Creativity from Intimacy

In my previous post I mentioned how “diversity” was important for creativity. While this is true in the context of that post, others suggest that solitude and intimacy are even more important in terms of one being creative.

French philosopher Gaston Bachelard believed that intimacy and intimate spaces develop creativity. He wrote, “The gentle warmth of enclosed regions is the first indication of intimacy. The warm intimacy is the root of all images” (Bachelard 1958). In other words, the same warm feeling we feel when we become intimate with ourselves, another person, or nature is the feeling that inspires creativity. For example, a painter or photographer must first become intimate with their subject in order to reflect that subject’s essence in their work.

With the exponential growth of humanity and especially technology, originality is something that is becoming more and more difficult to achieve. However, no two individuals in the entire history of mankind have ever been identical. Regardless of being doppelgangers or identical twins, every single human has a unique combination of personality, emotions, beliefs, and experiences.

It is this combination that allows a person to be creative. Solitude and intimacy allow an individual to access these virtues that exist within them. If you can be intimate with yourself, you can realize what drives your emotions and channel this emotional energy into a creative form that is unique to yourself.

Author Anna Quindlen puts it best, “Every story has already been told. Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had” (1999).

Despite the major themes of any work of art already being explored in an older work, every artist is human and therefore every artist is unique. Therefore, while the meaning behind a creation is not necessarily original, the way it is created through the creator’s individual intimacy is original. This is why creativity ultimately comes down to not what you create, but how you create it.