Creativity and alphabet love
‘…qualities like quiveriness and vulnerability come to mind when I think of creativity… creativity requires a sense of smell, a palate to taste the scents that make brilliance. All life feeds upon the random. Creativity is the haute cuisine.’
-Douglas Hofstadter-
What on earth is it? No one can give a vaguely sensible answer to what goes on in my brain. It is non-stop, it goes on every waking hour, and, I suspect, when I sleep as well. It is a constant rattling, a background noise in my head: constantly having new ideas, judging colours, angles, texture, making connections, soaking up words or phrases in any situation. Connecting bizarre things together; finding some hue, taste or sound that bring unrelated things together in my head, spanning languages, centuries, words, colours, poetry, sounds, materials, buildings, life forms; from teaspoons to magma. It is exhausting, in a way, but it’s been going on my whole life, so I have no idea what it would be like without it.
It makes me able to make metaphors no one understands. How admirable.
Bits of paper, books with notes in the margins, or the last blank pages missing to some long forgotten desperate need for scribbling something. Piles of notebooks half filled out with unidentifiable ideas, but sometimes, sometimes a notebook contains a tiny little doodle that have it. Some magic little quality. And there it is – a perfect little doodle or a surprising combination of letters or words. Something that it would be impossible to improve on. Adding something would ruin it. A doodle; born perfect. An interaction of letterforms in perfect balance and meaning. Trying to do it again would not work.
Magic.
I can track a meeting through the doodles I make. I remember what was said from little squiggles. People who have not seen my meeting-doodles show me endless post-its with circles repeated endlessly and say, I do it too! No you don’t. Because my doodles – unconsciously – covers and span universes. They are bizarre, funny, sometimes scary, sometimes awful. often abstract. I am sure a psychologist would have a field day, but at least it keeps me awake through boring meetings. The doodles are an illustration of the noise that goes on in my head – forced to sit still and listen to some boring twat go on about strategies for the future and how to fix something that is not broken – the endless connecting process bursts out on paper.
And I am beginning slowly to realise that not everybody have this racket going on. In fact, very few people have the faintest idea what I am talking about.
So I wonder what goes in their heads.
5 Comments
Boblets,
This is the best thing I’ve discovered since beginning to roam the blogs. I understand this man perfectly. I know what he’s talking about. It’s rather like living as a blue-eyed child surrounded by brown-eyed people your entire life, and then suddenly seeing another blue-eyed person. The response is absolutely predictable: relief, as in, “I’m not the only one”.
Funny that I should have been at Amandzing’s just a bit ago, watching the current video. With that bouncy little “boom-de-a-dah” song playing in the background, there suddenly is a momentary glimpse of Steven Hawking. I thought then about the improbable conjunctions of life, and how interesting they are. That’s what Mr. Hofstadter is talking about. Now, I must go off and find out more about him!
Excellent post.
Linda
And a bit of a ps… So excited was I to find this post that I didn’t properly sort out what was Mr. Hofstadter and what was you, Boblets herself! So this is even better. Now I should say, I understand you perfectly – at least in respect to that constant rattling you speak of. And I stil say – best thing I’ve found on the blogs!
L.
I am – again, honoured, Linda. Thank you for kind words, and yes, it is good to know there are others out there :-) You should immediately go and buy a book called “the art of looking sideways” by Alan Fletcher. I think you’d like it a lot. It is funny – I thought this one of my better posts, but it doesn’t seem very popular :-) ah, such is the ways of the great web.
I remember the doodles and the noise – so far away, back in my youth – the non-parallel universes and crazy interconnections. It was stored away for a stormy day when I no longer would have to-do lists. Now 40 years later I am emerging from my fog of responsibilities and again enjoying meandering thoughts and visual provocation. Thank you for helping me to remember.
Laura – thanks for visiting. I am not a spring chicken anymore, and the racket goes on – maybe if I load up on responsibillites it will go away, but I think not. There is beauty and chaos; good things too.