeling at home. I most often feel at home when I'm in the zone — when I'm writing or editing and the words are flowing effortlessly and the structure comes together as if preordained. Going for long walks, having meals with one or two close friends — those things also feel like home.

Those feelings are also common among introverts, as an excellent NPR story recently pointed out. (See link below.) But the creative world contains as least as many extroverts as introverts...so there must be much more to it.

This is Elisha Pope Fearing Gardner. I don't know anything about him — but perhaps this photo tells us all we need to know. He looks like a fellow who fit in everywhere and nowhere.

What about you?

For more information:

• The Unleashed Mind: Why Creative People Are Eccentric

• Creative Brain Test (not the one in Scientific American Mind but by the article's author, Shelley Carson)

• NPR: Quiet, Please: Unleashing "The Power of Introverts"

• 7 Ways to Cultivate Your Creativity

• Thinking Thoughts No One Has Thunk

Happy birthday, mom

As I write this, it is late in the afternoon of February 11, 2012, the 105th anniversary of my mother's birth. Her name was Gertrude Elizabeth McMeel Hush. She died 26 years ago, but we lost her well before that to the personality-eradication of Alzheimer's.

This morning, as is our custom, my sister Terry and I got on the phone and sang "Happy Birthday" to mom together before rushing off to the obligations of the day. Now, as the day ends, I'm reminiscing. One of the things you discover after you lose someone to dementia is, eventually you forget most of the awful parts. You get your good memories back.

This photo of my mom hangs on my living room wall. She must have been quite young when it was taken, a teenager. By her twenties, the softness of her features was replaced by delicately sculpted bone structure. Those finger waves make me think it was the early to mid-1920s. But she never lost that faraway look.

When I think of mom, I think of music. It was a huge part of her life and became part of mine. She loved classical music — symphonies and concertos — and I came to love them, too. She also liked romantic songs. "Autumn Leaves" was one of her favorites; she never heard Diana Krall sing it, but I'm sure she would have liked it. 

Mom and I never saw eye to eye about my beloved blues and rock 'n' roll, but I have fond memories of sitting with her, both of us giggling, listening this next song. It's Harry Nilsson's version of "It Had to Be You," and if you listen all the way through, you'll hear a new twist on the lyrics. Mom, this one's for you. (Note: The video below directs you to click through to YouTube. Trust me — it's worth it.)

Dysfunctional Family Christmas

"A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together."

~ Garrison Keillor

Did you spend Christmas with your extended family? How was it — a little shredded around the edges? Whether it's drunken uncles, cheek-pulling aunts, whiny children, passive-aggressive in-laws or some other annoyance, we all have our little crosses to bear at family holiday gatherings.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a slightly eccentric but surprisingly functional family; even so, when the extended clan came together for a holiday celebration, wires would start popping out of the hay bale. On Christmas day our house filled with aunts and uncles and cousins, enough to require every available leaf for dining room table plus a card table or two in the adjoining breakfast room. We were a merry mob for the most part, but eventually mom's two older sisters would gather in the kitchen to critique her cooking. The nitpicking began late in the afternoon, after generous quantities of scotch had been consumed by all concerned. Inevitably, one of my aunts would insert herself into the process physically, getting between my mom and the stove, triggering a great crashing and banging of pots. One year a fully cooked 25-pound turkey landed on the floor as I looked on. (I was immediately sworn to secrecy by the adults, who wiped it off and popped it onto the carving board. A useful life lesson.)

What I find fascinating is that many families memorialize their dysfunction in formal photographs. I hope you feel better about your own family after you've had a look at these images from the first two decades of the 1900s.

It's 1912 and today's theme is "living dolls."

Let's all be very quiet and maybe she won't stab us.

In 1914, the family of attorney Raymond Dickey
has itself a grumpy little Christmas.

The Dickeys again a few years later.
I could spend hours pondering who's no longer speaking to whom.

For more dysfunction, see:

• Awkward Family Photos

• How to Take an Awkward Family Photo

"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together."

~ Erma Bombeck