Being a thoughtful and creative person, I have spent a lot of time thinking about creativity. What makes one person more creative than another? Why is it that creative people have so many emotional problems? Why is it that creative people seem to have a lot of characteristics in common?

First off, I think it boils down to a tension between two extremes, the creative mindset, and the ordering mindset. And the difference between these two mindsets, on a cognitive level, lies in how they treat barriers.

The ordering mindset is optimized towards separations and distinctions. It seeks out the differences between things and seeks to put all things in categories, structures, systems, and orders. It is a mindset supremely capable of dealing with a great deal of disparate information and sorting and comprehending it in an orderly and systematic way. It is drawn to clear lines, sharp distinctions, known procedures, established facts, and “a place for everything and everything in its place”. It is repelled by ambiguity, judgment calls, blurred boundaries, uncharted territory, and things which defy categorization. It is most comfortable in small mental spaces and feels anxious and unsafe without a great deal of predictability and order surrounding it.

Above all, it is a mind built for order.

The creative mindset, on the other hand, is optimized towards making connections. Hence, the creative mind wants their to be as few barriers and distinctions in its contents possible. Walls only impede the discovery of connections between things that is the heart of creativity. The creative mind is always seeking to break down barriers, find connections between things which seem unconnected, and seeks wide open mental spaces in which to experiment with large ideas and find those elusive connections. It is attracted to ambiguity, mystery, inconsistency, and things which defy categorization. It avoids sharp distinctions, restrictions, ordered systems, strict definitions, and limited possibilities. The creative mind feels anxious and trapped in the sort of ordered and defined space that the ordering mind finds comforting. The creative mind finds safety not in order but in its own maneuverability, like an animal that relies on its speed and adaptability to survive, and thus avoids anything that smells like a cage or a trap.

This are, of course, two polar opposites, and the bell curve of life dictates that most people will be some mix of these two extremes. Nobody is entirely ordered or completely creative (except perhaps autistics and schizophrenics, respectively) and I am not trying to pigeonhole people under labels and definitions.

As a creative person, that would be anathema to me.

I am simply pointing out an interesting axis which I think yields fruitful results when applied to the examintion of the human psyche.

Most people, as I have said, will be a mixture of the two poles, but most people will be more on one side of the spectrum than the other. I’ve already said that I am a creative person. Rules, restrictions, and definitions tend to bore, depress, and/or frighten me. It would be easy, therefore, for me to look down on the orderly types as dull and colorless and us creatives types as being ever so much better.

But I also know my own weaknesses too well to permit such provincialism. I know that, for one thing, my creative mind makes it difficult to make decisions sometimes. The ability to see a myriad of possibilities in every situation comes at the cost of having those many possibilities to choose from when a course of action is needed. Ordered minds rarely face such indecision. They see a clear route through every maze and are only stopped when they encounter something so ambiguous or unknown that their existing tools of ordering and categorization can’t conquer it. Then, ironically, they need someone like me.

So clearly, both mindsets have their strengths and weaknesses, and the world simply could not keep turning without both of them. We need the ordered minds to keep things straight, to create order out of chaos, to deal with situations which required a strong sense of order and regularity, and to keep everything together. We need creative minds to chart new territories, to push the boundaries, to test the known facts for weaknesses and hence improve the strength of the system as a whole.

To conclude, I think that, in the spirit of greater human harmony and understand, it would be a great boon to humanity if we creative types strove to understand the ordering types and accept that they have their value and their role as well, and for them to do the same for us.

It’s how we create greater order in the world!