Unique Traits of Truly Creative People
Understanding what creative people are made of can help us align with greatness.
Creative individuals are by nature rare. They’re beings that force cultures on the micro and macro scale into rapid evolution. Perhaps a supernatural presense uses them as conduits for expressing new thoughts and creating new forms.
You probably aren’t one of those people.
It’s okay — most of us aren’t. Fortunately, becoming a creative person that changes lives is within the grasp of any of us seeking deep understanding on the subject.
Using language to elucidate the essence of creativity may be impossible, but it’s our only jumping off point. Creativity is a self-evident quality we can recognize when experienced. But it’s difficult to put your finger on why it is you know someone is in possession of raw, genuine creativity. It exists in spite of any preconceptions about skill level or production quality you may hold.
It’s pure intuition.
With this in mind, I propose to demystify the conversation by offering a working definition for the “thing” that creativity is: the ability to perform and create forms in such a way that is inherently remarkable.
How do we know when we’re in the presense of someone doing or creating something inherently remarkable? We feel it. It’s as simple as that.
It’s the rush of euphoria we feel when watching footage of Michael Jordan, appearing to defy gravitational pull, float through the air and slam a basketball through a hoop. As if to add an exclamation mark to his achievement, he shatters the backboard and glass miraculously falls only on top of the opposing team members’ heads.
Another example of how we recognize creativity would be crying in front of a work of art. In James Elkins’ book Pictures and Tears: A History of People Who Have Cried in Front of Paintings, he recounts the time an historian first laid eyes on a Rothko painting:
Rothko remained quiet even when she brought her face up to within a few inches of the canvas…there was something in those surfaces, something waiting to be seen. They were elusive but mysteriously comforting. “I felt as if my eyes had fingertips,” she wrote in her journal the next morning, “moving across the brushed textures of the canvases.” The more she stared, the more she felt at home. Then she was crying, and the two of them remained that way for several minutes: the art historian looking at the canvases through a blur of tears, and the painter smoking, watching her. It was a moment, she told me, of “very strange feelings,” but mostly of relief, of perfect ease, of pure peacefulness and joy.
I’ve researched many of these bearers of creativity and found several commonalities between them all that may lend us a better understanding of how to tap into the remarkable.
All of the following traits work holistically to produce a creative being.
The “flow state” comes naturally to them
“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
— Albert Einstein, quote to Ernst Bloch, November 15, 1950
As a child I spent many summer days with a cousin who could spin yarns at the drop of a hat. I often requested to hear how specific characters we’d dreamt up would react to different adventures.
She didn’t need time to write an outline or even think about it. Immediately she launched into a story that often took hours to tell, consisting of interrelated plot points and character transformation journeys. Each of her stories left me in awe at their complexity and her unique creative abilities.
My dearest cousin was the modern day embodiment of the archetypical storyteller from all of our cultural traditions.
Whenever she told me a story, she effortlessly tapped into the “flow state.” No one ever had to teach her how to do it.
“Flow state” is a concept first fully realized by psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi in his book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. In short, it describes an optimal state of self-motivated productivity wherein the participant is completely free of distraction. Its emotional effects are often compared to being in a trance or a deeply meditative state.
Research shows that people who do experience the flow state experience higher levels of creativity, productivity, and even happiness for up to three days afterwards.
The flow state is a self-triggered entryway to remarkable creation. This is not something that can be attained by reading a book or listicle. It’s an irresistible urge within you — tempered by a self-created challenge but fueled by a previously developed skillset.
It’s simple and complex at the same time. A beautiful contradiction only understood when experienced.
If you’re just beginning to learn how to do something, you can’t enter the flow state yet. Any attempts to force this state offers only resistance and delays in the development of your creative abilities. These facts are understandably frustrating for many of us.
What we can be grateful for is knowing if we continue to develop our abilities, one day we’ll find ourselves inexplicably lost in flow. When that day comes, you’ll see clearly the cusp of greatness other creative people have ascended beyond.
They receive attention because of their unusual perspective of the world
No matter your opinion of Marie Kondo’s organizational methods and rise to popularity, her perspective of the world is strangely alluring.
In an interview with Richard Lloyd Parry in 2014, she’s quoted as having a religious epiphany about decluttering in high school:
“One day, I had a kind of nervous breakdown and fainted. I was unconscious for two hours. When I came to, I heard a mysterious voice, like some god of tidying telling me to look at my things more closely. And I realised my mistake: I was only looking for things to throw out. What I should be doing is finding the things I want to keep. Identifying the things that make you happy: that is the work of tidying.”
Filtered through her obsessive compulsiveness and experiences as a Shinto shrine “maiden,” Kondo shared with the Western world a very strange philosophy. The idea that owned objects can elicit the essence of “joy” is incomprehensible to many people. Now it’s a movement.
Other contemporary cultural giants share the similar trait of unusual world perspectives. Elon Musk has a whole article on Business Insider devoted to the “bizarre” things he believes in, such as attacking Mars with thermonuclear weapons to warm the planet.
Jim Carrey is often portrayed as being “crazy” because he’s unresponsive toward any interviewer obsessed with the superficiality of Hollywood. His spiritual beliefs also elude the understanding of most Americans.
Dave Chappelle is both admired and vilified for the lack of racial sensitivity he expresses during his uniquely relatable comedic routines.
All of these creative people possess worldviews rarely expressed in dominant culture. Their opinions are developed from a lifetime of curious experiences and even stranger interpretations of them. They’ve elevated far beyond the concept of “not fitting in.” They’re outside of Earth’s orbit!
There’s a difference between a sincerely unusual thought and the average person who shouts incomprehensible rants into the void. The amount of engaged attention you receive is relative to the remarkable quality of the thought.
The majority of people spend the entirety of their lives only thinking about and believing in things taught to them. The societal pressure against non-conformist thoughts is high. Regardless, it’s impossible to be both a creative individual and an advocate for mainstream opinions. Enjoying the comfort of echo chambers is inherently unremarkable and uncreative.
They’re alchemists who transform trauma into art form
“Become an alchemist. Transmute base metal into gold, suffering into consciousness, disaster into enlightenment.”
― Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Oprah Winfrey was repeatedly sexually assaulted as a child by her cousin and uncle. Writer Elie Wiesel lived through an Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camp. At age 15, Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai was shot in the face by a Taliban assassin.
All of these people successfully transmuted their traumatic circumstances into books and spoken words that have inspired nations and changed the world. They refused to exist in a state of constant paralysis like many of us who’ve experienced trauma. This is not a judgement of those with difficult lives, but a simple observation I’ve noticed of creative individuals.
Many of us are prisoners to the bad things that have happened to us. Our limiting beliefs about the world calcify over time, or worse, mutate into self-victimization and jealousy.
Accepting, then thriving within a nightmarish world is perhaps the most exceptional trait of the truly creative person.
Despite being a Herculean effort, every person holds within them the power to develop this trait.
Sadly, we’re all living in an increasingly uncreative world. Whether it be through our entertainment, fashion, career path, sexuality, education, or even spirituality, we’re encouraged to assimilate and destroy in ways previously unimaginable.
We can change this reality by studying the lives and traits of creative people who appear to rise beyond the cacophony of unremarkable existence. In our effort to understand them, we’ll continue to spend every day thinking, doing, and making like a truly creative human being.
